I’m a big fan of charts and graphs, so many of my updates on here will be heavy on those things. Here’s one to get the charts and graphs fun kicked off. Below is a graph of my approximate yearly income from 1996 (the year I officially entered the workforce with a job making sandwiches) through the present.

That big jump in 2002 is (obviously, I would think) where I finished college and began my first real engineering job. The drop-off there at the end is pretty extreme, isn’t it? Obviously the eventual goal is to bring that line all the way back up, even exceeding my previous income working for someone else. I’ve got a long way to go.

Now here’s a chart showing my minimum, moderate, and optimistic projections for monthly income over the next six months. You’ll notice that in all three scenarios, I’m assuming that the first month will see zero income. The timeline for Thatch Mound allows for the entire first month to be set-up and preparation.

For what it’s worth, I’ve already beat the first month’s projection. This will of course be more difficult next month, when the projection is above zero. I’ll post monthly updates to this chart, as a way of tracking my progress toward the goal of self-sufficiency. If you have any questions about what these mean or how I set my goals, drop me a line in the comments.