[Dumb] Passive Income Report for December 2014

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

Some Personal Stuff

Here it is – January 25th, and I’m just getting around to finishing up this December income report. You wanna hear the stupid part about this? I had all my numbers tallied and my income figures all set pretty early on the morning of Jan 1st. I even transferred them into a draft and got this post started not long after that – but I’ve procrastinated doing the writing part of this post.

In fact, it seems this has been a recurring issue of mine for the past several months. I just haven’t had (or haven’t made) the time to keep up with this blog like I should, could and would. I’m actually quite irritated and annoyed with myself over the matter. So much has been going on with my internet marketing journey and I have plenty to blog about. I just haven’t done it.

Some of my excuses for December are legitimate. Like all the Christmas and holiday family stuff that takes up a lot of time. And also the death of my wife’s father on December 23rd. Pretty much nothing got done for about a week before Christmas and for about 2 weeks after.

But passive income continued to roll in, despite very little involvement from me. I’m still not getting super rich from my internet endeavors, but the extra income is nice. And it’s really cool to see the stuff that I worked so hard to set up in the past is actually working and generating some decent passive income streams.

Niche Sites

My Adsense income remained steady for the month of December. Even during slow months, I can expect usually around $300 at least in Adsense which still stems mostly from one site. That one site is still my best niche site and I already have a plan in motion to keep adding content to it and also to experiment with different ways to promote that content.

To my surprise, my Amazon income is starting to make a comeback. I had one site that was bringing in almost $400/month from Amazon affiliate sales right up until the big Google PBN update. Right at that time, this site lost most of its rankings and the income went down to about $50/month. I never got the thin content penalty like many others did. Just some of my PBN links got de-indexed and I lost rankings. I’ve done absolutely nothing to that site since, and I’ve done zero link building for any of my sites.

But for whatever reason, that one Amazon site is starting to see traffic pick back up and sales are rolling in again. I did over $100 in December and January is on track to more than double that! Main keyword rankings still aren’t doing great. But long tail keywords are bringing in plenty enough traffic. And best of all – it’s traffic that converts!

I have two other Amazon sites that have been hanging around page 2 of Google for many of their main keywords for several months now. Although I don’t want to do any more link building – I’m seriously considering building some links and getting those 2 sites ranking on page 1 as well. But the whole link building process has become annoying and discouraging. So I’ll probably just buy some Hoth packages and let them do the work. The packages I like aren’t cheap – but they work and I know I can trust them. I’m currently arguing with myself on whether or not to spend the money. I’m almost positive the ROI will be positive. But its never easy to spend hundreds of dollars on link building stuff.

Selling Stuff on Amazon

Selling stuff through FBA on Amazon is a whole different animal. And December was an amazing month for us! Up until the week before Christmas, we continued to spend money on items to send in to Amazon like it was going out of style. And it seemed like we couldn’t keep up with everything that was being purchased. People aren’t kidding when they talk about the craziness of the holiday buying season on Amazon. So glad we saw the potential and spent a lot of money in October and November on items to sell through FBA.

Our sales for December were just over $5500 minus expenses of around $3800 for a December profit of $1700ish just from Amazon FBA stuff! If it weren’t for this FBA adventure me and My Lady are going on – my net income for December would have been absolutely dismal!

Although I never plan to be “the guy” when it comes to teaching how to sell stuff on Amazon (plenty of other people have that covered). I did put together a list of all the items that Susie and I use to run our FBA business. A few of these items are essential, and several of them just make the job way easier for us. CLICK HERE to see our FBA Seller Tools and Supplies page. The list includes helpful descriptions of each item which will come in handy to help get you started if you want to try this sure-fire money-making scheme. 🙂

Income and Expenses – December 2014

Passive Income

Selling on Amazon

• $5,538.07 – Amazon Seller monthly sales (this is NOT net profit – see Amazon Seller Inventory Expenses and Seller Fees in expense section below)

Affiliate Income from Dumb Passive Income

• $228.34 – Long Tail Pro sales via Clickbank (why it is better than the competition) (how to make LTP pay for itself)
• $20.10 – LeadPages sales for this awesome lead generation software (I EASILY created this squeeze page with LeadPages)
• $25.98 – SocialADR sales (go here to learn more and access my custom 20% off coupon code)
• $0 – Aweber signups ($1 for your first month)
• $0 – Ultimate Azon Theme sales via Clickbank (I have not yet reviewed this theme – but I beta tested it extensively – MUST HAVE for Amazon Affilliate sites)
• $0 – AmaSuite sales via JVZoo (software demonstrated in video embedded here)
• $0 – oDesk signups via Commission Junction (how to outsource content for cheap explained here)
• $0 – Genesis framework and themes by Studiopress via ShareaSale (eleven40 Pro theme as seen on this site now)
• $0 – EasyAzon3 sales via Clickbank (I haven’t even reviewed this yet – but I would not build an Amazon site without it!)
• $39.80 – The HOTH sales (awesome link building service – they do everything for you!)
• $0 – WPEngine sales (my results after upgrading to the fastest hosting for WordPress on this blog)
• $0 – Bluehost (why I buy separate hosting accounts for new niche sites explained within this post)
• $24.00 – Lending Club signup (I haven’t done anything with or written about my investments here in over a year)

Other Passive Income from Niche Sites, etc…

• $286.32 – Google Adsense (ad click revenue from niche sites)
• $117.84 – Amazon Associates for sales on Amazon.com (explained in detail here)

Non-Passive Income

Website Services by Matthew Allen

• $0 – Website services – build simple websites for private businesses (like this one grmobilewelding.com)

Note: Bluehost banner above is an affiliate link

Expenses

Selling on Amazon

• $1,937.30 – Inventory Purchases (buying stuff for cheap to send to Amazon and sell for more – (how we got started detailed here)
• $1,892.08 – Amazon Seller Fees/Expenses (these include FBA selling fees, transaction fees, inventory & storage fees and service fees)

Hosting and Domains

• $29.00 – WPEngine (why I upgraded to the best and fastest hosting for WordPress)
• $0 – Bluehost – my new favorite hosting provider for niche sites – great price, ease of use, excellent service and overall experience
• $9.95 – Hostgator – my original hosting provider – still keep for some sites 
• $0 – GoDaddy for domain renewals and purchases
• $0 – 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)
• $49.00  – Aweber monthly fee for e-mail list management (first month trial only $1)
• $4.90 – ManageWP monthly fee for WordPress multiple site management program
• $47.00 – AmaSuite – upgrade to version 4 (very inexpensive upgrade made available to current AmaSuite customers)

Outsourcing

• $266 – to my private writer for article writing for niche sites
• $141.07 – to oDesk for virtual assistant(s)
• $0 – to The HOTH for a link building package (comprehensive and completely done-for-you link building)

Miscellaneous

• $0- Paypal fees
• $5.00 – Google Apps for domain email

Totals and Thoughts

Total income $6,280.45 minus total expenses $4,393.30 equals a net profit of $1,887.15 for December 2014!

Thanks to Amazon sales, income for December was nearly the same as November. But expenses decreased noticeably which means that net profits also increased. Sweet!

Without Amazon earnings, my net would have been close to zero for December. But that is partly attributed to the fact that I decided to give my Virtual Assistant and my main writer some pretty nice Christmas bonuses. Without them, I couldn’t accomplish half of what I accomplish as far as niche site creation. I was in the holiday spirit and I wanted to show my appreciation in at least a small way. It’s nice gestures like these that partly attribute to the fact that I’ve been able to keep the same writer for over a year and the same VA for almost a year now.

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! Many of the links within this income report are indeed affiliate links (including the Bluehost banner below). I will receive a commission if you choose to purchase after clicking through via any of these links. Thank You if you do!

Photo Credits:

“Follow the line” from Flickr by Spyros Papaspyropoulos

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)