How to make money?

A question I have been asking myself recently is, how to make money? I am at a point where I have to decide on a new direction in my life.

I view it like this: in life you have small projects and larger projects. Small projects are those that can be done in a few minutes, hours or days. Larger projects may take months, years or decades.

I don't feel comfortable planning a decade ahead (yet, I m too young for that) - the world is just so flexible that I have a hard time deciding on one goal. However, I have also understood, that I don't need to decide this one goal right now. It suffices for my purposes to plan for the next few months, the next year tops.

My biggest project so far is the relocation to another continent. Out of Europe and into Acapulco, Mexico. Being done with my Bachelor's Degree right now, not being involved with any serious relationship and my long felt craving for "a new beginning" motivate me to undertake this project.

The time is ripe.

This also brings me to the topic of my blog post. School, or university, most times is used to acquire a title (like Dr. or Prof.) and reap the entailed credibility of that title. This comes in form of higher starting positions in firms and a clearer career path. I could do a masters, but I have an issue with the system in place. I think the education one acquires in universities is really not what it needs to be, to be able to stand your own in any economy. It's like buying into a system. I don't want to buy in.

Instead I want to ask myself, why would I want to buy-in in the first place? --> To earn money, make a living, sustain myself. But there are almost infinite ways to make money, and sustain myself. I also have little love for the much talked about office life. It seems unapplealing to me.

So instead of asking what degree to acquire next, I ask myself: "How do I make money?"

While I was at Anarchapulco, I listened to a Tom Woods Podcast, where Tom talked about the opportunities the internet has brought about. The advantages we have nowadays because of it.

To make money, you have to provide a product that people want or need.

I think to myself that we live in a technocratic society. The further we go from here, the more we will merge with technology and adapt it in our everyday life. For technology, you need somebody who builds it for you. The job of a programmer is a much wanted (and needed) profession. Sites like TeamTreehouse.com have excellent online courses that teach you skills, instead of representing prestige. The tech degree they offer is pretty much a perfect start into programming plus you can do it from anywhere in the world. Once I am done with my thesis for good, I will hop on that shit and emerge myself in programming. Give it a couple of months of daily practice and I think I will be good enough to make my first bucks. The starting salary from finishing one of the tech degrees, in Python for example, is like $70.000. This would be enough for me.

Be creative, when you answer the question, what products people need.

Tom, in his talk, also pointed out another good way to generate an income, almost automatically: Set up an online store. As mentioned before, the requirements for starting a store now, on the internet, are so much lower than they used to be 100 years ago. Back then you had to put up so much up-front capital... Well listen to the talk, it's gold!