Welcome to my Resources page, where I share the products and services that I use and trust. This list is like the Academy Awards - only A-listers are invited. 😉
I personally use or have extensively vetted every single one of these recommendations. Your trust is too important for me to risk it by recommending a product that's not awesome!
Full disclosure: some of the products and services on this page are affiliate links, which means I'll gain a small amount of compensation at no extra cost to you. It's a win-win situation because you get a great recommendation and I get some money that will help me to keep running this site 🙂
STARTING AN ONLINE BUSINESS
If you're looking to start building your 9-5 escape plan you'll need an online business. There is no better way to do something you love, work flexibly, and have a high earning potential.
Hostgator
I use Hostgator to host Escaping to Freedom, and I love it. It's a cheap, reliable and has amazing costumer service for when things go wrong. Check out my step-by-step guide on how to start a blog.
Genesis Framework
You want your blog to become a thriving business, so you'll need a solid foundation. Genesis provides an easy to use, SEO optimised​ framework to build your blog on - right from the start. It's what Escaping to Freedom runs on, and I love it!
StudioPress Themes
Studiopress have the best WordPress themes to go with the Genesis framework. Get one of these themes and your blog will have the robust structure of Genesis and the good looks! Escaping to Freedom uses the Aspire Pro theme.
GetResonse
​The most valuable asset you can have in your online business is an email list. This allows you to keep in touch with your audience at a much more personal level, so you can help them even more.
Unfortunately, you can't just use Gmail to send out these emails - you'll need an email service provider to do it. I use and recommend GetResponse - it's well designed, reliable and cheaper than some of the competition at only $15 per month.
Canva
If you want to create professional-looking pictures, logos, graphics or PDFs have a look at Canva. It's completely free to use, which is crazy considering how powerful it is! If you don't have a knack for graphic design, I'd use this to create images for your blog posts or Pinterest posts.
If you need free images to use, get them from Pixabay, they have thousands of high-quality images that you can use for free - no attribution required!
Canva
ONLINE COURSES
One of the best investments you can make is buying a course that will teach you a valuable skill. You know the saying:
"Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make".
These are all courses that will improve your skills, making you more able to earn money. That means you'll pay off their cost in a short period of time.
Blog Yourself Rich
Blog Yourself Rich is PDF guide and workbook that I bought when I was first starting to build this blog. It has everything you'll need to know about starting a blog, establishing a strong brand and growing it into a profitable business.
Whether you're starting out or you'd like to grow and monetise your blog, I strongly recommend this guide. It will save you months of research and trial & error.​
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
If you have a blog and would like to start making money from it, you should use affiliate marketing as it can provide you with passive income. I recommend taking Michelle Schroeder's course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. This is the course I used to learn, and it has all the information you need to start earning affiliate income.
Michelle routinely earns over $50k per month with affiliate marketing, so she knows what she's talking about!
K Money Mastery
One of the easiest ways to create passive income is to publish e-books on Amazon Kindle. You can pay someone to write books for you, put them on sale and watch the money roll in. K Money Mastery is the best course out there, and the one I took myself to make $100 a month by publishing on Kindle.
SAVING MONEY
Cutting your expenses is easier than you may think. I recommend these tools to help you spend less money every month - and therefore be able to save more!
Personal Capital
Personal Capital is a free financial tool that lets you see all your money in one place. It automatically gets all the transactions that you make in your accounts and puts them in one place so that you can see where your money is going. It also lets you track all your investments and assets, so you can get a clear picture of your overall financial situation. Here's my review of Personal Capital.
Ebates
Ebates is an amazing tool. It allows you to get cashback when you buy things you'd buy anyway. You can install the Google Chrome extension and it will automatically apply any discounts it finds, which will then be paid to you! It's incredible that this is a thing.
