Income Report: August

Well, it's all very piecemeal at the moment. I've talked in the past about passive income streams and they haven't quite gathered pace.

I've talked about diversification and I'm yet to get the balance here. But this was never going to be an overnight story and by writing it down (hopefully) I'll be able to look back in a year's time and laugh at how far I've progressed. That's the goal anyway.

So let's get this party started:

Writing
Resume Writing: So having wrote this article a few days ago, I've had to re-write much of it after properly calculating my resume writing income.

My original estimate was $1,050. The figure actually came to $1,815... Clearly mathematics isn't my strong point and the early part of the month was more active than I had remembered.

It's still my income anchor, though I'm very aware that I need to build out other areas to this level.

The local resume business hasn't gained traction, though that's more down to my low level marketing. I tried to sign up some students to earn commission as introducers, but they all seem to be too busy chasing down Pokemons

Article Writing: $50. I didn't write at all for my regular gig but I've another regular one starting now. I think September could be a good earnings figure for article writing. Famous last words.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $1. Yeah, this one's not doing a lot to build out the retirement fund. To be fair, I haven't really thought much about it lately but it is easy money.

Other
Postloop: $5. It's still a comfort blanket of a site for me. You while away a bit of time on, connect with a few people on it, earn a few dollars on it and move on. I don't default onto the site as much as I used to and it's not going to make me a king's ransom.But it's always there in the background if I need it.

So there you go it: $1,871 compared with $1,587. That's about 17% up on the previous month so I do know I'm moving in the right direction.

I'll give myself a score of B+. The $1,000 is my very least level these day for a 'pass' and I'm easily beating that at the moment. But I do need a lot more diversification and a lot of work on the passive income world.

I know that I've got a few writing gigs already sorted out for September, have already beaten the combined Prolific Academic / Postloop return in one survey this month (though that was never going to be hard) and I've signed up for an online writing course as well. All pointing in the right direction.

September will be awesome.  

Income Report: July

So the quest to develop more stable earnings streams continues. One of the big issues (still) for me is that I haven't yet shifted to the passive income approach that I've been gunning for long term. It's still not balanced and as a result it's aways active income - i.e. I need to be trading time for money. The long-term goal is to shift away from this. But for now it's all about stabilizing the income.

So for now, let's see how this month went.

Writing
Resume Writing: $1,450. This was a pretty busy month for me and about +90% higher than May. Despite people heading to the beaches for the summer, there's always someone job hunting and in need of a resume.

The fact that I haven't gone away this summer means that I've been overloaded a bit because others have gone away.

I still haven't sorted out a resume business locally, which would allow me to charge more for the same service. But I've been too busy...And I don't want to be purely a full-time resume writer for someone else.

Article Writing: $130. I had one of my usual articles to write and also managed to get a new contract elsewhere, which should be a consistent gig as well.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $7. Not a big month at all for me here. Not many surveys, simply because I've been too busy elsewhere.

Other
Zero - not great for me and my goals to improve the mix of income...

So that's it: $1,587 compared with $873 the previous month and $1,127.50 for May. So it's heading in the right direction! It just needs to be more balanced in terms of trading time for money.

I'll give myself a score of B-. It's good in terms of an improvement on the last two months but I still need a lot more diversification and a lot more impact in ths passive income world. My goal is to to make time to diverfy more.

The journey continues. 

Income Report: June

Ok, so this is my second report and it certainly threw up a few elements I hadn't considered before. It's early days with all of this but I've certainly learned a bit about consistency (or lack thereof), assumptions and random trends (in this case "Brexit").

So it's time to have another look.

Writing
Resume writing: $726. So for May I estimated that I made about $800 in resume writing. It actually turned out at a more healthy $953. But at the same time it should have been more...

Why should it have been more? Poor organization by me and Brexit. I'm British so kept a keen eye on events in the run up to the referendum that decided on whether the UK was going to leave the European Union. What I hadn't factored in was the fact that UK voters would actually vote to leave!

How does this relate to my earnings? Well, my resume work is with a UK-based company and they pay in pound sterling. I get paid directly to my PayPal account, denominated in US dollars. The day before the vote you could get US$1.43 or so for every one pound. The shock of the departure from the European Union saw the UK currency collapse and resulted in a US$1.33 conversion rate.

That wouldn't have mattered so much if I had invoiced the UK company at the correct time for payment for May - i.e. before the referendum. But I didn't. As a result, I probably lost about $60 as a result of the pound collapsing.

So the message is to stay organized.

As for June, volume slowed because of the summer so I received less work than before and can expect fewer resumes at the moment. As a result, there's even more reason to build out my own resume writing brand locally.

Article writing: $120. I haven't done much in the way of writing but I did manage to get paid $120 for a single article. That's because the last piece I wrote up required a lot more work to get it into shape.

That's the big problem with this consistent gig. It takes a long time to get the written piece to the right standard. For example, I've been working on a piece over the last three weeks or so and still haven't finished it.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $27. As mentioned previously, this is the only survey I bother with.

And this was a pretty good month for it as well. One reason for that: Brexit. Because I'm British there were a number of surveys posted to see how people would vote in the referendum. This was great for me.

The currency element sucks again, though. as the surveys are denominated in pound sterling. But all in all a decent month for that.

Other
Fiverr: $0. Zero sales this month.

Postloop: $0. Not the best result here either. I've done a bit of forum writing but only worth pennies, So I'll skip that.

So that's it: $873 compared with a revised figure for May of $1,127.50

Down on the previous month by over $250. For now, I'll give myself a score of C--. No passive income, less diversification and a lower return than last month. At the same time, I'll raise last month's to C+ after getting more income in resume writing than I expected.

It's not the best, but the marathon continues. And the passive income story is to come.

Income Report: May

So, this is the first one I've done and I haven't got a great deal to report as such. I want to use this as my baseline and reference point going forward so that I really can measure how successful (or not) I am being.

For the moment, I'm purely going to focus on my online-related income. That's the real long-term story as far as I'm concerned, even if I could do with significantly picking up my offline endeavors.

My approach to this will evolve over time as I find the right metrics and put aside some proper time to record this information. It's probably not the right accounting approach (but who cares) but I'll record all the income earned during the month rather than received and paid. It's easy for now because my income isn't that diverse or sophisticated. And for the future, there's my finance jobs site. 

So here it goes....

Writing

Resume writing: $800. I'm yet to have the data confirmed but by my estimates it should be around $800 for the month of May. This has become a significant story for me and will continue to be for now. Essentially, I work freelance for a company abroad and they line up the clients etc for me to work on.

Ideally, I want to be able to replicate the same approach where I live in Asia because I won't need to give a big chunk of cash to HQ every time I do the work. That's the plan in coming weeks/months. But I've only been doing it for a few months and they are doing all the hard work in terms of getting clients, so I've no complaints.

Article writing: $160. I write articles for a website in Singapore a few times a month and since the beginning of the year it's been quite consistent. It's great that it's $80 a time but my trouble is finding the time and inclination to finish the work. The owner is quite rightly incredibly thorough and every time I write a piece I "look forward to" the revisions he asks for and added information. 

With both of these writing gigs I need to put my ego by the door and just suck up the revisions that are invariably requested. It's not something I'm used to but it's good for me.

Surveys

Prolific Academic: $5.50. This is the only survey I bother with - the others seem to be boring / hard to monetize / repetitive / confusing and the list goes on. As the name suggests, Prolific Academic is all about academic research and actually pretty interesting. I didn't remember to check for many surveys this month but I had a few. Easy. 

Other

Fiverr: $4 (after Fiverr's $1 costs). Not a great return really but I have a few fairly passive income gigs on the site so I was happy to get this one without really having to work any more for it. 

Postloop: $5. Things have gone fairly quiet for me on Postloop - i.e. I've been busy with other writing aspects so I haven't really focused much on it. But it's always there and it's a useful default when I've nothing better to do (which wasn't that often in May).

So that's it. $974.50. It won't set the world on fire but it's better than a slap in the face. For now I'll give myself a score of C. It's a base line and I hope to be able to improve on it. Importantly, only Fiverr out of the amount was effectively "passive". So less than 1%, which is not great.

Hopefully, in coming months I'll be able to build that out.

Income Reports

Over the years, I've enjoyed playing with this blog. It started out as a blog on general musings on life, pivoted into providing personal finance guidance / coaching, and has morphed into a focus on online income streams.

A lack of focus? Maybe.

But I've decided to keep it with an income-stream bias, but I want to add a dynamic to keep me more "honest".  Over the years I've perused many blog sites that outline how much they made from their ventures over a specific month. In other words, they publish a monthly income reports.

I have absolutely no expectation of achieving numbers anywhere close to the likes of Smart Passive Income. Crazy numbers! In fact, there appear to be quite a few bloggers making at least okay money in different initiatives according to this list, and my expectations are still lower.

But I do want to create mechanisms that make me a bit more accountable. It's also a great way to track my various income streams  and its progression (something I really should already be doing but I'm not doing very well). 

Do I expect to attract more readers to this site? No. I haven't made any effort to drive traffic here so far and a few extra musings won't change that. There will still be casual observers, people falling on the site and then passing by. That's what the internet is all about and that's why we love it.

What I do hope to do is use this blog more constructively as a way to record what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and whether or not it's been successful. It's part of my personal journey. Time to embrace it. 

So I guess it's "watch this space" and we'll see how this experiment goes. 

53 Work At Home Online Opportunities...And other Fiverr Gigs

I'll get to the 53 Work At Home Online Opportunities element in a second.

But the thing about 'living' online is that there is so much out there that you didn't realize existed (or even realized that you ever needed!). That in itself is a charm and a curse. Is it useful? Is it relevant? Am I killing brain cells and time or am I genuinely adding value to myself?

That's the world I'm still learning to navigate as I look at earning more online income. There are a lot of good strategies out there which may have value for me in the future; there are plenty that make absolutely no sense to me at all. In the meantime, I'm having fun learning and falling at every turn.

And in my endeavors to build more in the way of income streams online, I've spent quite a bit of time on Fiverr, pitching my wares there and learning how other people are making money there. There are people pitching all kinds of services there. You need a logo? It's yours for $5 (well, $5 plus a bit of Fiverr commission). You need an article written for you? This is the place to go for the cheap and cheerful.

Make money online by being smart

The problem with the approach in many cases, though, is the extent to which you are trading time for money. If it's a gig that takes five minutes to create, then brilliant -- you've earned your $5 (minus commissions) in five minutes flat. But if you've got a gig that doesn't allow you to upsell any other service, and it's not taking just a few minutes to do, then you could be working an hour or two for $5. And that doesn't work out well in my head -- I realized that after a bit of trial and error.

It's true that different parts of the world have different costs of living and some people are actually able to make a decent living by being ultra efficient. But for someone like me with a lower work ethic than a lot of people I've got to work out whether I'm really making the most of my time online.

And then there are gigs like this 53 Work At Home Online one that fits perfectly into the model. It's created once and can be sold multiple times. You are, in reality treating Fiverr as your retail outlet. Your Amazon, if you will. Ok, you don't get the traffic in the same way, and you will have to promote and manually send out your work by yourself, but it's a great way of using the Fiverr system without spending hours upon hours in creating a service. It's an approach that I'm adopting.

At the end of the day, making money online is very much about having the right systems in place that will allow you to leverage other people's time, money, energy and platforms. It's about working smarter as well as harder. Time for me to practice what I preach.

Building Online Income Momentum

Making money online is actually quite easy....if you have something to offer. And package it in the right way.

That's my current interpretation anyway. Over the last month I've been focusing exactly on that - having something to offer and making it looking appealing enough for someone to be willing enough to pay for it. Well, I've spent a lot time fine-tuning my profiles on PeoplePerHour and Upwork, in addition to looking at the skills I've got to offer and tried to improve them. And it's started to pay off.

I've managed to snag myself a regular resume / CV writing gig with a company out of London, while another company contacted me to help re-write the content of their website. I've also had requests for two one-off projects. So there's clearly been some traction.

Yes, it is still trading time for money. The slower I do a task, the less of a return I'm getting on a per hourly basis. It's not perfect and it doesn't represent my long-term focus of building passive income streams.

But for now, at least, it's a regular income stream that can build into something bigger if I play my cards right. It also helps me to improve my career capital.

So I will still default to Prolific Academic and Postloop for easy and consistent earnings opportunities. They do that very well. But for building my long-term opportunities I will continue to look to build the future.

Prolific Survey: A Great Online Survey Site

If you look hard enough you can always find ways to earn money online. Don't get me wrong, sometimes you have to put the time in to get very little in return. But sometimes it seems like taking candy from a baby (albeit still a small candy...).

I don't tend to get excited about the world of surveys. They seem to take forever and you really don't get a lot in return very often. The one survey site I do like to have plenty of time for, however, is Prolific Academic. I signed up to be a survey participant back in December and I've been fortunate enough to get signed up for quite a few surveys.

The surveys themselves tend to be academic in nature (hence the name of the site) created by universities all over the world, so some of them are actually quite interesting. Face perception, the relationship between the multiple meanings of ambiguous words, apparel shopping, your willingness to buy a solar charger were all among them.

From experience, they tend to take anywhere from a few minutes all the way up to 30 minutes to complete. They also pay from about $1 a time up to about $6, if you are really lucky in being part of the right demographic -- not a bad return for a survey. The minimum checkout level is around $7.50 (essentially it's denominated in pound sterling and so has a checkout at GBP5.00) and gets paid through PayPal. It just seems like a win-win to me.

So take a look -- there are far worse ways to earn a few dollars online than Prolific Academic.