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 Last Month and Looking Forward
During the month of February, I got more serious about finishing up a project that I have been meaning to implement for my Pay Off Credit Card site for a long time. I pretty much stopped creating blog posts for that site and instead focused on creating something I am calling, The 7-Step Plan to Pay Off Credit Cards. It is a 7-step series that I am offering for FREE for users who sign up by entering their e-mail address. Eventually, this will be my main monetization source for the site. When a user signs up they are immediately put into an e-mail autoresponder series that I’ve created. Each step of the plan will be delivered by e-mail, along with other bonuses and helpful tips and advice. Monetization comes in the form of highly relevant affiliate offers which I don’t start introducing until Step 4 of the plan – AFTER I have built trust by offering tons of valuable information for FREE! I have also set up an offer for a free bonus report (lead magnet) that is intended to entice people to sign up. See what I’m talking about by viewing this lead page that I created for the plan.
To be clear, the 7-Step Plan series is a constant work in progress. I’ve been a little hesitant to share it because I am not satisfied AT ALL with the look and feel for the way I have it presented. I’ve been constantly changing and tweaking different aspects, both visually and within the content and e-mails. If you happen to check it out, please know that I am still working on it. Also, any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I also started a miniature niche site project during the month of February. I got inspired by Spencer’s niche site project over at Niche Pursuits and wanted to do my own little project as a kind of follow-along. Unfortunately for this project, most of my time has been consumed by the 7-Step Plan project. All I’ve really done to my Mini NSP is installed a theme and loaded some WordPress plugins.
Looking forward to the rest of the month of March, I hope to have my 7-Step Plan satisfactorily complete and ready to promote. As soon as I am completely satisfied, I am going to do everything I can to promote it – including things like guest posting, blog commenting, social media promotion and even a little bit of old-fashioned guerrilla marketing (handing out flyers and whatnot). I also plan to start producing blog content for the site again, using my curated content strategy. In the past, this strategy has been successful at building links and relationships. In fact, I believe it is the #1 reason my site obtained a PR2 in the last Google update with only 4 months worth of content (22 articles)!
If I have any spare time at all after all of this, I might do a little bit more work on my Mini NSP. I’m actually looking forward towards implementing some outsourcing as a strategy for my online business. I thought I would start small by getting somebody else to produce some (or all) of the content for this site. I have zero experience though with outsourcing and am a little intimidated at where to start. Besides, this project has been put on the back burners, as I focus on the 7-Step Plan for the credit card site.
Passive Income and Expenses – February 2013
Income
Affiliate Income from Dumb Passive Income
- $0 – Amazon Associates for sales on Amazon.com (explained in detail here)
- $0 – Carbonite Referral (explained in detail here)
- $63.64 – Long Tail Pro sales via Clickbank (why it is better than the competition)
- $0 – Lending Club leads via Commission Junction (exactly how to sign up explained here)
Affiliate Income from PayOffCreditCard.net
- $160.00 – Discover Card sales (my review and experience with Discover)
Other Income from Small Sites, etc.
- $7.92 – Google Adsense
- $0 – Yahoo! Voices for articles I wrote a long time ago
Lending Club
- $15.88 – Interest earned from Lending Club (exactly what to expect when you sign up)
Expenses
Hosting and Domains
Tools and Plugins
- $12.00 – Long Tail Platinum monthly fee (if you have Long Tail Pro – upgrade to Platinum here)
- $1.00 – Aweber monthly fee (first month trial only $1)
- $197.00 – LeadPages yearly cost (easily create beautiful landing pages like this one for my Pay Off Credit Card site)
Lending Club Service Fees
- $0.32
Totals and Thoughts
Total income ($247.44) minus total expenses ($220.24) equals a net profit of $27.20 for the month of February!
I’ve earned almost as much income in February as I did in January. At this stage of the game, I continue to re-invest some of the money I’ve earned to buy various tools and programs that will help me generate more income in the future. You see this evidenced by the huge difference in my expenses from January to February. Mainly, the $197 I paid for one year of LeadPages. I’ve only just begun playing around with the tool, but I am very impressed so far. It is so easy to use and I am able to create wonderful lead pages that I would never be able to figure out how to create on my own. I am confident that the $197 yearly cost will more than pay for itself – as many of these types of pages have very high and proven success rates.
If my 7-Step Plan to Pay Off Credit Cards works like I think it will, my income reports should start going up dramatically. If not, I’ll have to go back to the drawing board. The thing is, I’ve put SOOO much time and effort into this plan that it has to work. If it doesn’t work at first, I’ll keep making changes and testing different things until I do get it to work. I am very determined.
Thoughts on My Pay Off Credit Card Site
I am pleased that my Pay Off Credit Card site generated $160 in affiliate income last month. I was actually shocked because there was very little traffic, but one of my affiliate offers was still converting. I can only imagine how well this offer will convert when it is offered as an integral step as part of my 7-Step Plan!
Thank You!
Thank You for taking the time to read through my income report for last month and Thank You 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!
Matthew Allen
I think this is great Matt! I’ve really resisted paying for a lot of tools, but I need to start thinking about reinvesting in the right tools as my earnings increase. I think the niche progress is most impressive. My own niche has proven that even low traffic numbers with motivated searchers can generate decent and ongoing income. This is just fantastic progress!
Nice progress! Not sure about the LeadPages expense as a necessity, but if it’s help you build income then go for it!
As you know Mike, not paying for tools and doing everything the “dumb” way was the original focus of this blog. I was determined to prove that passive income could be accomplished without paying for tools. I’m still convinced it can, but it is so much easier and faster with the proper tools. I love buying stuff like this online – it’s like getting a new toy every time I make one of these purchases. Reinvesting some of the money I’ve brought in only makes sense at this point. Eventually it will all lead to an even greater and more constant passive income stream.
You’re right Sam – LeadPages was not “necessary,” but something that I really wanted for what I am trying to do. Building an e-mail list for the credit card site is my very first attempt at something like this, and why not use proven strategies like beautiful lead pages to have higher opt-in rates… Plus there are so many other things I can use LeadPages for. I’m foreseeing some really cool possibilities for some affiliate marketing strategies.
Nice work Matt. If you didn’t have the Lead Pages expense in there, it would been a pretty profitable month. But regardless – I like seeing positive returns and you’ve definitely got the right mindset for where you’re heading for this.
The Credit card thing is (in my opinion) going to be your biggest thing. While you’ve got a lot of other projects going on the side, it might be best to just be comfortable concentrating on that activity first before you do anything with the Niche Mini-site or other tasks. Perhaps as that one launches and starts to pickup momentum you can start working on the goals. That would also give you some capital to use for outsourcing as well.
That is pretty cool, great job!
Good stuff man. I like what you’re doing here. I’m soon to start offering “income reports” too. I’m glad to see someone else being as transparent as you are in the early stages.
Yeah Justin. It’s been kind of tough starting out. Even a little embarrassing sometimes to publish some of my pathetic income reports. I think it will pay off long term though when readers see that I am not “selling” some get rich on the internet scam or something. The point of it all is to show that it takes a lot of hard work and time to build up a good passive income. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!