It’s time once again to update my Alternative Income. For the first time in a few months, I actually made more money that the previous month.
For the first time in quite awhile, it makes sense to break out the revenue numbers vs. the net gain. My revenue jumped from $1491 to $1611 this month. However, because I bought a logo I’m in love with from Lost Spots, I have to factor in that cost. I’m choosing to amortize those costs over some months. By the way, if you are looking for a logo design and go with Lost Spots please let them know that I sent you.
Why has there been a decline in recent months? As you may or may not know, a large percentage of my alternative income is income from my websites (not just this one). A few months ago, I had sponsors and referral income from Lending Club, which has since gone to zero with their quite period. I’m making 1/3rd of what I made four months ago with Google AdSense – for reasons I haven’t entirely figured out. Those are two major impacts as they’ve been a large part of my income in the past.
What has changed this month? My readers made at least $1250 by starting accounts at Revolution Money Exchange. Some of them, like one reader who is a good friend of mine, got his free $25 for signing up and made over $100 referring his other friends. Revolution Money Exchange gave me $10 every time someone took advantage of their free $25 offer (still available) – a lot of small $10 deposits add up quickly. It confounds me that they are still able to offer this promotion. Simple math says that you can’t give away $35 to anyone willing to take the 2 minutes to sign up (that’s their claim and I found it to be true for myself) very long before you go out of business. I would be quick to act – before they realize how ridiculous the promotion is and have to cancel it.
So with declining revenue from some sources, new revenue from other sources, and the amortization of the costs of logo design, I ended up grossing $1511.80 for the month after taxes – not near where I want to be, but enough to pay most of my monthly expenses.
Congrats and continued good luck in your ventures!
$1500 is a very respectable amount! I do good to get half that, but then again you’ve been at this a good bit longer than I have. Like you, I can’t believe Revolution Money Exchange is still forking over $25 to new sign-ups. It is one of the better deals I’ve seen in a while. Here’s to even more profits next month!
This is just the kind of post I needed. Desperately in search of new ways to make money.
That’s pretty strong LM, especially when you consider that it is after taxes. Adsense can be a really fickle beast, that’s for sure. I have been using it for years and still can’t make heads or tails of my earnings, and the reasons behind them.
Wish I could get similar result!
My blog gets
20% of your traffic (sitemeter)
3% of your subscribers (feedburner)
1% of your blog income
If my revenue per visitor was similar to yours I’d be getting $325/mo instead of a negligible $18/mo…
I suspect a lot of the difference is due to the fact that while 65%-75% of my readers are in the US, I’m based in Australia and can’t join some affiliate programs that offer services useful to US readers.
Ah, I just realised your income is from ALL your websites, but I was only comparing traffic from this blog. If you divide your $1611/mo income by total visits across all your income generating sites it would be easier to compare results.
I think you did great Lazy. You’re right, LC was a good source of income and I think it hurts many bloggers.
As for AdSense, it’s a funny beast. Did your search traffic drop over the past few months?
Wow, I’m impressed and inspired. I was just recently hired to blog and one of my main goals in taking the job is to learn how this works. The only real money I’ve made online is freelance contract work, which is going great, but ad income would be great too. AdSense is indeed an odd beast. I think a lot of it is just hitting on the one topic that is on peoples’ minds and doing it first. That’s not easy to do, but it does happen. Thanks for the inspiration!
Well done.
I wonder why you call yourself a lazy man :)
That’s pretty respectable income Lazy Man. The decrease in adsense revenues could be due to smart pricing. Adsense believes that if your ctr rate is less than a certain percentage, they should pay you less per click than before (significanlty less).
Even though lending club is not working now, we still have Prosper ..And RME is limited to 50 referrals unfortunately.
Congrats. It looks like the majority of your income comes from reader opening account with Revolution Money Exchange. Then, do you expect that to change significantly for the current month?
It changes every month. Some things go up and others go down. It usually averages out.
Keep it up. These posts give us the inspiration for us all to look for alternative income streams. Is not easy but it is a lot more fulfilling than the 9 – 5