If life was free, we could all just work on our pet projects at our pace. That would be amazing, wouldn’t it? It probably would be conclusive to a lot of happiness for a lot of people.

Sadly, life is not free. I shouldn’t complain much, because I have security: my husband earns enough, even if I can’t.

Why I want to earn money

First and foremost, for financial security. Until now, I was getting income to help my two disabled sons with their day-to-day life. As they grow into amazing young adults, that income is now theirs, and the money coming to me is not enough to live on.

What if tomorrow I have to pay for day-to-day life on my own? I wouldn’t be able to, since I am earning no kind of disability income for my undiagnosed chronic illnesses and autism-suspicion. If anything were to happen to my husband, we would lose everything.

There is also the fulfilment of creating art and people being moved enough to buy it, and be a part of my community.

And then, finally, I want to prove that it’s possible, with some preparation dedication, and not too much money.

Why I can’t earn money now

I am the mother of two autistic young adults. I have been out of a job for their entire life—first because I needed to be all hands on deck to make sure they went to their therapies, learned things out of school (schooling was hard), and didn’t endanger themselves. There have been years and years of work for them to be more autonomous today.

They’re not autonomous enough, and might never be, to live alone. That means I can’t go out in the world and just get some job to keep food on the table, because I can’t leave them alone at home while I do that.

Right now, for them to be able to get the maximum amount of money for their disability, I can’t work—until end of march 2027, when my youngest son will be 20 years old. Then, the situation will change financially.

Why I can’t work a normal job in 2027

To add to that, I haven’t worked in more than twenty years. I bet it’s going to be hard to be employed, at my age, with that much of a gap in my resume.

And then, there is the undiagnosed disabilities to take into account. Even if I set my assumed autism aside (I have no diagnostic for mu neurospicyness, but all signs are there), I now have chronic pain and chronic fatigue to add to that. I have the Hidradenitis Suppurativa chronic autoinflammatory skin condition, and all the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

I am of course not a doctor, but since my general practitioner (and most doctors) tends to think it’s “all in my head”, I probably won’t be able to get any sort of diagnosis (welcome to being a woman, and old, and *gasp* fat).

How I want to earn money

As mentioned before, I am neurospicy and chronically ill. I can’t work a 9 to 5. I have the hardest time with consistency, because I never know how tomorrow is gonna be. Will I be able to do all the things? Or will I have to lie down, and spend the whole day wondering if life is worth living?

So I can’t envision anything that will need me to my on my top game on a regular basis. Of course, I’m hoping I’ll be in better health and mental health than now, but there is no telling how my future will be. Thus, I’m strategizing in order to work around my disability.

That is why passive income is the best solution for me.

What is passive income?

Most people don’t understand passive income. They believe that you don’t have to do anything to earn money, and that is not the case. You just need to understand that it’s the earnings that are passive once you’ve done the job.

Create once, and then earn forever.

Since I have absolutely no possibility of following a schedule, I will focus on producing art whenever I feel good enough to do it, and put it online for various income streams starting april 2027.

Income streams I am focused on

I want to write fiction and non-fiction. I am furiously pro-self-publishing, so I won’t pursue any traditional deals, which means I will be responsible from start to finish of every book I publish. It’s how I enjoy it anyways. I have a few books done already, and will try to write and finish more.

I want to illustrate. I enjoy digital painting on Procreate with my iPad. There is a ton of income streams that can go with that, and I will probably focus on print-on-demand avenues for my creations.

I also want to get into game dev with Godot. I’d love to create small games or apps for my own enjoyment, and if I manage to make a version complete enough, I will publish them for profit.

Finally, though that one is not a given because of how I want to handle it, I want to publish videos and make lives around my various passions. This will depend on monetization, of course, but also on how alive I might feel. Because I am multipassionate, it might be hard to find any following, so that might never be an option. If it does, I’m hoping that creating videos will help with passive income in the future. I might even do a little gaming!

Making it as passive as possible

What I absolutely don’t want to do is teaching anything, having to do stuff on a schedule, or having to handle support.

I want to enjoy doing what I’m doing, with no responsibility whatsoever. No deadlines, no obligations, no forcing myself to do anything. And no promising, myself or others, that I will do something.

In the past, it has ruined my enjoyment of my projects, and I’ve always regretted going down that path. This time, I hope I learned my lesson, and I wish myself to be able to find a way around all of this.

Grand Tally & my vow to transparency

I’m going to share EVERYTHING with you. How much I spend, how much I earn, where I publish, what I publish, etc.

I will not count what I already have (for example, a server for my other websites, my computer, or my iPad) but I will provide advice on how to use free suff (well, except for the computer, I assume you have one already).

Let’s start!

I will soon slowly, snail-ily, start on my passive income journey. A good push to create art. A good way to help with future money problems. A good way to be present with my kids, as long as I can.

Another good reason to stay alive.

If you want to follow along with your own journey, you can find me on my Discord server for chit-chat and friendship.