$15….that’s all what this blog has cost me so far. That’s basically 2 meals at Chipotle or 3 cups of coffee at Starbucks.

Over 3,000 people have viewed my blog over 5,000 times in the 6 weeks it’s been in existence. Sure, I caught a couple of “lucky” breaks in that I was featured on Rockstar Finance one day and did a guest post on Budgets Are Sexy.

But the thing is, it’s not the money that has allowed me to reach so many people in such a short time period. (I’m sure there are a ton of other blogs out there that get much more traffic than I do but I’m not competing with them. I’m just trying to get my point out there; to give my ideas a voice.) I didn’t have to throw money out there to try to get my blog in front of you.

The thing is that I took action and got my idea out of my head and into the Internet where incredible things can happen. I’ve had a guy from Russia reach out to me to see if I wanted him to translate my blog into Russian so his friends could read what I have to say. How cool is that?! I don’t want to increase my budget at the moment but it’s exciting to see what the future of this blog holds.

If money is keeping you from pulling the trigger on launching your idea, I hope this helps you realize that it’s not money or lack thereof that will hinder your chances of having your idea become a success; not taking action is the real culprit.

I started this blog when I was unemployed. I started an older blog when I was unemployed but I ran out of gas when I previously got a job. The most difficult part of me getting a job was that I was scared shitless that history would repeat itself and the Self Employed Movement would fall to the wayside.

But like they say, if you really want it, you’ll find a way to make it happen. If you don’t want it, you’ll just find an excuse.

It’s been really difficult to keep this blog going while working full-time. I’m mentally exhausted by the time I get home and all I want to do is watch TV and “relax.” But that won’t get me anywhere.

It takes longer for the words to come together and for my ideas to take shape than before. I don’t have the capability to produce a quality blog post to publish every day. That frustrated me at first but thankfully I realized that progress, no matter how big or small each day, would help keep this project alive and even more important; enjoyable.

This blog still doesn’t feel like work and that’s a really good thing. It’s still an outlet where I can express myself and impact the lives of others. This blog is bigger than I am. I owe it to you, my readers, to keep it going. That’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s worth it.

Things are taking longer to come together; I can’t commit as much time and energy to the blog that I did when I didn’t have a job. But if I can keep a full-time job and meet all my other responsibilities while also working on my dream, I hope I can inspire you to do just the same.

Like I said before, money hasn’t played a huge role in turning my idea into reality and it doesn’t have to play such a huge role in yours either. Another thing that I thought I needed was a lot of time. I used to probably put 25+ hours a week into the blog when I was unemployed but that’s closer to about 5 hours a week now.

I thought I needed lots of time to formulate my ideas and write but the lack of time has actually made me become more productive and use my time much more wisely.

I’ve had to really think about what’s important and what isn’t. I don’t have the luxury of producing as many posts as quickly as before and my response time to emails and other things usually take a couple of days now. But that’s okay. If what I have to say is important to others and they get value from it, it doesn’t necessarily matter how quick I get back to them. I’m not saying blow people off but you have to understand that you don’t have to do everything all at once to the point that you get stressed out and burned out.

Something each day is better than nothing. That’s the mindset you have to have. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. There is no such thing as instant gratification in business or pretty much anything else in life for that matter. You have to have patience to get better each day even if it’s only incrementally.

It’s nice to have the luxury of having a full-time job to take care of my other obligations so I don’t need to spend money to make the blog “blow up,” I don’t need to monetize the blog, and put added pressure on it to be “successful.”

That’s how you should grow your idea: in your spare time free of any expectations or requirements.

I got to the point very quickly that if I didn’t get at least 50 views on my blog a day, I felt like I failed and that the day was wasted. It got to the point that I was watching the numbers instead of doing something more productive like actually writing a post and I was just wasting my time. Those page views became an obsession and it got to be unhealthy.

There’s some days now that I get 10 views a day and I’m okay with that. You can’t hit a home run every at bat and even singles will help get you to your goal.

Those 10 page views were 10 more than I had the day before and that’s all I can ask for: progress without even having to publish a post.

Hopefully this post helps you realize that you don’t have to spend a stupid amount of money on your idea or that you have to commit lots of time to it to turn it into something worthwhile. You can still balance your other commitments and work on something in your “spare” time without making yourself go into debt.

Since money and time hasn’t stopped me from getting started on my idea, what’s stopping you from getting started on yours?

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Don’t know where to begin? Let’s get started here.

Curious as to what my only investment has been so far? I bought the domain for the Self Employed Movement and it’s clearly already been more than worth it!