Reporting each month for accountability
This year I'm committed to publishing side income reports each month for accountability.
My goal is to move things forward by keeping it real. Reporting on the good and the bad allows for reflection on lessons learned.
Which sources I'm reporting and which I'm not
My primary income, my part-time job income, and my main investments won't be reported. Everything else is fair game!
Some income will be reported when I cash out, and others when I earn it.
Also, for the moment I'm reporting income, not profit. I'm in the red overall and still will be for a while.
With that, here we go!
Google AdSense income: $13.02 (-$13.52)
This past month's downtick in AdSense income was expected, because I reduced the number of ads showing on the page. I turned off Auto Ads on my main blog because the number of ads was a bit much and dominated the site.
I'm close to a $100 payout and will likely hit it for July, even with the much lower earnings.
I'll apply for AdSense on a couple of other blogs I have after I get some more content up.
Google AdSense has had a consistent place for most of my blogging run. It's been far higher than it is now. Even with the blog just mostly sitting there, people visit and interact with the ads.
Medium Partner Program: $24.77 (-$8.83)
June Medium Partner Program income dipped a bit following my best month to date.
I published 15 articles in May, for a total of 74 as of the end of June.
My focused goal is to earn $100 in a calendar month with the Medium Partner Program by the end of August. It may be a stretch at this point, but we'll see.
Mr. Rebates: $0.79
Mr. Rebates is a cash-back rebate site that I've used for nearly two decades.
Mr. Rebates rewards members who refer new users with 20% of what the referral earns, for life.
All of the income this month was from these referral commissions. I have a small number of dedicated referrals that buy a lot, so I reap the benefit.
Inbox Dollars: $12.13
Inbox Dollars is a get-paid-to site that pays out cash for surveys, trials, sign-ups, and other activities. June's earnings were roughly the same as May's.
Inbox Dollars pays 10% of my referrals' earnings for life. Most of the income comes from a couple of very active referrals.
Amazon Associates: $0
I got some commissions in May but none in June.
I should see the payout in a couple of months since I'm over $10 accrued now.
Landa: $0.82
Landa offers shares of rental properties in several states. These shares pay “dividends” each month, based on the net income the underlying properties bring in.
I put $250 in for fun to see where it goes.
June saw the first increase in dividends following six straight months of declining dividends.
I plan to buy more shares as I earn enough from dividends, but don't plan to put more money in unless the prices dip substantially.
EarnApp: $5.03
EarnApp is about as close to passive income as you can get for an app. It runs on my computer, transfers anonymized packets from one place to another, and I get paid for allowing this.
Essentially no intervention on my part, and I hardly notice the performance hit.
I have 15 referrals and four of them have installed the app and used it for long enough to generate some referral income. The referral income is 10% of their income for life (at no cost to them as it's baked into the rate everyone gets).
The minimum payout is $2.50 (minus a very small fee), so the referral right now will get me to that $2.50 slightly faster. Most of the income this month, like last month, was from the app “working” on my computer.
With the timing of the payouts this month, I received two payments.
I talk more EarnApp and other very passive income sites here.
Honeygain: $17.98
HoneyGain is a site similar to EarnApp. I share my bandwidth and I get paid.
The payout threshold is higher than for EarnApp, but I cashed out $17.98 this past month.
Piano lessons: $0.00
This year I've driven a few miles to give a one-hour piano lesson.
This money was slow for doing these lessons, but we hope to pick things back up in July.
It has been easy for me and enjoyable for both myself and my student. Not bad as far as trading time for money goes!
This is my favorite side income currently because of the interactions, to be fair. Not at all passive, but that's okay!
Global Poker: $103.89
I got another cashout at Global Poker this month.
I play for fun mostly. I have enough of a winning record on micro-tournaments and $0.05/$0.10 cash games to not go broke. Also there's a small daily sign-in reward that subsidizes my playing.
This month I placed 8th out of nearly 2,000 players on a weekly freeroll to earn $20.25.
I talk more about how I earn regularly from online poker here.
TOTAL: $178.43 (-28% from last month)
Dipped a bit from last month.
Other sources that are waiting in the wings
I have a few others that I'm involved in. Some will pay out soon:
- MyPoints: a site similar to Inbox Dollars (owned by the same company)
- Swagbucks : another site similar to Inbox Dollars (owned by the same company)
- Impact and FlexOffers, similar to Commission Junction
- ConvertKit, the mailing list manager extraordinaire
- Tutoring (in real life!)
- Honey: A completely different app than HoneyGain; used for coupon codes
- CryptoTab: a browser that mines bitcoin
- InstaGC: a site similar to Inbox Dollars (NOT owned by the same company)
- My YouTube channel (60% toward 1,000 subscribers and 15% of the way toward 4k hours)
- Selling on eBay
- Benable with its swanky lists and built-in affiliate program
We can only start from where we are.
There's no other place to start except from where we are right now.
I buckled down more on side income this year.
The best time for me to have done this, of course, was twenty years ago.
But the next best time is right now.
Recently, I've taken the advice of a fellow writer and begun to concentrate on building my Medium income. As is evident from my income report, there are lots of onesey-twosey sources but none really big and reliable.
Most of my activities at least for the next few months will be focused directly toward, or one-step away from, achieving $100 in Medium income for a calendar month before the end of August 2024.
Regardless … let's cheer each other on and encourage one another!
Thanks for reading!
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