For 2024 I published my side hustle income report each month to maintain accountability.
This year, my main goal is to be profitable.
To maintain transparency with this goal, I'll be reporting on both income and expenses this year.
I haven't been profitable for years. My day job has been subsidizing my side hustles.
My goal this year is to stop that cycle. Working at my business regularly helps me to sleep better at night, but without profit it eventually will just be added stress.
Which sources I'm reporting and which I'm not
Since I'm not posting anonymously, my main job income, my part-time job income, and my main investments won't be reported. I'll report everything else, though!
I'll report on income as I receive it.
I'll report on expenses in two ways. If I've bought an annual plan for something, I'll break the cost up per month and expense it as I go along. One-time purchases will be expensed the month I make the purchase.
With that, let's get going! I'll start with the income.
Inbox Dollars: $10.00
Inbox Dollars is a get-paid-to site that pays out cash for surveys, trials, sign-ups, and other activities.
Inbox Dollars pays 10% of my referrals' earnings for life. Most of the income comes from a couple of very active referrals, and it's been reliable for quite some time.
Like last month, I was able to cash out a $10 virtual MasterCard from Inbox Dollars in February.
Website services: $28.46
A poker player I'd met at the tables pointed me to his Kick channel. He later mentioned that he wanted a website, so I did that for him! To be fair, I chatted with him a lot before it got to that point, but it paid off.
For hosting his website, I get a recurring $30/month, minus a $1.54 PayPal fee.
Online Poker: $169.93
I had two cashouts totaling $101.60 in February at Global Poker.
I've started playing on another site with a similar business model called Clubs Poker. In February I had a cashout of $108.33. The cashout threshold is $100 so it took a while to get there.
Between Global Poker and Clubs Poker I paid in $40 for chips to play there. I typically buy in only when there's a deal going on.
So net, I made $169.93 in February.
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.
EarnApp: $9.98
This is a super-passive way of making some money by sharing an internet connection for anonymous traffic for business use.
The payout used to be $2.50 but they bumped it up to $10. There's a small fee for cashing out, which left me with $9.98.
I'm up to 111 referrals, which shuttle 10% of their earnings to me as a commission.
Atlas Earth: $20.00
This is a kinda dumb “game” that you get paid to watch ads basically, but at this point I've been playing it long enough that I'm earning almost $0.03 per ad I view, and I can view one per hour if I want. I can view six in a row before I have to wait to view more of them.
The game does pay out pretty much instantly, and I cashed out $20.00 in February.
Text link: $23.64
This might be a new income source for me as I improve the SEO on my websites. With the purchase of my lifetime UberSuggest subscription, I can track how pages on my site rank for particular keywords.
I got a comment on a fairly well-ranking article discussing EarnApp, HoneyGain, and some other passive income sites from someone from PassiveApp, another internet-sharing service.
I offered him a text link and a write-up in that article to appear 24 hours after payment of $25. I gave him the specific keywords that page ranked for, and they were exactly what he needed. He accepted. After $1.46 PayPal fee, this netted me $23.64.
InstaGC: $1.02
This is a get-paid-to (GPT) site I've been a member of for a long time. The referral income isn't there anymore. I may let this one drop like I've let other GPT sites drop.
TOTAL INCOME: $263.03
Up a little from last month, which is good!
And now … for the expenses.
Services I mentioned last month: $198.06
Here's a summary of the services I mentioned last month that I'm carrying forward:
- My newsletter provider Kit: $49.17/month
- Domains at NameCheap: $21.43/month
- Web host at A2 Hosting: $14.99/month
- Tailwind, a Pinterest poster: $14.98/month
- Canva Pro, a graphic design too: $15.00/month
- Camtasia, video editing software: $5.33/month
- LinkWhisper, internal linking plugin for WordPress: $5.59/month
- CleanTalk spam protection: $2/month
- IFTTT Pro, automation engine: $2.99/month
- Frase.io SEO tool: $17.49/month
- GeneratePress One, theme elements: $8.25/month
- UberSuggest SEO tool lifetime deal I'm expensing at $40.84/month
Publer: $5.60
I forgot about this one last month. I have a subsidized Publer subscription for social media posting. It's $33.60/year or $2.80 a month. I'm “expensing” two months because I forgot January.
135 $1 bills with five-digit serials: $229.28
This is a new venture. I have an accumulation of bills with cool serial numbers that I'm going to try to sell on eBay.
I purchased two eBay lots of 135 $1 bills each with serial numbers 000xxxxx (three leading zeroes). Several dozen of them are ZIP codes, so I'm going to try to sell those at a markup on eBay.
A thermal label printer and envelopes: $81.06
I researched how to ship the dollar bills should they sell, and a thermal label printer with some 6×9 inch envelopes would be efficient.
The thermal printer came with a small supply of fanfold labels, so I'm set for a bit! Anxious to make a sale to work the process out! I've listed 24 bills on eBay and will list more this month.
TOTAL EXPENSES: $514.00
This might be a tad inflated because it includes inventory that is definitely worth $135 (it's cash after all!) but I'll call that part an investment.
NET INCOME: -$250.97 (-$290.72 YTD)
This month I'm going to take a hard look at the services I'm paying for and get the chainsaw out!
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 people to work for themselves, and on themselves, every day to sleep better at night.
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