We're One Year Old! - Passive Income MD

We’re One Year Old!

July 13, 2017 • 6 Min Read

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Well, we made it… ONE WHOLE YEAR of Passive Income M.D.!

I recently read here that 95% of all the blogs ever created have gone silent. That was from an article written in 2009 but I can only guess that this statistic is even worse today. I’ll be honest, there was a period earlier this year for a couple weeks where I wasn’t completely sure whether we’d make it. More on this later…

So how did we get here?

The story really starts about 3-4 years ago, here’s where I was at:

  • I was living a pretty good life as a full-fledged doctor, a few years out of training, and making a decent income.
  • We had just had our first child.

Well, it was around this time that I felt like I was hearing more and more stories of people I knew passing away or developing serious health issues. It made me reflect on my life, where I was at, and where I wanted to be.

I wrestled with these questions:

  • What would my ideal life look like today, in 5, 10, and 20 years.
  • Did I want to continue working 50-60 hours in the hospital each week?
  • So is this the right work-life balance?

 

I was very grateful for my life and I loved what I did as a physician, but in an ideal world, I just wouldn’t be spending these many hours in the hospital. There were too many life events that I didn’t want to miss now and in the future.

So I decided to develop a 10-15 year plan to get where I wanted to be and take action on it. I felt the best way to achieve the ideal work-life balance as soon as I could would be by creating additional streams of income.

It would take some financial pressure off of my day job, provide a hedge against all the changes in the field of medicine, and ultimately give me the flexibility and freedom to do what I wanted with my time. With that in mind, I decided to immerse myself into any educational material I could find on passive income.

The Blog

Fast forward to June 2016, encouraged by friends & colleagues, I decided to start a blog on this very topic of passive income based on what I had read, learned, and experienced up to that point. I was inspired by the White Coat Investor and the platform he had to get information out there to physicians. However, I just hoped to put it out there for my friends to read.

So I simply opened Google docs and just started typing. It all started with this post, What is Passive Income?

I reached out to bloggers like Physician on Fire, Future Proof MD, and the late Dr. Wise Money for advice, and they not only gave me advice, but they highlighted me on their pages giving me so much encouragement as well as some amazing exposure.

Physician’s Money Digest gave me an early platform on which to publish content online in a nationally read publication, and I can’t thank them enough for that. They made me feel like a real contributor.

Then the post that put me on the map was Why Doctors Live Paycheck to Paycheck. Doximity highlighted it and next thing you knew, I had people showing up on my site, dropping comments. Most all were great, some were not, but I’ve heard you’re doing something right when people start “hating.”  I guess that’s part of the game.

 

Now back to why I wasn’t sure we would make it to Year 1. I began dealing with some annoying technical issues about 8 months in. My website was sluggish and cumbersome to post on as well as edit because of the platform I was using.

Instead of waiting any longer, I decided to make the switch to WordPress. Unfortunately, the transition took longer than I expected, and without new content, readership dropped off significantly and I mean it fell off the face off the face of the earth.

Eventually, I got it all sorted out and things started picking back up (to my relief) as I climbed out of the haze and started focusing on content again. Thank you for coming back!

Stats & Income

So for some stats on the page, we went over 200,000 lifetime page views last month with over 70,000 different users. That's probably around 199,500 more page views than I might've expected at the start of this. 90% of the readers were from the US, and the rest from an awesome variety of countries.

As for income, I was able to monetize the site early on thanks to some good initial exposure. I was able to pick and choose from Sponsors and Affiliates that I believed in. I want to thank the Sponsors for being so patient and encouraging. Their support allows me to spend the time sitting in front of a computer, trying to produce helpful content. You’ll find them on the sidebar, in my posts, and on my Sponsors page.

While I plan on sharing specific numbers with my newsletter subscribers, to my surprise, I crossed the 5 figure threshold in profit by a comfortable margin this first year.

Plan for Year Two

I still plan on writing about additional sources of income, that will never change. The more passive they are, the better. You’ll continue to hear about being a landlord, real estate crowdfunding, and other various side hustles.

I definitely plan on highlighting more physicians who have side gigs / side hustles. I believe we need to hear their stories. In that same vein, you’ll find me more active on social media, especially through the Facebook group, Physician Side Gigs started by my friend, Nisha Mehta. I love that you can interact there in such a near real-time fashion and people can share, promote and learn from each other in such an organic way.

I plan on doing some more guest posting if some awesome bloggers will let me.

As for my newsletter subscribers, you’ll have access to more and more exclusive content like my income reports from now on. For some reason, I feel safer revealing more to this group. You can sign up right here if you haven’t already. 

As for my day job, I’ve already been dropping hours in what I call “gradual retirement” but I plan to see a continued downshift in hours worked. Who knows, will I make it down to 60% of my current hours this year, nearly 5-6 years ahead of my original plan? We’ll see…

It’s been quite a ride so far and I can’t thank you enough for all the comments, encouraging private messages, and for just taking the time out of your busy schedules to read the site. As I always like to end my newsletter with, you’re awesome!

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Disclaimer: The topic presented in this article is provided as general information and for educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional advice. Accordingly, before taking action, consult with your team of professionals.

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