[Dumb] Passive Income Report for December 2013

Welcome to my [Dumb] Passive Income Report! This blog is all about what I am doing to create several different passive income streams. This monthly income report details my results. I work very hard and dedicate many hours each week to working on my different online endeavors in an attempt to create passive income. So why do I consider it passive income then? Because I am not trading specified amounts of time for a predetermined amount of money like I do at my day job. Most of the income you will see in this report results from work I have done in the past.

Why am I sharing my income publicly? Hopefully to gain credibility with you (the readers) and to maintain a certain degree of accountability for myself. I could blog all day long about what I am doing to create passive income online, including some of my unique strategies. But why would anybody trust me and believe that what I am doing works if I don’t prove it by sharing my results? This is what I mean by gaining credibility and this is one of the main purposes for sharing my income. I also share my failures on the blog, which holds me accountable. Knowing that I will be publishing a monthly income report will keep me motivated to keep pushing forward and plugging away on the things I need to do to create future passive income.

Happenings in December

December was an awesome month for me! Something crazy happened. During most of the month of December, I was unable to dedicate nearly as much time to anything I do online as I normally do. I didn’t get a lot of work done on my niche sites and I only published 2 posts here on Dumb Passive Income. Despite putting very little effort into my online endeavors during the month, I still generated a record amount of income! I think the passive income machine is finally starting to work.

My only excuse for not getting things done online during December is my transition to my new day job. I was sent to Chicago during the first week of December for mandatory driver training for the new company I work for. I don’t own a laptop, so my only internet access was via my phone. Not much got done that week. Throughout the rest of the month, I was hesitant to let myself wake up at 4 or 5am like I used to. The reason being that there is a good possibility that I will be required to work later shifts. I never know what time I will start work and how late I will have to work from day to day. This is just the way it is for the type of trucking that I do and for the company that I work for. Bottom seniority guys are “on call” and don’t have set schedules. The good news is – business is booming for my company and there will likely be a need to hire more drivers in the upcoming months, so I won’t be on the very bottom of the seniority list for very long.

Random and unexpected affiliate sales for many different products trickled in all throughout the month of December. All of the time and work that I’ve put into producing review posts and videos is really paying off. Sales for Long Tail Pro accounted for nearly half of my affiliate earnings. This was due in large part to the Black Friday weekend sale that Spencer held. I plastered the 50%-off sale all over this site for those 4 days and notified the people on my e-mail list two different times. Doing those two things paid off big time!

Without promoting it very much at all, 3 different people purchased my Keyword Research Service. That definitely helped boost my earnings for the month (although it isn’t “passive income”). More recently I’ve decided to change slightly how I offer my Keyword Research Packages. Instead of collecting payment up front and then doing the work – I now do extensive keyword research and create reports first and then offer them for sale as a package. Check out my Keyword Research Packages for Sale page right here. I am definitely more comfortable offering my services in this manner. This way I can’t “get behind” and have work owed to people who have already paid me (that drives me crazy). It also makes the income seem a little bit more passive. The work is done up front and the packages are set up to deliver automatically after payment – so it seems a little bit more passive now.

Speaking of passive income – let’s take a look at my numbers for December!

Income and Expenses – December 2013

Passive Income

Affiliate Income from Dumb Passive Income

• $372.57 – Long Tail Pro sales via Clickbank (why it is better than the competition)
• $0 – LeadPages sales for this awesome lead generation software (I EASILY created this squeeze page with LeadPages)
  
• $6.00 – SocialADR sales (go here to learn more and access my custom 20% off coupon code)
• $8.70- Aweber signups ($1 for your first month)
• $17.97 – Niche Website Theme sales via JVZoo (reviewed in detail here)
• $24.00 – Lending Club leads via Commission Junction (exactly how to sign up explained here)
• $0 – ManageWP signups (easily manage multiple WordPress sites from one dashboard)
• $157.50 – AmaSuite sales via JVZoo (software demonstrated in video embedded here)
  
• $0 – PulseHover sales via JVZoo (plugin explained within this post)
• $50.00 – oDesk sales via Commission Junction (how to outsource content for cheap explained here)
• $35.98 – Genesis framework and themes by Studiopress via ShareaSale (eleven40 Pro theme as seen on this site now)
  
• $16.61 – EasyAzon3 sales via Clickbank (I haven’t even reviewed this yet – but I would not build an Amazon site without it!)
• $11.40 – Quicken sales via Commission Junction (money management software that I’ve been using for many years)
• $18.82 – Long Tail Classroom sales via JVZoo (I don’t even promote this – somebody must have purchased as an upsell)

Other Income from Niche Sites, Old Blog, Article Writing…

• $66.78 – Google Adsense
• $3.85 – Yahoo! Voices for articles I wrote a long time ago
• $38.77 – Amazon Associates for sales on Amazon.com (explained in detail here)

Non-Passive Income

Services by Matthew Allen

• $291 – Keyword Research Service (why I started offering this service – explained here)
  
• $36 – Private consulting

Expenses

Hosting and Domains

• $9.95 – Hostgator (how to purchase a domain and set up web hosting)
• $0 – GoDaddy for domain renewals and purchases
• $0 – IXWebHosting – (up to 15 separate IP’s on one hosting account!)
• $19.95 – NameCheap – domain purchases (expired domains)

Tools, Plugins and Themes

• $12.00 – Long Tail Platinum monthly fee (if you have Long Tail Pro – upgrade to Platinum here)
• $12.00 – Long Tail Platinum monthly fee (why I ended up with 2 subscriptions –details here)
• $19.00  – Aweber monthly fee for e-mail list management (first month trial only $1)
• $4.90 – ManageWP monthly fee for WordPress multiple site management program
• $38.00 – SocialADR monthly fee for social bookmarking for my niche sites (proven results within this post!)
• $37.00 – EasyAzon3 plugin purchase (purchased during launch sale – MUST HAVE for inserting Amazon links)
• $60.95 – Quicken Home & Business 2014 (upgraded from my old version of Quicken)
• $19.00 – Purchase Limit Plugin – Add-on for EasyDigitalDownloads (used for selling Keyword Packages)
  

Outsourcing

• $110.00 – to my private writer for article writing for niche sites
• $0 – to oDesk for article writing (how I paid only $76.66 for 40 articles!)

Miscellaneous

• $10.30 – Paypal fees

Totals and Thoughts

Total income $1155.95 minus total expenses $333.10 equals a net profit of $822.85 for December 2013!

The previous three months I shared three of my monetary goals for 2013. I’ve decided to leave these up on the report until the end of the year in order to hold myself accountable and track my progress.

• $100 in monthly Adsense income – I want Google paying me every single month!
• $300 in monthly Long Tail Pro affiliate sales – this tool has made too big of a difference in my internet marketing journey. I have to show others why and hopefully generate some decent affiliate income for all of my efforts.
• $1,000 total monthly income – I want to reach this for at least one month in 2013 and build on that into 2014 and the future

$100 in monthly Adsense income – FAILED. $66.78 is somewhat respectable, considering almost all of it came from one niche site. That site recently jumped to position 5 in Google for its main keyword and is now generating $3 to $9 per day in Adsense income. Although I did not achieve this goal for any month during 2013, I almost certainly will achieve it the very first month of 2014 and hopefully every single month after that.

$300 in monthly Long Tail Pro sales – ACHIEVED. Due in large part to Spencer for selling his product for 50%-off. Thanks Spencer! Half off sales really work. People are willing to buy when they get a great deal like that. Although I achieved this goal once, I hope to keep increasing my sales of this awesome tool. People are still finding and reading many of my old posts that promote it – but I could do more towards promotion going forward.

$1,000 total monthly income – ACHIEVED. I really didn’t think or even believe that I would hit this goal. I hoped, but I certainly had my doubts – especially knowing that my online time would be limited due to changes in my day job life. Things just seemed to work out for me though in December. I have to give credit to you – my readers – for this one. I owe you a huge THANK YOU and a debt of gratitude. Thank You if you’ve purchased via any of my affiliate links and Thank You if you’ve ever shared any of my posts or videos. You guys and gals are awesome!!

Thank You!

Thank You for taking the time to read through my latest income report and Thank You for contributing  if you have previously purchased something through one of my affiliate links! If you wish to support this site, but don’t have a need for any of my affiliate products, you could simply do your regular Amazon shopping through any of the links on this site that lead to Amazon.com. You won’t pay any extra and I will receive a small commission. Thanks so much if you do so!

Remember that there are several dumb ways to create passive income online, but only one site that is blogging about it! Dumb Passive Income… dot com.

-Matt

Many of the links within this income report are indeed affiliate links. I will receive a commission if you choose to purchase after clicking through via any of these links. Thank You if you do! To your success and mine – may we all be profitable online. Good Day!

Photo Credit: SalFalko via Flickr

Matthew Allen

Matthew Allen is a full-time trucker, part-time blogger, and imaginary entrepreneur. He's probably not the only trucker who calls himself a dumbass. But, he is the only known trucker who is blogging about passive income."Might be crazy, but I ain't dumb!" ~ Crazy Cooter (also Matt's CB handle) 

Matthew Allen

Matthew Allen is a full-time trucker, part-time blogger, and imaginary entrepreneur. He's probably not the only trucker who calls himself a dumbass. But, he is the only known trucker who is blogging about passive income."Might be crazy, but I ain't dumb!" ~ Crazy Cooter (also Matt's CB handle)