You may have heard the term “dot com lifestyle” unless you are too busy working  a regular  9 to 5 job and therefore not even close to living it. Sure it is a wealthy lifestyle which can include fast cars,  expensive homes, exotic vacations and dining in fine restaurants, but that’s not what it’s really about. What it is about is having time freedom combined with money freedom, and then you are officially a dot com lifestyle member. I don’t know about you but that is what I want to achieve.

There are some bloggers out there that are living the dot com lifestyle, making money on their own schedule and operating from anywhere there is a computer and internet connection. John Chow, as an example, is one of them. He claims to make $40,000 per month from his blog, that basically doesn’t require a whole lot of time to manage since he has streamlined some aspects of his site so he can receive income on autopilot and by outsourcing some tasks, leaves him more time to enjoy simpler things like taking his daughter to the park on a Tuesday afternoon.

The dot com lifestyle is having more time to enjoy life and at the sametime not having to worry about money either. Sure there are people who have lots of money like big business CEO’s but they are workaholics and don’t have time to enjoy that money. Then you have those that have a lot of time on their hands but no money to go with it. When you have both time and money, then you have reached the ultimate goal.

In a dot com lifestyle you aren’t stuck in an office on a rigid time schedule nor are you sacrificing valuable time slaving just to earn dollars. You could be lounging in a chair at a beach in your bermuda shorts and still be able to manage your online business.

I tell you if  my blog was making $40,000 a month, I definitely wouldn’t be worrying about money, paying debt, etc. Instead I too would be strolling through the park on a Tuesday afternoon, happily living the dot com lifestyle!

While I was making a plan to find ways to get rid of my debt, one of the first ways came into mind was blogging. I thought to myself, why don’t I start a blog where I can discuss my debt problems, keep track of my progress and just blog about debt and money issues. It’s not bad enough that I am already kicking myself for getting this deep into debt in the first place, why not make a public spectacle of myself too. I figured there must be enough people out there who can relate or would be interested to see how I’m tackling my debt.

I also thought if I can somehow make the blog popular enough, I could generate money out of it…which I could use towards reducing my debt. Of course it’s not easy starting up a blog and creating an instant fan base. You really need some stand-out gimmick for that, which I don’t have. I though needed something that not only is going to challenge and motivate me to succeed, but I could offer something of value that could attract visitors who would return.

So I added a debt free challenge to my blog, where I set a target date to eliminate my debt by with a live countdown. This should be interesting enough for people to see me succeed or fail, or just provide some amusement either way…while the clock keeps ticking. 

Now I just needed to add things that I could generate money from. So I asked for donations…which probably would  offend a few (or many)…or might draw enough attention to actually work. But of course I was not expecting that I could just hold a cup in hand and wait for someone else to get me out of my financial mess..no not at all. I just wanted to keep my options open just in case someone thought “I wish this blogger would accept donations”.

 I also wanted to make the blog versatile just in case some were tired of the discussion about debt and just wanted to spend money to buy an ipod or something. So I added a store, auctions and ebooks section that might interest someone to purchase an item that they were interested in and at the same time could help me get rid of my debt.

Then if my blog really grew in popularity, maybe those big advertisers would come along and advertise on my site for a nice sum…putting a big dent in my debt.

Or maybe…someone would be so impressed with my blog that they would offer a pretty penny to purchase it and completely wipe out my debt. 

Ah yes…blogging away my debt is how I’m going to achieve my goal to be debt-free.