Freelance income to the rescue
For 2024 I'm publishing side income reports each month to maintain accountability.
My goal is to progress by keeping it transparent and real. Reporting on the good and the bad lets me reflect on lessons learned.
Which sources I'm reporting and which I'm not
I'm not posting anonymously so my main job income, my part-time job income, and my main investments won't be reported. I'll report everything else, though!
Some income will be reported when I cash out, and others as I earn it. I'm moving toward
Also, for the moment I'm reporting income, not profit. I'm in the red overall and will be for some time.
With that, let's get going!
Google AdSense income: $10.50 (-$1.68)
October saw a modest downtick in Google AdSense income.
I reduced the number of ads showing on the page in June. I turned off Auto Ads on my main blog because the ads dominated the site and overran the content.
I have noticed more sign-ups for my newsletter from the blog, which is a positive. Also, the better site experience seems to be reflected in the traffic!
I applied for AdSense on my online presence blog but it hasn't been approved yet. It could be anything at this point, but it may be navigation that's causing the issue.
Google AdSense income has been there for most of my blogging run. Even though it's been way higher than it is now, with the blog just mostly sitting there, people continue to visit and interact with the ads.
Medium Partner Program income: $11.40 (+$8.50)
October Medium Partner Program income finally went back up, after four months of decline.
I published six articles in October, as opposed to ten the previous month.
I currently stand at 111 articles.
Mr. Rebates: $1.39
Mr. Rebates is a cash-back rebate site that I've used for nearly two decades. People simply sign up for a free account, click through to online stores, and get a percentage back in their account.
Mr. Rebates rewards members with 20% of what their referrals earns, for life.
(Note, the link above and others in this article are affiliate links, which means that if you sign up I stand to earn a commission, at no additional cost to you.)
All income recently has been from referral commissions. I have a handful of dedicated referrals that continue to buy through the site, so I benefit from their activity rather than my own.
Inbox Dollars: $10.00
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. Like Mr. Rebates, most of the income comes from a couple of very active referrals, and it's been reliable for quite some time.
I was able to cash out a $10 virtual MasterCard from Inbox Dollars in October.
Amazon Associates: $0
No commissions in October but I did get some sales on Halloween which showed up as commissions for November.
Landa: $0.65
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.
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.
Atlas Earth: $10.00
Yeah, I started watching ads again on this app for money.
But hey, $10!
Receipt Hog and IBotta: $51.15
I have several grocery receipt apps that I “stack” for receipt rewards. This is completely legit.
I got payouts this month from two of them: $25 from Receipt Hog, and $26.15 from IBotta.
EarnApp: $8.03
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.
There's no intervention on my part, and I hardly notice the performance hit.
I have 72 referrals now, and 13 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.
I received three payments in October.
I talk more EarnApp and other very passive income sites here.
Honeygain: $0
HoneyGain is a site similar to EarnApp. I share my bandwidth and I get paid.
I have eight referrals now and one of them appears to be running the app a lot, so the referral income is up a bit (though the total is barely a dime now).
I may reach payout ($20) by the end of November.
Piano lessons: $80.00
This year I've driven a few miles to give a one-hour piano lesson.
I was able to do two piano lessons this month.
It has been 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 just fine!
Website services: $160.00
This one started out of the blue a bit!
A poker player I'd met and visited his Kick channel wanted a website, so I did that for him! To be fair, I had followed his Kick channel, provided some tips for promoting his Kick channel, and chatted with him a lot before it got to that point, but it paid off.
Of this $160, $30/month will be recurring for website maintenance and hosting. The other $130 was for design and writing articles.
Global Poker: $51.36
I had a cashout in October at Global Poker.
I play for fun. 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.
I talk more about how I earn regularly from online poker here.
TOTAL: $394.48 (+339% from last month)
Thanks mainly to my freelancing income this month, this was my best month to date this year!
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
- Kit, 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 (67% toward 1,000 subscribers and 18% of the way toward 4k hours)
- Selling on eBay
- Benable with its swanky lists and built-in affiliate program
- Quora! I'm writing there again.
We can only start from where we are.
The best time to start earning side income was twenty years ago.
But the next best time is right now.
Let's encourage one another. Let's do this together!
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I'm John and I encourage entrepreneurship in people, including myself.
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