Journey to $40k Per Month – Day 103
Maybe Recurring Income Is The Missing Piece
So today is Wednesday, May 27th, 2026, and officially day 103 of my journey to $40,000 per month online.
And honestly… I spent a good chunk of today just thinking.
Not even doing anything flashy. No crazy breakthrough. No giant commission notification popping up on my phone. Just me sitting there thinking hard about the bigger picture and asking myself an important question:
“What’s actually the smartest path to $40,000 per month?”
And I think I’m finally starting to realize something.
I probably need recurring income.
Not just random commissions here and there. Not just constantly chasing the next sale. I think I need income that keeps coming in month after month after month.
So naturally my brain started going down a rabbit hole today researching different business models and different ways people create recurring revenue online.
One of the big things I started looking into was something called rank-and-rent or digital leasing.
But before I get into all of that, let’s talk numbers first.
Current May 2026 Income Update
So for the amount of money that has officially hit my bank account for the month of May so far…
I’m currently sitting at:
$3,857.46
No new commission payouts hit my account today unfortunately, so the number stayed the same.
That being said, I should be getting a paycheck from my call center job this Thursday, so that’ll definitely push the monthly total up a bit.
Still though…
I really want more online income hitting my account consistently.
Because while almost $4,000 in a month is definitely helpful, it’s still not enough for the kind of freedom I actually want long term.
I don’t just want survival money.
I want real freedom.
The kind where I can breathe easier.
The kind where unexpected bills don’t instantly stress me out.
The kind where I can wake up and choose what I want to work on instead of feeling trapped by it.
That’s the real goal.
Email List Update
Now for the email list update.
My email list has officially grown to:
3,870 leads
And honestly I was a little surprised today.
I thought for sure the number was going to drop.
Usually when you email daily like I do, you naturally get unsubscribes. That’s just part of the game. Some people lose interest. Some people move on. Some people forget why they subscribed in the first place.
But apparently the new subscribers outpaced the unsubscribes today.
So I’ll absolutely take that.
And honestly, I’m becoming more and more convinced that building an email list is one of the smartest things you can do online.
Social media followers are nice.
But email lists feel more real to me.
You actually own the connection.
Algorithms can change.
Platforms can ban accounts.
Views can randomly collapse overnight.
But your email list is yours.
That’s one of the reasons I keep focusing on it so heavily.
The Problem I’m Starting To Notice With Affiliate Marketing
Now don’t get me wrong…
I still genuinely love affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing has literally changed my life financially.
It helped me make money online when I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. It helped me prove to myself this whole “making money online” thing wasn’t just fake guru nonsense.
But if I’m being completely honest…
It can sometimes feel like you’re constantly hunting.
You get a sale…
Then you need another sale.
You get excited for a minute…
Then it’s back to chasing again.
And while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that business model, I’m starting to understand why so many entrepreneurs eventually become obsessed with recurring income.
Because recurring income changes the emotional feeling of business.
Instead of restarting from zero every month, you start stacking momentum.
You make the sale once…
Then ideally it keeps paying you month after month.
That sounds incredibly attractive to me.
Especially because my ultimate goal isn’t just to make money.
My goal is freedom.
And predictable recurring income feels a lot closer to freedom than constantly wondering where the next sale is coming from.
My Thoughts On MLMs
So naturally I started thinking about business models that offer recurring revenue.
One thing that crossed my mind was MLMs.
And honestly…
MLMs have always left a weird taste in my mouth.
Back in college, one of my old roommates tried recruiting me into one.
Then later on, I had a random stranger at a coffee shop start pitching me another one out of nowhere.
And both situations just felt… off.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe I’m being too harsh.
I genuinely try to stay open-minded and fact-based about these things.
But personally, a lot of MLMs feel way too recruitment-focused for my comfort.
A lot of the money seems tied to getting other people underneath you, and usually there’s some kind of monthly fee involved to stay active.
To me, that starts drifting uncomfortably close to pyramid scheme territory.
Now obviously MLMs technically aren’t illegal or they wouldn’t still exist, so I do have to acknowledge that.
And to be fair, I’m sure there are people making legitimate money with them.
But emotionally?
I still cringe a little thinking about participating in one myself.
Could I be wrong about MLMs?
Absolutely.
But at least right now, it doesn’t really feel aligned with the kind of business I want to build long term.
Rank-And-Rent Actually Sounds Really Interesting
That brings me to the other business model I started thinking about today:
Rank-and-rent.
Or digital leasing.
And honestly?
This one sounds way more interesting to me.
The basic idea is pretty simple.
You create a website around a local service in a specific city.
Something like:
Plumbing
Roofing
Lawn care
Tree removal
Pressure washing
Junk removal
Then you try to rank that website on Google using SEO.
If the website starts ranking well, local customers begin reaching out looking for those services.
Then instead of personally doing the work yourself…
You pass those leads off to a local business owner and charge them monthly for the leads.
Basically you become the middleman.
And the reason this caught my attention is because it actually sounds scalable and recurring.
If a local business starts relying on your leads consistently, there’s a good chance they’ll keep paying you month after month.
That’s the kind of thing that could potentially create real stability.
Now obviously it’s not magically easy.
If it was easy, literally everybody would already be rich doing it.
The biggest challenge in my mind would probably be ranking the websites in the first place.
SEO competition can get brutal.
And I also wonder how saturated the space already is.
Because anytime something sounds “simple” online, usually there are already thousands of people trying to do it too.
I’m also curious how much maintenance these sites actually require long term.
Do they mostly sit there passively once ranked?
Or do they constantly need updates, backlinks, optimization, and management?
I honestly don’t know yet.
But I’m definitely curious enough to keep researching it.
And I’m considering potentially joining a coaching program to learn the business model properly instead of trying to piece everything together randomly from YouTube videos.
We’ll see.
Final Thoughts
Anyway, that’s pretty much where my head’s at right now.
Still learning.
Still experimenting.
Still trying to figure out the smartest long-term path toward freedom.
And honestly?
I think that’s what this whole journey is really about.
Not pretending I have everything figured out.
But documenting the process in real time while I try to build a life that actually feels meaningful and financially secure.
Some days are exciting.
Some days are frustrating.
Some days are just me sitting there overthinking business models for hours.
But either way…
We keep moving forward.
And if you’re trying to build income online too and potentially escape the 9-to-5 grind someday, you can check out the free training I made here:
👉 https://jacksdigitalventures.com/freetraining
And if you want to find my YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or other links, you can find everything here:
