I earned $2341 in February and with flights to Haiti to pay for and pints to buy in London, the timing couldn’t be better and I’m breathing a little sigh of relief.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $328 - More of the same with Adsense but with February being a short month, it’s actually a better result than it looks.
• Affiliate Sales - $390 - My main affiliate is continuing its downward spiral but a couple others are stepping up to the plate a bit more each month. I have ideas for how to put a push on these other two affiliates but, as always, need the time to implement.
• Advertising - $1623 - Woop woop! This month was huge for advertising with $350 in renewals, $330 in monthly payments and just over $900 in new sales. I love those emails out of the blue asking to advertise and that was what happened this time as well. It’s not predictable but when it works, it works.

I wasn’t able to do any work on my sites in February and I haven’t actually done a thing for several months since I’ve been working on my ebook so I really couldn’t be happier! I have been waiting for the passive income bubble to burst and for things to nosedive for months now and everything seems to keep chugging along as normal, always seeming to average out to my goal of around $1500 a month.

The outlook for the next several months doesn’t look great for working but, with my ebook almost finished, I will be able to dedicate my free time in Haiti to my sites instead of to writing about volunteering for hours at a time. I didn’t have much luck last time in Haiti just because the work life and play life were both so full-on but this time around I’m going to try to make a better effort.

I’m about to board my plane to London! I won’t have any time to spare while I’m in London but I will be in and around Glasgow for a week from March 5th. If anyone is around and wants to meet up, drop me a line.

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January was an improvement with earnings coming in at $1347. For the third or fourth month in a row I haven’t done much work so I’m obviously pretty happy that the money continues to roll on in. I am completely aware that I have to get back into work mode but I didn’t manage to get anything done in Kuala Lumpur and won’t be able to do much until the end of February when I leave Indonesia for London.

Oh ya! I bought a ticket to London for March 1st. The plan is to head there to attempt to get a visa for Pakistan and, if that doesn’t work out, I will probably head to Haiti. The Pakistan plan is good for working online and I’m hoping it works out. The Haiti plan isn’t so good for web work but it’s too tempting not to go. Either way I will have something interesting to keep me busy for a few months.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $319 - Yay! Adsense is back over $300 after a scary month in December. January started as a slow month which was a bit of a worry, especially since in past years January has usually seen my Adsense earnings jump up a lot. It’s not at $500 where I want it, but it’s moving in the right direction.
• Affiliate Sales - $498 - My main affiliate program is still sucking but others are stepping up finally. I’ve set up some programs on my moving to London site which are a perfect fit and the early results are promising. I have a couple more products from the same company to add so hopefully that will be what bumps me up to above $500 consistently.
• Advertising - $530 - It was a month mostly of renewals and I also did a few new deals for monthly payments. I have stopped pursuing direct advertising but I’m still always open to it so it’s nice that people are still coming to me occasionally.

January was good and February will probably be more of the same until I get off my arse and get some serious amounts of work done. The good part is I have the sites built, I just need to dedicate a lot of time to building links and attempting to get them into Google.

But that’s for March… in the meantime it’s more of the same in Sumatra, Indonesia. We’ve moved onto building houses and I get to play with a circular saw which is fun and it’s nice to be building houses instead of destroying them.

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I will keep this short because I’m on the world’s most frustrating net connection at the moment and I need to get offline soon so I don’t go insane. December was a pretty bad month for earnings coming in at $1111. I didn’t do much web work last month but in past months I was still able to earn a decent amount despite being a slacker. It is starting to look like I will need to put some serious graft in soon to stop things from slipping further. I’m still not spending much money though so at least I have that.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $227 - This is scary. Adsense has been the one steady thing with me being able to count on over $300 a month. But things are looking better in January already so I’m hoping December was a blip.
• Affiliate Sales - $300 - My main affiliate program sucked more than ever but some others have picked up a bit of the slack. Still, earnings in this area seem to be dropping and dropping. I have a plan but I don’t have the time to work on it until I get back to Kuala Lumpur in early February.
• Advertising - $584 - This month started out pretty bad in this area as well but things picked up due to some late deals.

I’m actually surprised I cleared a grand this month as things were looking terrible up until last week. I’m not spending much money at the moment but that will all change once I hit South Africa during the World Cup so these low-earning months are a bit of a concern. But I can hardly expect to make money without working for it so I have only myself to blame. I’m happy to earn less and spend less for now but once I leave Sumatra in March-ish, I will need to have another plan. But I’ll worry about it then.

Happy New Year everyone!

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I earned $1560 this month which, for doing a grand total of zero hours of work on my sites, I’m really happy with. My target earnings per month is $1500 so being able to earn that while leaving my sites unattended has proven to me that this really is passive income. The best part about earning $1500 is that I have spent about $100 in
the month I’ve been here so most of that money is headed straight for
my ailing bank account.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $334 - Another drop in Adsense but I have a bunch of sites completed that could bump this up if I’m ever able to get them going. I really need to focus on building links and getting my sites into the search engines because, at the moment, they’re nowhere to be seen.
• Affiliate Sales - $380 - My main affiliate program is on the way out and I haven’t got anything going at the moment to replace it. I have some affiliate sites up and ready to go but I need to do a lot of SEO before they’ll start paying off.
• Advertising - $846 - This was made up of my usual $400-ish of monthly subscription payments along with a new, six month deal with an advertiser on my moving to London site. The new advertiser is a perfect fit and I’ve set up a few affiliate programs with them too that I think my site’s readers will find really useful.

I have all the sites in place I think I will need to kick my earnings up to the next level but, as I’ve mentioned, I need to spend a lot of time doing SEO to get visitors and get them earning. It’s impossible to get much work done in Indonesia due to a terrible internet connection and unreliable power so there’s not much I can do about it for now. I’m heading to Kuala Lumpur today to eat hamburgers, have hot showers, drink mocha frappuccinos and do some work for a week and SEO will be my focus. I have about seven new sites that need attention but I’m going to focus on two and see if I can get things going a bit in the week I have.

I’m loving it here in Indonesia but I’m in need of a break. I’ve been sick for the past week and I’m looking forward to having my own room, a decent net connection, a western toilet and eating lots of yummy food.The work here isn’t too physically demanding but the hot and/or rainy weather makes it challenging. Plus, while I like the food, I’m in need of some variety, namely green vegetables that haven’t been boiled to death.

Next time I write I will be in KL stuffing my face!

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October was an awesome month coming in at $2230, and just at the right time! My time in Canada should have been pretty cheap, given that I have been living rent-free. The reality is that I had to renew my Canadian passport and driver’s license, get a bunch of jabs for my Africa travels, pay off my creditcard that was loaded with World Cup tickets, buy another round of travel insurance, buy a flight to Asia, pick up a bunch of supplies for my volunteering stint, drink beer with friends and lots of little things. So, in short, I arrived back home with creditcard debt and still needing to pay for a lot of things. Now that October has been so good, I’m back to saving money again instead of spending it. It feels great!

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $400 - After a dip in earnings in September I’m back up above the $400 mark and I’m hoping to stay here. Once again my good month was more due to them paying out more per click than with me getting more site traffic and clicks. The encouraging thing is that the site that’s doing well this month is different from the one that did so well in August. If I can get paid well for both sites at once I should have a huge month. I’ve also just launched my living in New York website and I expect it to eventually do as well as my London site that earns about $200 on a good month. It’ll take awhile to get to that point but I’m actively working at it.
• Affiliate Sales - $610 - I discovered early this month that I had been earning quite well for about six months with affiliate programs I had on Tradedoubler without knowing it. I was looking forward to another good month with these programs but I only had a single sale with them in October. Go figure. My other two affiliates are still pumping along though and had another decent month. If I can get the Tradedoubler and Clixgalore programs working for me I will be in good shape. I’ve launched four new super niche, affiliate websites with that goal in mind.
• Advertising - $1220 - This is where things really picked up for me. I had a big yearly ad sale for almost $600 which was a huge boost. The thing I’m most excited about though is that I now have $370 worth of monthly Paypal subscription payments coming in which takes a bit of the guesswork out of how much I will earn in advertising each month and takes some of the pressure off. I’m just hoping nobody cancels anytime soon so I can bump this up to $500 per month.

I’m excited about this month’s earnings, mostly because my three main revenue streams all seem to be earning around a steady $400 a month. I want to be able to count on $1500 per month and I want it to come from $500 in Adsense, $500 in affiliate sales and $500 in advertising. I’m not quite there yet but I feel like I’ve put in enough work since I’ve been home to point me in the right direction.

The problem now is that I could be offline for awhile so I won’t be able to do the SEO stuff I need to do for awhile. Either way I’m happy with where my earnings are and I’m really happy with the stuff I got done while I’ve been home and I’m curios to see whether taking a break from the net will cause everything to crash and burn or not.

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This month I earned $1309. I still haven’t seen many results for my recent efforts so I’m hoping things keep improving from here on in. My Adsense earnings fell but a good month for selling advertising bumped me up.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $298 - Last month I got all excited because my Adsense had jumped above $400 and now it’s back down to its usual earnings range. As I build more and more sites this should be going up and up and up and it isn’t. Frustrating. If I keep building links to my new sites I expect this to rise eventually.
• Affiliate Sales - $609 - For a variety of reasons which I will go into later, my usual affiliate isn’t coming through in quite the same way as it used to. I think it could be on the way out but I’m going to milk that cash cow for as long as I can. Fortunately an affiliate I have through ClixGalore had its best month ever and I will be working at improving this even further.
• Advertising - $402 - I’m going to start calling this revenue stream ‘advertising’ instead of ‘link sales’. It’s been a really good month in this category and it would have been $140 better had I been paid on time for a renewal of ad sales. I had a great sale that will be monthly from here on in and I also had a few small renewals which is encouraging.

One thing that has changed for the better in September is that I have advertisers contacting me out-of-the-blue again. This usually seems to happen two or three times per month but it didn’t really happen much at all this summer. September was good and October is looking to be even better. I have already made a huge ad sale plus I have some big renewal possibilities so I’m hoping for a big month. I plan to be on the road again by the end of October so it would be a great time for a boost in earnings!

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I earned $1174 in August which, once again, is a step in the wrong direction. Boo! I have been trying some new things and have yet to see any results but it is early days.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $415 - Adsense has snuck up another $45 from last month which is great news again since it really seems to be the only thing rising at the moment! Again it was due to an increase in the amount paid per click but my actually clicks have also jumped up as well. I am expecting be things from Adsense if these new sites of mine ever stop sucking.
• Affiliate Sales - $567 - Nothing new to report here. I think I will dedicate a week in September to adding all these affiliates I have in mind. I have some pretty targeted number one search results in Google that would feed nicely into affiliate sales so I will work on setting that up. Affiliate programs make my brain hurt.
• Linkworth - $0 - I have finally given Linkworth the boot.
• Private Link Sales - $172 - I made one new sale on the last day of August but the guy hasn’t paid me yet so that doesn’t count. All of the others were renewals. It’s good to people start renewing again after a few months of lots of cancellations.
• Article Contributions - $20 - I wrote an article for 2 Camels and got some cashola for my efforts. I have two more of those up my sleeve for this month and might produce another couple of articles for Location Independent as well. I like writing this sort of stuff and it’s a great way to make a bit of extra cash.

I’m happy to report that I have been spending a lot of time behind my computer adding content and building links. Time will tell whether the things I’m working on will pay off I’m happy to be putting in the long hours again. I love the work and I’ve got a sweet little setup in ‘The Dungeon’ aka my parent’s basement. It’s looking like I will be spending Spetember here in Canada, trying not to spend much, working on my sites and planning my next move.

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July was a bit better coming in at $1400 which is encouraging except that the only difference between last month and this month is due to a flurry of link renewals. I’m happy about earning a bit more but I don’t really see this month as a step forward at all.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $372 - Yay Adsense jumped up by nearly $100, primariy due to a serious increase in earnings per click on some sites. The number of clicks is almost exactly the same but the amount per click for some sites has been huge compared to previous months. This isn’t really something I can control or predict but I hope the trend continues.
• Affiliate Sales - $625 - Affiliate sales saw a little bit more balance between them, but is still dominated by one. I sold four of Matt’s ebooks despite not giving it a glowing, sales pitchy review which was good to see.
• Linkworth - $10 - I thought my only remaining link had cancelled and I removed it but still got paid. Maybe it means that next month I won’t get paid. For $10… it doesn’t really matter either way.
• Private Link Sales - $377 - Due mostly to renewals, this was good this month and is what pushed me above the $1000 mark of last month. It seems like $1000 is my steady amount and that going above this depends on how many links I sell. I don’t like that, it makes me nervous especially since I only had one new link sale and next month I don’t have many potential renewals.

I have been spending a lot of time since arriving in New York on working on a site about the city similar to my London site and I’m hoping to have that more or less finished by the time I leave here on August 9th.

That will mean that when I get back to Canada the real work will start on trying to get some of these new sites of mine ranking with Google. It’s frustrating having four newish sites doing absolutely nothing for me. If and when these things ever kick in, that will be when I think I will see a jump up to the next level of base earnings. Maybe. Hopefully. We’ll see.

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Bah to June! More of the same. I came in at just over $1000 which is twice as much as I’m spending but I’m getting sort of sick of being stuck around this amount. I had this problem when I first started out, not being able to get above the $100 mark for ages and then getting stuck at $300 for awhile too.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $275 - Adsense is also floating around at the same spot. This month is looking up though plus I have a bunch of websites that I think will do well with Adsense that I’m working on getting into the SERPs.
• Affiliate Sales - $684 - My living in London site is getting a lot of traffic these days and I think it’s about time I load it up with some affiliate programs. I have a few that are good matches and I’m curious to see if I can make them work.
• Linkworth - $10 - For $10 a month I’m not sure why I risk the possible backlash from Google. I think I will give them the heave-ho at th eend of this month.
• Private Link Sales - $30 - No new ads and a few cancellations. I haven’t really been pursuing link sales as I’ve been wanting to move away from them but I still really need them to pad my income so I might stop being so passive in this area.

I’m hoping these new sites I’ve built will show up in the Google results soon. Plus I’m still waiting for my living in Sydney site to get any Google love at all which is frustrating because I know that will turn into a nice little earner when it does. I plan to put some serious time into link building for them once I get back to Managua in a week.

I think these past few months have been evidence of the fact that I didn’t do much work at all earlier in the year. I’ve been playing catch up since I’ve been in Nicaragua as best as I can and am feeling pretty positive about the sites I’ve just launched and the projects I have on the go. Roll on July!

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May came in at $1427 which was a relief after a couple of sub $1000 months in a row. My plans to spend some time living in New York in the autumn are shaping up so I will need to get my earnings up a lot so it’s good to finally see a step in the right direction!

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $284 - Adsense is creeping up slowly from some pitiful months I’ve had recently and, as usual, I have no idea why. I’m hoping to keep earning at least $300 or around there for the next wee while until my newer sites start to show up in Google and hopefully add to the total.
• Affiliate Sales - $673 - Same ol’, same ol’.
• Linkworth - $10 - Not much to say… one advertiser cancelled. I might just  nix these guys altogether.
• Private Link Sales - $370 - Links sales totaled $370 with most of the money coming from people who contacted me early in the month. A few people cancelled their links
• Writing - $90 - I wrote up four articles for another blog and raked in a bit of extra cash which was pretty helpful.

On Friday I’m leaving the sweet-ass farm that I’ve been on for a month and heading off into the middle of nowhere in the north of Nicaragua to study Spanish for a few more weeks. No electricity at all there… should be very interesting. At $130 a week for food, accommodation and four hours of one-on-one Spanish lessons, it will be another pretty cheap stint. I think it will be tough for me to be away from the net for a couple of weeks and I’m curious to see how I cope.

Sorry this post is a bit short and crap but I’m having some electricity problems at the moment and have a lot of work to do with very little battery charge and no way to recharge it today. Ah the challenges of working on the road!

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