Financial Freedom: Creating a Passive Income Website to Pay for My Mortgage

If you ask anybody what their definition for financial freedom is – you will get a multitude of answers. Many will be very similar but all will differ in some way. Everybody has different circumstances and each person’s situation is unique. My definition and idea for financial freedom is probably much different than yours. But here’s the thing… It doesn’t really matter how we define financial freedom!

This blog post is going to highlight a specific action that I am taking to move my family and myself closer to our ultimate goal of financial freedom. Distinctly – I am going to focus one just one aspect of my financial picture for this action. But it’s a big one. Our mortgage! Since this blog has always been about my journey to create passive income online – of course I am going to tie the two together.

I am going to create one (brand new) passive income producing website that will cover my mortgage by December 2017!

Financial Freedom Defined

One very popular definition for financial freedom revolves around having enough savings to not have to work for the rest of your life. I’m not a fan of this definition (personally). I prefer to live a purpose driven life and the work that I do each day has a LOT to do with my purpose. Early retirement is not a goal for me.

Another definition for financial freedom stems from a Bible verse – Proverbs 22:7. Paraphrased – it says, “Just as the rich rule over the poor, so the borrower is slave (or servant) to the lender.” How many of us know that if we are slaves – we do not have freedom. So, becoming and remaining 100% debt-free is a cornerstone of financial freedom. This definition I do agree with – and it fits into my own personal definition.

My Definition for Financial Freedom

Financial freedom for me is being able to do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, and not worry or even think about money.

The way to achieve this is by not owing any money to anybody for anything and having way more than enough passive income to cover monthly expenses.

The Mortgage Crushing Challenge

The challenge… to build one brand new website, starting in 2017, that is earning enough money (monthly) by the end of December 2017 to cover the amount of my mortgage payment.

This challenge is NOT my idea. Credit goes to Jon Haver and his team over at Authority Website Income. They created this challenge among themselves and opened it up to all of their readers and anybody else who wants to participate. I am merely a participant in the challenge.

As part of the challenge – Jon and his team will be teaching, coaching, providing updates, etc. They are encouraging as many people as possible to sign up. For details and to join the challenge yourself, click the following link to visit Authority Website Income and learn how to make a website that will cover your mortgage (or rent) expenses.

How to Make a Website That Makes You Money

About Our House and Our Mortgage

Here is the real exciting part for me and for my family. We are actually in the process right now of building a brand new house! And the cool part is that the house build will sort of correlate with the website build. Meaning – I am just starting to think about the website and the house is barely out of the ground.

As you can see – the foundation is in place. This picture was taken on December 23rd, 2016. As of today, not much else is done as the construction crews didn’t do much during the holiday weeks and right now it is frigidly cold in Michigan and they can’t pour the basement floor until temperatures get back up to around 30 degrees (F).

Before I tell you about the amount of my mortgage – how about I tell you a little bit about our plans for the house…

• my wife (Susie) and I designed it ourselves
  • meaning we told an architect what we wanted and he drew it up
• big move UP for us – compared to our previous home
• some of our must-haves on the house included
  • large master suite with private bathroom
  • main floor laundry (because we plan to grow old in this house)
  • large mudroom just inside the entrance from the garage with built-in lockers
  • large covered front porch (because I like to sit on the porch with a beverage)
• billiard room in the basement (I’ve always wanted a pool table)
• urinal in the downstairs bathroom (next to my two sons bedrooms)
  • this was Susie’s idea and I love it!
• private office space where I can ‘work’ on my side hustle internet business without distractions
  • I wanted one of those stand-up/sit-down desks – but I found a really cool alternative instead
    • check out what Flexispot has to offer for those of us who would rather not sit all the time while working on our computers
• backyard swimming pool
  • this is last on our list of priorities and definitely won’t happen in 2017

The Mortgage Amount (and Website Income Goal)

Here’s the other cool thing about our mortgage and how it correlates with this challenge. We currently have a construction loan. The way that works, we only pay interest each month on only the amount that our builder has already taken out for the build. Under our contract – we still will have interest only payments, even after construction is complete, until December of 2017.

In December of 2017, we will have to start making our full mortgage payments on our brand new mortgage. And that amount (including escrow for taxes and insurance) will be right around $2,100 per month. Yikes!! Good thing my wife doesn’t read my blog. She doesn’t exactly like to share our personal finance info with anybody. But hey – transparency has always been what this blog is about.

So – the same month that this challenge is slated to come to fruition happens to be the exact same month that we have to start paying the full mortgage payments. Perfect…

Getting the Website Foundation Started

Just as our foundation for the house is in place – so I need to start thinking about the foundation for my website. Niche selection and validation are key and should be the foundation for ANY website. If SEO is a goal (getting traffic from search engines) then keyword research is the other really important aspect of the foundation.

I’m not going to provide a ton of detail on this right now. I’ll save it for the next update. But I do have something in the works that might help you with the foundation for YOUR mortgage crushing website…

I have not talked about this publicly at all until this point – but I’ve been hard at work on another project. As a reward to you for reading all the way to the bottom of this post – you get a sneak peak at my latest venture. Niche Wolf is a (sort of) service-based website that is designed to help you find niche website ideas and also help you out with keyword research.

Note: The ‘keyword research’ part of Niche Wolf is in the works and will be available real soon.

Will You be Joining the Challenge?

If you want in – head over to Authority Website Income and sign up today. I would love to hear from you in the comments section of this post if you are joining the challenge. How much is your mortgage or rent? Do you want to create a website to cover that expense? Would this help you reach your ultimate goal of gaining financial freedom?

Image edited from original photo on Flickr by Jim Hammer

Matthew Allen

Matthew Allen is a full-time trucker, part-time blogger, and imaginary entrepreneur. He's probably not the only trucker who calls himself a dumbass. But, he is the only known trucker who is blogging about passive income."Might be crazy, but I ain't dumb!" ~ Crazy Cooter (also Matt's CB handle) 

Matthew Allen

Matthew Allen is a full-time trucker, part-time blogger, and imaginary entrepreneur. He's probably not the only trucker who calls himself a dumbass. But, he is the only known trucker who is blogging about passive income."Might be crazy, but I ain't dumb!" ~ Crazy Cooter (also Matt's CB handle)