Print on Demand: Making extra money at home
Today, I would like to share about Print on Demand as a way to making extra money at home and how the Lord opened my eyes to this wonderful opportunity.
The Word of God and a Prayer
This gospel below really spoke to me one day in the first week of July during my prayer time.
Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord,’ but he answered, ‘Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.’
Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. The doors were closed, but Jesus came in and stood among them. ‘Peace be with you,’ he said.
Then he spoke to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving any more but believe.’
Thomas replied, ‘My Lord and my God!’
Jesus said to him: You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
Gospel, John 20:24-29
Do not be unbelieving anymore but believe.
O Lord, increase my faith. Help me not to be unbelieving anymore but believe.
Thank you for waking up my dream to be a residual billionaire, blessing a billion people.
Death of a Dream: Start a Business and become a Billionaire
I first dreamt of it with DXN network marketing business.
I love the concept that I can build a network of Dxn users, helping them become healthy, and earning in the process.
But I got tired of the thought of having my success so much dependent on other people believing and working as I do.
So I stopped working my network marketing business. I just continued to use the products cause I truly believe in these and I found out that they really work.
But the desire to do something more and earn more remained.
I wanted to offer something and earn from it whether people join me or not.
Kind of like a store. Where I can put something up on offer and people will just buy whatever they want whenever they want.
I thought I’d do it with a home micro bakery baking sourdough bread, pizza, brownies, and cookies.
But I wanted it to be able to scale big and not be limited to my local area.
And because I thought this was only possible with an international network marketing business, I said goodbye to my dream of being a residual billionaire.
Although, I was always reminded of it daily because of the residual billionaire pic I made as a wallpaper on my computer.
I would look at it every day I start work and just sigh and laugh about it like Sarah, Abraham’s wife did, believing it to be impossible.
Abraham and Sarah were old by this time, very old. Sarah was far past the age for having babies. Sarah laughed within herself, “An old woman like me? Get pregnant? With this old man of a husband?
Genesis 18:11-15
When I stumbled upon Mr. Money Mustache and how he retired early on 4% interest yearly from his $1.25M investments on index funds, I became excited and started to dream again.
I may not be able to retire early as he did but I still have about 20 yrs for the regular retirement age and so that gives me time to save up.
But if I want to replace my 40-60k/month plus income using the 4% rule, I would have to have at least P18M in investments, earning me an interest of 4% a year.
That’s a lot of money I don’t have.
I calculated that if I saved up at least P15k monthly (25% of my income) in PAG-IBIG MP2 (earning 6% a year), I would at least save P1M plus by the time I retire.
If I put it in a vehicle like a coop time deposit earning me 3.75% annually, I would only have P37,500 a year and P3,125 a month to live on.
Not much to live on.
I would need to have P18M, which at 3.75%/yr time deposit, with my Coop OCCi, is P675k annually and P56,250 monthly so I could replace my current income.
P30M is ideal, letting me have P100k a month!
I would have to be a multi millionaire.
That really is a stretch for me at my level of faith.
With my bills and because the Lord allowed me to support my whole family in this Pandemic, I’m not able to save 65-70% of my income, as I would have liked. That’s what most of the people who retired early did.
And so I thought I would need to earn more. I need to find a side hustle again like I did when I was working at the hospital and earning a surplus from my part-time online job.
University of YouTube and Print on Demand
While browsing YouTube I heard one financial adviser say, when planning for retirement, ask yourself what you would like to be doing when you retire and start doing it now even as a side hustle.
His example was if you wanted to retire because you want to spend more time fishing, why wait to retire? Why not create a business or side hustle around fishing like take people on a fishing trip and teaching them to fish maybe on weekends while you are still working so you can start enjoying it now and earning from it too.
That stuck to me. I’ve always wanted to spend my retirement doing something I love, like writing. I have this blog and I’ve started writing books and selling it on Amazon Kindle but I get that it takes time to build and I need to earn now.
Again while browsing on YouTube, I stumbled on Sarah @WhosaleTed sharing how she became a millionaire in her 20s building her e-commerce business selling print-on-demand graphic t-shirts.
Then I saw Greg Gottfried’s channel sharing how he started a print-on-demand business selling t-shirts for free while working a full-time job. He started posting on Redbubble, Teespring, and Amazon Merch until he earned enough to replace his job.
Awakening of an old dream: Starting a T-shirt Business
Wow. I remembered when I just graduated wanting to start a T-shirt business before with inspirational bible texts. I thought I’d call it GospelGear and I would make not only t-shirts but also bags, hats and etc. I remembered going to a T-shirt printing shop to ask about it. But I discarded it for the amount of capital and energy it will take.
And now I heard this. People are making money just by uploading their T-shirt graphic designs on these free print-on-demand websites that market, sell, print, and deliver these to customers, and they just earn a commission.
I even heard one from the Philippines earning P100k plus a month on Zazzle, another print-on-demand site!
That got me excited! I could do this. I could make and upload designs and if I earn just $1000k a month that would be P50k! About the same amount I’m earning in my online job. Heck, even $100 is P5k extra income.
And then one time, I was looking at the landscape photos on my phone and I remembered thinking what a waste for these photos to just be on my phone. I like them, I found I have a knack for taking nice pictures and I like taking and looking at them. It would be nice if there was a way to share them with others and earn from it too. Haha.
I know my mind is always thinking about how can I earn more nowadays.
But the Lord is good. Amazing how He answers in an instant if we only ask.
Again, I was browsing YouTube (cause YouTube is my go-to background white noise while working) and stumbled upon a video of @AlexandraStrambu sharing how she earned around $20k dollars from the vacation photos of Landscapes she took on her vacations. She just uploaded them on Redbubble just as edited photos, no texts, enabling Redbubble to put her designs on a whole lot of Merch ( I finally understood that Merch stands for Merchandise), the whole print on demand business and she earned from those!
I even saw her sharing that because of the Pandemic she’s not able to travel anymore and so she’s walking around her City taking photos with her smartphone! And she’s uploading those too!
Jumping on the Print on Demand train and starting SpeakChrist
And so that finalized it for me. I’m going to start this business. And I’m going to make it happen. I’m going to grow this business and make it earn for me P150k a month.
And funny how the Lord works. Around this time that I decided, my Samsung SJ7 smartphone that I’ve had since 2016 finally conked out. My sisters have been bugging me to replace it but I just wouldn’t because it’s still working plus it has sentimental value to me: it helped me get my online jobs.
So when it finally gave up, I had to buy a new smartphone. Now I’m able to download all these new apps that I found I can use to do print-on-demand business on my phone! How amazing is that?
Now I’ve started walking and taking pictures around my city. Just once but yeah, that’s a start. And then my family went to the beach to celebrate my nephew’s birthday. Well, I got plenty of beautiful landscape pictures there too.
Of course, I’m watching and learning on YouTube how to do landscape and street photography. It’s amazing the loads of information I found on YouTube. And how it’s opening my eyes to wonderful opportunities to share with a whole lot of people worldwide and earn from it too.
SpeakChrist will be my Print on Demand brand. Specializing in selling Inspirational Designs (lifequotes and natureviews) that SpeakChrist to the believer in us. I’ve just created a shop in Redbubble. I also already applied for an account in Zazzle but I haven’t uploaded any product there yet. And I’ve applied to Merch by Amazon. This one needs a lot of prayers because they just don’t accept anyone.
Now I have a working shop that already sells designs on T-shirts in Redbubble. Inspirational designs like this that help supports us in believing for our dreams.
Ask BIG, Believe and Consider it done
So I asked for an opportunity and God gave it to me. Not only that, He reminded me of the opportunities that are before me all along.
There’s network marketing, print-on-demand selling merchandise, Amazon KDP selling books which I started last 2015, growing my YouTube channel which I also started 2015 and never minded, then growing my blog. And these are just the opportunities I know of. Things I really enjoy doing and I’m sure I’ll continue to do even in retirement.
There’s so much more out there… there’s drop shipping, selling low content books, affiliate marketing to name a few.
And now it’s just a matter of believing. To believe that I can do so much to bless many and earn so much too! To still become a residual millionaire, even a billionaire! Why stop at believing God for $1k when there’s potential to believe God for $1M a month, even a day!
The opportunities are there, I just have to work it. And it starts with believing. Believing I can be the person who can be disciplined enough to work these opportunities. Believing I can receive and earn millions, even billions, not just thousands. Believing You want to bless me so much more than I can even ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). So I can bless so many others in return.
I worked and earned P15k a month as a hospital nurse for 20 yrs, hoping and praying to earn more without leaving my family as many nurses have done, going abroad to earn more. Now I’m earning P60k plus a month as a virtual assistant working from home with my family. I never thought this was possible before. I had to work hard to believe first that God will work it out for me and He did!
And whereas before I didn’t have any savings nor investments… Now I recently summed up all my savings and investments and it totaled P102k plus! It was around P202k at first but I had to cancel my BDO life where I already invested P100k and got back only 18k plus in cash value. So that left me with the P102k. Bummer, yeah, but it is what it is. I believe God will bless me even more.
All these in just 5 years from when I started believing and claiming it from God in earnest last 2016. I believed it so bad that I added it to all my passwords – $150k! – so that every time I had to input my password, I can thank God for giving me 150k. And He did!
Now it’s time to ask God and believe for more.
This is now my new vision: 100k to 10M which I set as my phone’s lock screen. Now I can see it and thank God for it every time I open my phone.
I’m so very happy that the picture did not say Pesos or a time duration. Now I can believe it to be $ or Php and also for me to receive not even just yearly or for when I retire but even monthly, even daily!
I’m not sharing all these to brag but for you to also start believing big as I did. That you are worth so much more and that God intends to bless you with more so you can bless many people more. More than you can ask or imagine. Eph 3:20.
But oftentimes what keeps us from getting blessed is we only believe for little things, for what we can do and achieve. Not for what God can do for us. Worst, we do not believe at all.
So the lesson that Jesus gave to Thomas is also for us:
Do not be unbelieving any more but believe.
– Jesus
Terri Savelle said God told her in prayer to “ask BIG and consider it done.”
I say Ask BIG and thank God for it. Even now in faith.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
John 20:29
So what are you believing for?
- Ask God for big dreams
- Believe God is going to give it to you
- Do something with the opportunities God opens for you
Dear Lord,
Thank You for giving me big dreams. Because nothing is impossible for You. Thank You for helping me use Your gifts and bless more people. Thank You, I believe You are helping me fulfill all these dreams.
Amen.
This is it for now. ‘Til next time.
By the way, if you still haven’t, get this FREE GIFT I have for you. To help you unleash God’s Blessing on your life so you can live Healthy, Wealthy, and Victorious in Christ.
To our health, wealth, and victory, Godspeed!
