With only a few hours left in November, I’ve finally got around to tabulating my Alternative Income for the month of October. It seems with the end of the year, traffic has picked up. Accordingly, I’ve watched my income this month, after taxes, jump to $1,909.82.
I’d like to say that my traffic to How To Fix were making a big difference, but it’s not quite there. I need to spend a little more time promoting the site. I’m hoping by the start of next year, I can put some advertising on it and start to monetize it. I’m also contributing my one man assult on the MonaVie Scam
Besides income from websites, I’m looking at making about $77 from Lending Club. For those interested in trying Lending Club, if use that link they will start your account out with a free $25. That success has led me to dip my toe back into peer-to-peer (P2P) lending on Prosper.com. Is it possible that P2P lending is making a comeback? I think it might be. I believe people will have learned that taking the conservative approach is the best.
I got off on P2P lending, but there’s one more free money deal, I meant to add. Ohio’s CollegeAdvantage will give you up to $50 for free towards and 529 educational savings plan. Even though I have no plans to go back to school and I don’t have children, I took advantage of it in my own name. In the future, I’ll be able to transfer that money over to my niece and nephew if need be. If you want to learn how to take advantage of it, follow that link in this paragraph for instructions.
Before I conclude this I’d like to thank the following 10 blogs for sending me the most traffic in October:
My Money Blog
getrichslowly.org
milliondollarjourney.com
FreeMoneyFinance
FrugalDad
The Digerati Life
WiseBread
Five Cent Nickel
Gen X Finance
Moolanomy
Fantastic Lazy man! That means you are pulling in at least $2,500 gross before the taxman.
Data like this helps newbies like myself, set anchors and goals. I’d love for my blog to throw off some income in 10 years when I’m “retired”.
Do you have older posts highlighting the steps you’ve taken to monetize your blog?
Best,
Sam-urai
I keep my posts about the blogging to minimum for this audience. It would really be thousands of words to just touch the tip of monetization of a blog. I’ve hoped to create another blog to cover those kinds of details, but the prospect of writing as much for another blog is quite daunting. Also, I occasionally get lucrative contract jobs for months at a time, which would force a new blog on a hiatus – never a good thing.
Ok, no prob. It seems relatively easy to get $500-1,000/month. Much beyond that, and to the $10,000/month figure though seems tough.
Just got to HUSTLE I guess!
If you find it easy to get to $500-$1000 level, I would recommend just building more websites. It can be a pain to manage them, but with some virtual assistants it should scale.
I’ve had a lot of luck with this one and about the others would be around $50 a month if I put Google AdSense on them – not exactly something that’s worth it to me at this point.
Hey Lazy Man,
I’m with FS on this one. A lot of your readers would probably like more details about how you make your money online.
Personally, I’d be interested in know more about passive income strategies. For example, blogging can take a good amount of work, so it would be nice if there were ways to make money with a minimum of effort.
Thanks,
James
It’s a fair request. It’s just that it’s a lot like someone saying, “I’d like to know more of what World War 2 was like…”, where do you even begin? It’s acquired knowledge from over three and a half years of blogging.
Almost anything I can say is going to sound trite. As you (James) note, blogging does take a good amount of work. I would fit it in during lunch breaks and in the evenings as my preferred hobby at previous jobs. I found that others were interested in similar things and formed a network with them. We share our knowledge and help promote each other. That’s been helpful in getting money from advertisers.
As far as doing minimal effort, you have to look at what takes time with blogging. There’s writing, but there’s also promotion of your blog, networking with other bloggers, researching new trends in blogs, following what kind of deals are out there, and even politely turning down some of the “opportunities” that aren’t quite a fit for your blog.
You can almost outsource any of this, but then it would be hard to break even. With just average content, you are pretty much sunk. You have to provide value for your readers to come back. That’s the most important part.
I’m currently working a few experiments where I outsource the writing (not for any Lazy Man branded blogs) and they are probably closer to break-even than actually making money. I could probably stop paying writers and stop create content and maybe the money from advertising would continue… or maybe not, it’s hard to say. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t call it passive income. I simply don’t know if it is.
I’m very particular when I call this report Alternative Income, because I mean it as that. It’s an income stream that I’ve built (and I have to maintain) while I work another job or go on vacation in Australia and Thailand for a month (as I have in the past).
How passive it is depends on me. When on vacation and working other jobs, I can probably spend about 5-8 hours a week writing posts and managing my e-mail box (the majority of the things that need to be done when I’m in maintenance mode). When I’m trying to grow my blogs and websites, you’ll find me spending up to 40-50 hours a week.
I really hope to release an eBook and companion website on this at some point. I actually have a good portion of it written. As usual, I feel like I’ve got another idea that might be bigger than Lazy Man and Money that’s worth pursuing at this point.
Lazyman,
Okay, here is an idea. Have you considered monetizing an ebook? Perhaps generating one and then selling advertising in the book? You might be able to charge by the download.
Thats truly passive income because you’d only have to write the book once, after that, all you’ll need to do is manage the downloads.
I have… didn’t you read my last comment where I said that I hope to release an eBook at some point. I would definitely charge for it and make it more of a premium offering.
It’s worth noting that ebooks are not always timeless. For instance if I wrote one about blogging, it would need updating to account for new things like the next Twitter or the next Facebook.
Similarly I could just create a blog and leave it stagnant when I want to stop. Then I’d just have to manage the Google Adsense, right?
What kind of ebook? I am planning my ebook of secrets at some point too. ;)
Probably one on how to blog. Did anyone ever tell you, you have took many secrets?
Thanks Lazy Man, Another newbie here, just trying to find out what it’s all about and maaaan, is there a lot to learn. I can feel my brain frying…..:P
Thanks for posting your income, is that all from this site alone?
Not a bad second income, being a poor recent college grad your after tax income blogging would cover 2 months of my expenses!
This is a majority of the income, but it’s not all from here. I don’t break it down further than that.
Lazyman,
I am sad that you have discontinued issuing your alternative income reports. I used to check them every month for inspiration. I hope you are doing well, and you have finally been able to break through on that front!
Best Regards,
Blogging Banks