For 2025 my main goal is to be profitable.
To maintain transparency, I've been reporting both on my income and my expenses this year.
My day job has been subsidizing my side hustles, which kind of play out as a time-consuming hobby.
My goal this year is to turn this around. Working at my business regularly helps me to sleep better at night, but without profit it eventually will just be added stress.
I'm still kind of in the course-buying mode, looking for insights that will pay off or techniques that will help me to develop and sell products and services. With this in mind, I'm going to need to turn things around in a big way to be profitable for the year.
Which sources I'm reporting and which I'm not
Since I'm not posting anonymously, my W-2 income and my main investments won't be reported.
I'll report on income as I receive it, not when I earn it. In other words, I report on it when it hits my bank account.
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!
Inbox Dollars: $15.00
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.
I earned $15.00 in payouts in November. To make things easier, I've been cashing out directly in Amazon gift cards.
Swagbucks: $5.00
Swagbucks is another get-paid-to site that pays out cash for surveys, trials, sign-ups, and other activities.
Swagbucks pays 10% of my referrals' earnings for life. My referrals aren't as active as on InboxDollars, but I get some. I do a daily poll (one multiple-choice question) to chip away at a $5.00 payout.
I earned a $5.00 payout in November, which I redeemed as an Amazon gift card.
EarnApp: $9.92
EarnApp is one of the most passive sources of income I have, aside from bank accounts and dividends!
They changed their payout structure from per MB to per hour, which isn't really good for most people. However, I still get some referral income from a handful of my 145 referrals.
Here are reviews of this app and a few other passive apps.
Website services: $28.46
I have a website design and maintenance client who's a poker player I met at the tables during a sit-and-go.
For hosting his website, I received a recurring $30/month, minus a $1.54 PayPal fee.
Atlas Earth: $21.00
This is kind of a dumb “game” that pays you 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 $21.00 in November.
Freelance Writing: $300.00
And now, for my new income stream. This one came out of the blue.
A good friend of mine is a freelance writer and editor. He has the blessing of having more work than he can handle.
So he brought me on to ghost-write for him to help him out.
I was actually pretty surprised. But I'm glad to be of service!
The great news about this is it pays for all of my tools each month, and then some. As long as I keep the toolset I have now, I'm in the black each month!
TOTAL INCOME: $379.38
A good month. and December will be even better.
Services I mentioned last month: $157.19
Here's a summary of the services I mentioned last month that I'm carrying forward. I'll note that I let the Frase.io add-on I had go, so that's no longer an expense.
- My newsletter provider Kit: $27.99/month ($22/month less)
- Domains at NameCheap: $21.43/month
- Web host at [Hosting.com](): $14.99/month
- Tailwind, a Pinterest poster: $14.98/month
- Canva Pro, a graphic design tool: $10.00/month (I thought it was $15/month but it wasn't)
- 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
- GeneratePress One, theme elements: $8.25/month
- UberSuggest SEO tool lifetime deal I'm expensing at $40.84/month
- Publer: social media posting software $2.80/month
TOTAL EXPENSES: $157.19
NET INCOME: +$222.19 (-$983.00 YTD)
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!
