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 January
Here in West Michigan, we’ve been enduring one of the best (most would consider it the worst) winters we have had in a long, long time. We’ve gotten absolutely hammered with snow this year and I (for one) am loving it! The picture on the right is what a typical driveway looks like after the city or county plows have come through and cleared the roads, but before the actual driveway is shoveled or plowed out (picture is not mine – just a random one I found on Flickr). Driving in the snow is so much fun and driving a big truck (like I do for my day job) in the snow is even more fun. Besides the snow, it has been unseasonably cold this year too. We’ve had plenty of days where high temps were in the single digits, and it seems like weeks on end now where highs have been only in the teens. Luckily, I have a wood stove in my basement that I use as a secondary heat source and a big ole stack of dry firewood under the lean-to behind my garage. The room right next to where my wood stove sits is my office – and this is where the magic happened last month.
January was a record month for me as far as earnings that I created via the internet. Much of it is attributed to the product/service that I created – the Keyword Research Packages that I sell. This is the less passive income side of my online business. But it is profitable and is contributing nicely to my bottom line – so I am going to continue producing these packages as often as I can. I have a separate email list setup just for people who are interested in buying one of my keyword research packages. I send out an email to this list as soon as I have a new listing ready. The last two packages I put up for sale each sold in less than an hour! I’m having trouble keeping “inventory on my shelves.” What a great problem to have! I even sold one incredible set of keywords for $597! If you want to see the exact report that I send to buyers, click here to sign up for that list, and I will send it to you.
The passive income side of my online business is starting to increase as well. This is great news, as creating passive income is kind of the whole premise of this blog. If you’ve been following my recent income reports, you know that I missed my 2013 goal of hitting $100 in Adsense income in a single month. I earned just under $67 in Adsense in December 2013. I’m happy to report that my Adsense earnings have increased significantly since then. I brought in a little over $234 in January just in Adsense – and almost all of that was from one niche website. The even better news is that I am on track to nearly double that amount during the month of February. The next post I publish on this blog is going to be all about that site and Adsense and what I did to increase my earnings. Make sure to sign up for my e-mail list so that you don’t miss it (plus you’ll get my free report).
And now… presenting the numbers for January… thanks Vanna
Income and Expenses – January 2014
Passive Income
Affiliate Income from Dumb Passive Income
- $295.86 – 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)
- $9.00- Aweber signups ($1 for your first month)
- $0 – Niche Website Theme sales via JVZoo (reviewed in detail here)
- $12.00 – Lending Club leads via Commission Junction (exactly how to sign up explained here)
- $0 – ManageWP signups (easily manage multiple WordPress sites from one dashboard)
- $33.50 – AmaSuite sales via JVZoo (software demonstrated in video embedded here)
- $0 – PulseHover sales via JVZoo (plugin explained within this post)
- $0 – oDesk sales 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!)
Other Income from Niche Sites, Old Blog, Article Writing…
- $234.07 – Google Adsense
- $2.50 – Yahoo! Voices for articles I wrote a long time ago
- $5.46 – Amazon Associates for sales on Amazon.com (explained in detail here)
Non-Passive Income
Services by Matthew Allen
Expenses
Hosting and Domains
- $9.95 – Hostgator (how to purchase a domain and set up web hosting)
- $2.17 – GoDaddy for domain renewals and purchases
- $0 – IXWebHosting – (up to 15 separate IP’s on one hosting account!)
- $29.19 – 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!)
- $4.95 – Serpbook monthly fee for keyword rank tracking tool (purchased thanks to this review by Misty Spears)
Outsourcing
- $170.00 – 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
- $37.55 – Paypal fees
Totals and Thoughts
Total income $1747.39 minus total expenses $339.71 equals a net profit of $1407.68 for January 2014!
Wow – what an awesome month! Admittedly, nearly two thirds of my income this month came from my keyword research service, which is not so passive. But the passive income which I created for the month rang in at $598.39! Sweet! I’m not so naive to think that my bar graph above is going to always stay on that upward trend. I know I won’t find a great set of keywords that will sell for nearly $600 every single month. But, my income from my niche sites should continue to increase meaning that the passive income side of my business should be ever-increasing. Maybe – just maybe… I can keep those bars moving up month after month.
I won’t let it get me down though if my income decreases a little bit one month here or there. Heck – it was only 12 short months ago that I was struggling to bring in $200 per month. I think that my personal journey to create income online is a perfect example of the time and the hard work that it takes. I’ve been at this for two and a half years now, and I am finally starting to reap some decent rewards for my hard work. It proves to show that persistence and patience pays off in the world of internet marketing. I’ve done a lot of dumb things along the way and I’ve tried to share most of them on the blog. Hopefully readers of my blog are able to avoid some of the dumb things that I’ve done and will be able to get their online incomes up there even faster than I did.
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 Credits:
Matthew Allen
Great month Matt – congrats! Good to see the keyword research business is doing well for you.
Matthew, congrats on your success! That’s fantastic that your keyword research is gaining such momentum. I know it’s not passive exactly, but about how much time per keyword set that you sell are you putting into it? Is it coming out to be fairly profitable…if you were to for example calculate in a dollar amount for your time?
Thanks Stew.
Good question Misty. At first, I was probably spending 3 to 4 hours per set of keywords. This is partly because I was also creating unique custom reports for each set. I’ve since added more info to the report part of what I deliver and made it generic and adaptable for any set of keywords. So… going forward the only difference that each buyer gets will be the actual list of keywords (the spreadsheet) and one or two other files that I include (depending on the niche). Including doing the actual research and getting the thing listed, it should take me 2 to 3 hours going forward. I’m still trying to get better and more expedient. But yeah, my hourly rate is far more than what I make at my day job as a trucker.
Nice job this month! It would be really interesting to see how well your customer does with the $597 keyword package….
Well done Matt. Really happy for you mate, you work hard and the reward is starting to pay off by the looks of it.
Hey Matt – Awesome month! Very well done.
It sounds like it’s pretty cold there. 🙂
Thanks Nathan. I actually asked him if he wouldn’t mind sharing with me in a few months once the site is up and running. He said he would be happy to. I’ve already had a few of my customers share their sites with me and I am really liking the sites that they create based around keywords I provided for them.
Thanks Doug. I knew the hard work would pay off eventually. Now I just need to multiply the monthly rewards!
Thanks Doug – it’s very cold here in Michigan. I’ve been hearing about your hometown in national news lately that you’re getting some unseasonably cold weather and winter storms to go along with it as well.
Haha, yes. Today, we have a legitimate ice storm and I hope I keep power through the day. Now, a couple weeks ago – that was just silly with the 2 inches of snow causing so many issues.
Did you see the Saturday Night Live weekend update, with Buford Callaway? It was like that. 🙂
Great Job Matt. Looks like you’re starting some good upward income trends. Pretty awesome feeling, huh? 🙂 Keep it up!
Awesome Matt! I haven’t introduced myself yet, but I’ve been keeping up on your blog for a while now watching you progress. I’m just a bit behind you right now. I was struggling last year to get past $50/month – but I worked my ass off the last quarter of 2013 and January brought me $110 in revenue, and for February I’m on schedule to make about $400 in revenue (off 2 niche sites). I also have 3 new sites starting to rank on top of all that. Glad to hear you’re having a great winter! I’m here in Philly dealing with the ice storms and stuff. Luckily I was one of the few who didn’t lose power and I could keep working!
Take care, keep it up, and I’ll see you around.
It’s a fantastic feeling Josh! So glad that I have guys like you around, who have been there, to keep me encouraged and motivated. Thanks man!
Hey Dave – thanks for introducing yourself. That’s awesome that you are starting to see success with your sites. The best part, I’ve found, about having money coming in is that you can now use it to reinvest into your sites to either build more (faster) or improve rankings of existing sites. It’s so much fun being able to buy and test different products and services.
I hope you’ve learned a thing or two from following my blog already. I look forward to keeping in touch while we both grow our online empires!
Outstanding month Matt! That’s incredible that you are able to sell those packages for so much. Even if that kind of work is “not so passive”, who cares! It’s definitely side income that will continue to add to your bottom line and goals. Besides – you could always turn it into a passive income stream by using some of your revenue to hire someone else to do the research and put together the packages for you.
Definitely something I am thinking about MMD – but I think it’s going to take some time and effort by me to be able to find the right person to help me produce these Keyword Packages. I certainly cannot risk compromising the quality of what I deliver. I need to seriously start thinking about finding somebody soon though. More and more people are signing up for my waiting list and I can’t produce these things fast enough!
Hey Matt – awesome work! I found you through MW’s income reports. I’d like to talk about interviewing you for my new business blog selfmadebusinessman.com – will be in touch!
Hi Matt – Great Job! Enjoy reading your blog…i’m around the same stage as you are in the process(starting to see some income) and i know how motivating it can be once you get the ball rolling…
Hi Josh – thanks man! Starting to see some income really does change your entire perspective, right? It definitely is motivating… almost to the point that greed starts to take over. More, more, more. Now that I see it working, I need more…
Hi Matt – Your income report seems pretty good for a long run. I’m on the way building my passive income too. Mostly my passive income are from kindle eBooks & niche websites. Well, great blog & easy to read. Thanks 🙂
Nice to meet you Raweewan! Always good to hear from fellow internet marketers. Hope all your endeavors are going well.
Hey Matt, I get busy for awhile, come by for a visit, and then find out you’ve had this sort of a great month! Well done!
I’ve been busy too Mike! I see you’ve read the evidence. haha. I’m finally in a groove now, as far as online income goes. It’s looking like the current trend is going to continue. I’m glad you stopped by to check it out. Thanks man!
I’m really glad that you’ve found your niche, it is something that you enjoy, and that it looks to be sustainable! It is good to see hard work rewarded!