VAN LIFE | HOW I MAKE MONEY + BACKGROUND

[Music] the sun rises behind her eyes but she still can't see it and she's beside me i walk slowly [Music] she feeds my soul all the gold i could need welcome back to my channel so i am in wyoming at the moment um i've been staying in the grand tetons for i guess it's been three weeks now and oh my gosh i love it today i want to talk about one of my biggest questions that i get how do i make money so a lot of you you know you see this lifestyle and you're like okay cool you live in a van and it seems like you never work you're always in beautiful places like how do you do that is someone paying your way like how do you make money on the road in this video i'm going to share how i personally earn a remote income while living on the road full-time and how i diversify my revenue streams and also a little bit of background about what led me to here i was born in jonesboro arkansas and my mom had new when she was really young she was 16 so we lived with my grandparents until i was six and then uh she wanted to break out on her own so we lived in a car for a little while ended up in wisconsin where we lived in a basement and she sold books door to door i did not grow up with money we were on food stamps for the whole time as far as i can remember and yeah so i'll just put it that way however my parents did always encourage me to focus on my education and um to have a hard work ethic i got a job working at a burger joint called culver's in oshkosh wisconsin at pick n save and the produce department from there i started working at a shoe store famous footwear i also worked as a pool waitress at the country club that's a little bit of background that led me up to college i went to college for my first year at the university of wisconsin oshkosh and then i decided i was just over wisconsin and i wanted to try something new so since i was paying for myself i decided why not pay to go to hawaii so i sold everything that i had and i had four cardboard boxes that i shipped out to hawaii i did not know a single person i was actually supposed to move out there with a good friend and then at the last minute her parents were like we'll get you an apartment and a car if you'll stay so she stayed sad very sad but it all worked out anyway i ended up going to school in hawaii the university of hawaii manoa and i studied uh business so i got my bachelor of business administration and i also got a minor in spanish and oh my gosh probably the best decision i've ever made in my whole life was going to school in hawaii it was very expensive i remember specifically a gallon of milk was seven dollars i ended up working a ton of different jobs first i started working at abercrombie fitch as a model while going to school full-time and then i also picked up a job as a waitress i ended up working at i think like four or five different restaurants then i also started modeling and that paid the bulk of my bills um i did like magazines runway uh i was an extra lost i hosted events for like rolex and um oh i did one for tiffany's oh no sorry harry winston that was really fun they like put me in this big gown and i had to wear diamonds and walk around and people would buy them and weird stuff yeah and also craigslist gigs i got you know like some hosting jobs i worked as a retail manager at puma and also starbucks and ended up back at abercrombie which i loved i ended up working with them for eight years in hawaii managing two different stores and then i went to california colorado ohio and kentucky and then i asked my manager if there was any way i could move up to the international team so i interviewed for that and that's when things really changed i went over to london and i managed um the flagship store there and then i was sent to italy meanwhile i was taking italian lessons so i also speak fluent italian when i showed up at the store in italy i just it was a completely different dialect than what i had learned company italian is very like um it's very different being fully immersed in a different country not only having to like function as an adult and a member of society there like learning how to say how do i turn on my heat to communicate job duties and build relationships i had a great time there i learned a lot one of those things being that the corporate life was not for me when that contract ended i just took time off i shipped all my stuff from my southern italian apartment to a storage unit in the us and i just took a backpack and started traveling and that turned into 11 months of traveling i ended up going around the world like that wasn't intentional just kept going from country to country started dating someone in the middle east and we moved together to monterey california um i again didn't know anyone there but he had a job offer there so he was like do you want to move in together so i started looking around at different retail positions and i just realized that my heart wasn't in it like i'd do anything to not have to go back to that nine to five lifestyle so what i ended up doing is what i had done in college i just went on craigslist and started looking at gig listings and there was this local artist slash painter photographer that was looking for an assistant to work just six hours a week i did everything from like clearing out her garage to applying for her dual citizenship in a different country to sending out email newsletters helping with social media uh contacting pr people she generously introduced me to her friends and over time i built a clientele list of 12 different like artists videographers painters sculptors small business owners and that was amazing i was loving it but at the same time i was really falling in love with big sur and taking photos and exploring the area and i was really really wanting to build my photography portfolio so i at the time was planning a trip to do the john muir trail that is a 240 mile trek through the sierra nevada wilderness leading up to that trip i was posting on instagram and kind of getting my work out there a pr agent who represented samsung reached out and said hey do you have any cool trips coming up um we'd love to collaborate with you in some way and i was like well i actually have the jmt that's kind of where my um exploration into a career as a photographer began i realized that it was actually pretty lucrative especially when you tie social media into it so for the past five years i've been building my career as a freelance photographer and a content creator so what does that look like like what does that even mean i partner with brands and tourism boards to create engaging content um through video storytelling photography and they use that content either on their website or social media channels maybe there's a new product launch and they want to create a lot of energy around that so i collaborate with them to promote that product or new launch um for tourism boards i'm going traveling to that location usually on a travel itinerary to experience some of the best excursions and just beautiful destinations that that place has to offer and i'm sharing that through a blog post or through my own social media channels and then again they're using my photos to promote like on billboard advertising magazine advertising etc i work with a lot of tech brands luxury brands and outdoor gear outdoor adventure type brands some examples of clients that i have worked with are land rover cannon adobe acura phase one nike mazda eddie bauer visit reno tahoe visit florida visit dominican republic samsung travel alberta what that looks like in working with brands is typically we'll sign a contract where they're giving me x amount of dollars for x amount of deliverables some examples of deliverables are image assets photos that they can use for social web or white listing additional paid advertising um image licensing or also i would create content and then share it on my social media channels be that instagram or youtube and also blog posts linking back to that brand's website there's quite a few different ways that you can work with brands but those are just some general examples in terms of revenue streams i have six different sources of income and i'm going to go over each of those but first i want to spin off of what i just talked about sponsored content so this video is sponsored by logitech it's actually my first youtube sponsorship ever so pretty stoked on that this guy right here is that in focus this is the logitech mx anywhere 3. what i do requires sitting in front of a computer for a long period of time having a mouse just i don't know it makes big difference this mouse is a whole new level it literally works on any kind of surface i can use it on my dust surface i can use it on my bed which is crazy i'm looking at this beautiful view and i can just work on my laptop i can use it at a picnic table stays powered for up to 70 days on a full charge and it is usb powered it also has button customization for photoshop and premiere pro it's also just good to not have that repetitive motion like sometimes i will sit on my laptop and not use the mouse but then it's really good to have other times when i can use the mouse and just to switch it up and kind of give my hands a break it's a simple clean design which i love and it's built to withstand road life i am not going to lie i dropped it once already still works like a champ it's 79.99 comes in three different colors i obviously chose this clean white and gray color because it matches the fan and i love that if you want to check it out there is a link below thank you again logitech for sponsoring this video so that is revenue stream number one for me sponsored content primarily on instagram now youtube for the first time ever i just want to point out how important it is that if you're gonna go down this road you work with brands that you actually use you actually trust you actually would buy anyway second is commercial photography and image licensing when a brand is having a product launch they will typically bring uh someone like me on board and i'm doing multiple jobs taking photos sharing instagram stories sharing content on my personal social media channels maybe i'm doing a blog post but primarily i'm there to do heights and angles povs all kinds of different uh image assets of that product that they can then use for media releases their website uh advertising and whatnot so that makes up kind of like the combination of those two things is what makes up the bulk of my income number three modeling so when i was in college i did this on a more regular basis more recently like in the past couple of years i've worked with nike to launch one of their um i think it was the fall collection i modeled for black diamond for a new product launch that was centered around their new line of rain gear and so for eddie bauer we were sent to peru and we had a uh additional photographer and videographer there and we were basically just out hiking and exploring cusco and the surrounding areas and we're being documented while doing that that they can then use for their in-store marketing and uh yeah just promoting the new fall collection number four print sales so i am a landscape photographer i have a print shop i do work with a company now that makes it possible to still sell prints while on the road and that's a pretty good source of income especially around christmas season so yeah if you're interested in seeing my work and you want to maybe buy a print head over to my print shop number five youtube ad revenue i had no idea that you could make money on youtube in this way um and unfortunately i missed out on the bulk of it because i didn't sign up for monetization until like after my van tour video had really picked up but that's okay like the amount of money that i do make from ad revenue it's it's enough to encourage me to keep coming on here and and posting content that you guys find valuable so thank you to all of you who are watching and number six affiliate links um i really don't pour a lot of energy into this i just recently started putting links down in my youtube captions but i don't promote these anywhere else except for my website i have like one little button that says gear that i use it's like a very very small kickback but hey it's cool i honestly i think i've made like 200 since beginning affiliate link so it's not even it wouldn't even make it on the pie chart if i were to do a pie chart of my income sources but i'm hoping that will grow over time because it's a passive source of income and passive is always the goal okay so how much can you actually make while living on the road um that entirely depends on how hard you hustle and how talented you are and the connections you have a lot of things play into that i make a decent income i make more than i made as a you know living the corporate life as an international general manager working overseas so i think like i said if you're willing to work hard and you're willing to do the research and yeah really invest in your craft whatever that may be you can definitely make a good living even living in a van on the road working remotely a lot of companies are reevaluating whether or not they actually need their employees to come in and sit at a desk and pay for office space if you can convince your employer um to maybe let you start working remotely one day today maybe more often and you can build that trust maybe you also could work remotely and live on the road and wake up to beautiful vistas and then go find someplace with wi-fi and sit down and work because that's what that's what my life looks like at least 50 of the time i want to show you guys this view this is why i love to live on the road you guys like i'm working and and i'm technically in my office but i can just take a break and step outside and it's so nice but i just want to say thank you to everyone who is still watching my channel and um i'm excited to put up more content for you guys so yeah let me know in the comments below what you think if you have any other questions and if you want to see examples of commercial work that i do check out my website i'll link that below and um i'm not sure what i'm going to make the next video about but if you guys have suggestions let me know talk to you soon

Channel: Christian Schaffer

Views: 481,870

Keywords: Photography, Vanlife, Travel, Business, Money, Tinyhome, conversion, van, modeling, social media, nomad, digitalnomad, campervan, influencer, Finances, affiliate marketing

Id: pS2AogmpfKQ

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020