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, 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: $5.00
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 $5.00 in payouts in September. To make things easier, I've been cashing out directly in Amazon gift cards.
EarnApp: $9.85
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 144 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: $15.00
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 $15.00 in September.
AWin: $21.00
This one was a bit of a surprise!
ShareASale merged with AWin and I think what happened is that they cleared their books and paid out balances to people. So that's what I had in ShareASale from whenever.
Medium: $28.82
Finally, after almost a year, I got a payment from Medium in September!
TOTAL INCOME: $108.13
I'll take it.
And now … for the expenses.
Services I mentioned last month: $183.37
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: $49.17/month
- 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: $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: was $17.49/month, CANCELLED
- 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
eBay Inventory: $74.42
I bought another 40 low serial number bills to resell on eBay.
TOTAL EXPENSES: $257.79
NET INCOME: -$149.96 (-$1,156.67 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!
