One day when I was about 7 years old, my mother and I were at a store and I saw a toy that I "had" to have. I asked my mom to buy it for me. She said: « Dominic, we can't afford to buy that, money doesn't grow on trees you know. » My mother was a widow with two children and was not rich. We had enough to get by, but anything more was usually out of reach.

I daydreamed about how much fun I could have if I had such a tree. I saw myself picking a few twenty dollar bills from that tree, with a big smile on my face thinking of all the cool stuff I was going to buy with it. About twenty years later, I am amazed that such a tree actually does exist: the multiplis streamae incomum.

Plant a tree, reap the rewards

image: Christian Ferrari

What first caught my attention in multiple streams of income is the possibility of having many different automated or semi-automated income generating systems. It seemed like a great way to make a living. The internet brought this possibility to anyone who has a little bit of knowledge about the way the web works.
There are many advantages to this approach:

1. Security
   If you lose one of your "jobs", you can count on your other ones to keep you going. Something catastrophic would have to happen for you to lose all your sources of income.
   
2. Low cost
   Many streams of income can be set up at little or no cost. All you really have to spend is a bit of your time, more initially, then less and less afterwards to keep your system oiled up and running. You might want to pay for advertising, but then again, there are many great ways to advertise for free.
   
3. Frees up a lot of your time
   Once you have put an initial investment in time (and sometimes a small investment of money), you can let your system, your automated machines, do most of the work for you and start piling your money. While it's true that many will seem to generate only small amounts of money at a time, they will all add up to a substantial amount fairly quickly. Once your machines are set up and running, you'll have more time to do the things you really want to do and best of all, since most of your money will be coming from automated sources, you will earn money even while you sleep or when you are on vacation!

I love the idea of passive income; income that does not require your direct involvement. You'll want to put your streams on auto-pilot as much as possible.

Be ready to fail many times

Brian Tracy said that « The best way to have good ideas, is to have lots of ideas. » The same thing applies to your streams of income. Set up a few streams, keep those that bring you money, and toss those that don't. It's as simple as that. By knowing from the start that some of your streams will not work, you won't be as disappointed and it will be easier for you to keep your focus and your drive. Don't be scared of failure. Fail a lot! Try as many different ideas as you can, especially if there is no up-front cost to you. This way you will have the best chance of succeeding.

Stay focused

Try not to do everything at once. Start small. Focus on one stream until is has a life of its own, then move on to another idea. Don't try to make it perfect from the start either. It always seems to be easier to improve something that has already been set up, once you have seen it running for a while.

So you decided you like the idea of getting paid from several sources, from multiple streams of income so that you can gain stability and greater freedom. But where do you go from there? There many many ways to make money online and offline. Here's something to get you going.

Step 1) Get a presence going on the internet by creating a blog or website

A blog (which is essentially a dynamic website presented in a diary format) can be a formidable tool in your quest for achieving financial freedom. Even a very simple 1-page site can be very useful to promote your own projects, your affiliate links, connect with similar-minded people.

If you don't have any web design skills or don't know anything about setting up a website, I suggest you try out one of the many free blog sites like Blogger or Wordpress (*I can no longer suggest the free version of WordPress as they do not allow any kind of advertising. On the other hand, many hosting companies offer easy 1-click installation of WordPress which is really the way to go). Once you've created an account you'll have access to creating a new blog (you'll need a name for it), and then you'll have access to customizing it(selecting a layout, changing colors and themes, adding features or widgets) and creating new posts (or articles).

Step 2) Write content on your site

The best way to get people to go to your website is to post useful and/or interesting information on it.

Say for example one of your hobbies is learning spanish. You should make your website (at least part of it) revolve around that subject. Write interesting new stuff you learned, add photos to new places you visited, review useful or fun spanish websites you found, set up a spanish-english chatroom, put links to spanish dictionnaries and resources, etc.

Once you have a few pages of content set-up, now is time to monetize it.

Step 3) Monetize your website or blog

Once you have value to offer with your free content, you'll want to add a few ways to make your site bring you a bit of money from your viewer's visits. A simple, effective and very popular way is through content-related advertising, meaning that the ads displayed on your site will be related(to a certain extent) to the content on your site, making click-through more likely.

Google Adsense is probably the most popular content-related ads out there (but there are alternatives). Once you have become a member of Adsense you will be able to create ads of different sizes which you will be able to customize to make them blend into your site's layout. Once they are setup on your pages, everytime a visitor clicks through one of those ads, you will get paid a bit of money by Google. Once you have reached $50 or more you will be able to request a check from Google Adsense.

You'll be tempted to click your own ads... DON'T! It is against the Google Adsense TOS. They will close your account and ban you forever.

Step 4) Get people to visit your site

You can have the best content in the world, but if no one knows it is there, then on the internet it doesn't exist.

Put your website address everywhere you can think of (but don't spam); add it to your e-mail signature, put it on your facebook/myspace/Yuwie/myLot, add it to your business card, tell your friends, advertise in the classified ads if they allow you (and many are free), write useful comments on other people's blogs and put your website address in your profile if you can(some will let you add your address in your comment). The more places will point to your site, the better. Find online forums on content related to your site and again, add your website to your signature or profile. Participate in discussions (or start new ones). There are many more free traffic sources, one of them being manual surfing exchanges like EasyHits4U.

Step 5) Repeat steps 2 and 4 until you have a good amount of traffic

Step 5.1) Keep your site up-to-date, fix broken links and add fresh content

Step 6) Reap your rewards!

There are many more things you can do to set up streams of income and we could go on and on about it. In fact, I set up this blog for this exact reason. Check out popular or recent posts on the right column or use the search tool on top of the page to find specific content you are looking for.