I’m travelling at the moment so posts to Nerdy Nomad might be a bit sparse in July and I figured I should do my best to at least start off well with my earnings report for June. I’m up from last month and just a bit short of the $2000 mark. I came in at $1970 for June and, once again, I’m pretty happy about it.

Earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $348 - This was the first month that Adsense fell in a long time. It dropped about $50 from May and I think Google’s mysterious smart pricing is to blame. My London site was the main victim and for a couple of weeks I was only earning a few cents per click on that site. I think things are back on track now though.
• Affiliate Sales - $1182 - Same old story with affiliates sales. The usual star performer is still doing well but everything else is pulling up the rear. I sold some van insurance for $60 with Clix Galore, but that’s about it.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $150 - Text Link Ads is on the decline. dropping from $145 in May to about $125 this month. I think that’s due to Travoholic.com falling from PR4 to PR3. I’m not too worried about this as it’s relatively not that big of a drop in income.
• Private Link Sales - $290 - It was a pretty bad month for link sales but I didn’t make any effort to sell them, so I can’t really complain. I had $30 worth of subscription links and a sale for $260 to a company selling travel insurance. the reason I got so much out of them is because I sold the link using UK prices and they went for it. Sweet!

I’m annoyed that I didn’t get the websites I was working on finished, but I’m hoping I can squeeze some work in over the coming weeks and have them finished before August which will be a complete write off as far as doing work goes. I had expected June to be a huge month because I thought I had $1100 in link sales lined up. It turns out that those might not come through until July, if at all, so the massive month I was expecting is just average.

July and August could potentially be writeoffs for productivity. I will try to work while I’m travelling but if I dont have wifi I might not get much done. August will certainly be work-free as I’ll have friends to host and will be filling my time with watching table tennis and weightlifting, among other things. It’ll be interesting to see if my earnings are effected. Hopefully I’ll get a nice surprise and not see any drop.

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After a freakishly amazing month in April that saw me break the $2500 mark for the first time, I’ve come back down to planet earth but still managed a good month. I earned $1874 in May which is about where I was expecting to be so I’m not too upset. A big reason for April’s record was a single link sale for nearly $800, so I’m not at all upset with the fall in income and was sort of expecting it. 

Earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $433 - This keeps going up and up and the only reason I can think of is that the traffic across all of my sites has been steadily increasing since January. Getting to the $20 a day mark has always been a big goal of mine and it’s great to see things creeping in that direction without doing much about it.
• Affiliate Sales - $924 - Hostelworld finally came through with nearly $20 this month… yay! But it was from a single sale… boo! Everything else was crap except for my usual good performer.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $165 - Nothing much to report here. Just the same steady earnings as always and I haven’t really been active in finding ways to improve this area. I guess one way would be to submit more sites but I’m not sure I have anymore that either program would be interested in at the moment.
• Private Link Sales - $352 - One of my crappiest sites mysteriously rose to PR5 and I sold a link on it for $160 for the year. I also opened up this site to accept links (bad me!) and that helped. I am owed about $280 for a sale that didn’t go through because my Paypal account was suspended but will wait until I actually get the money and then tack that onto June’s earnings. Something to give me a head start.

I’m really excited about June. For once I’ve motivated myself to do some work and I’ve got three sites on the go. One is just at the ideas stage but I plan to make it a site aimed at mobile phone users so I’m kind of interested to see how that goes. The other is a copycat of a current travel insurance site but aimed at the UK market and it’s nearly finished. I’m hoping to have it finished in a few days and will be looking for feedback. Then there’s my never ending Beijing site that I still haven’t done much work on. I am going to aim to have this done by the end of the month as well.

I don’t expect that these three projects will start paying off straight away but I’m hoping they work together to push me up above the $2000 mark consistently in the coming months and even higher by the end of the year.

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Well damn. I had my best month so far and, yet again, I didn’t seem to feel like I got any actual work done. I think there’s a pattern developing here. Maybe I do more work than I think I do? I don’t know. I seem to tinker around a lot on little things but as far as adding new content, tweaking SEO, getting inbound links and all that stuff, I don’t do any of it. I ended up earning $2568 in April but I have to be honest that $800 of that was for a yearly link on a niche site of mine.

Earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $400 - This is the second time I’ve broken the $400 mark and I’m pretty pleased to see my Adsense earnings rising consistantly. It’s one of my steadiest earners and while it’ll never come through with a surprisingly amazing month out of nowhere, it seems to always be at around what I expect and I’d rather a steady earner than a flukey one.
• Affiliate Sales - $1047 - Yet again it’s one affiliate program that keeps this earnings area afloat but another came through with some sales. It’s frustrating that the other programs aren’t doing that well but then I remember that I haven’t done a thing to help them out. If I’m still saying this in three months I need someone to give me a slap and tell me to get my act together because I know there’s a lot of potential for other affiliate programs to start working for me.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $169 - Linkworth has been stuck at $23 for months now for one link. I haven’t had any new action with them for ages. TLA is frustrating because while the number of links I have sold stays the same, the amount I’m earning seems to keep dropping little by little. I’m not sure why this is but it’s annoying.
• Private Link Sales - $952 - Like I said before, $800 of this was from one link on a niche site. The guy who bought it contacted me and we’ve done business in the past so it was all quick and easy. The rest were renewals. I’ve got a few links now that are paid automatically to Paypal monthly. These are great… they take no work once you set it up and to dat enobody has ever cancelled one of these subscription links.

It’s great to break through the $2000 barrier finally and it gives me something to aim for next month too. My goal was to be earning a steady $2000 per month by the time I start travelling again in September and I think with the new Beijing site I’m working on and some hard work over the next three months (before the debauchery of the Olympics begins) on my other sites, I’ll be able to do it. 

While my earnings have been great this month, I’ve also been spending like a crazy person. My rent and internet is paid up for the next three months though so as long as I can keep my spending under control from now on I should see my bank balance creep upwards. In theory.

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I never thought I’d become one of those people with a neglected blog but it’s happened. I would like everyone to think that just being in Bangladesh makes for a good excuse but the reality of it is that I’ve got a better internet connection here than I had in The Philippines. Nightly power cuts and working nine hour days don’t help, but they’re no excuse, dammit! I’m going to catch up on a couple of monthly earnings reports and do my best not to be so crap in the future.

February

I’m going to be a bit of a slacker and just give a total earnings report because the power has just shat itself once again and there are bugs dive bombing my computer screen and being really annoying. I earned a total of $1424 in the month which is nearly $500 less than January and I’m not happy about it but given the amount of work I’ve put in (meaning none) I can’t really complain. Actually, given the complete lack of work this month, I should be sort of happy. I am happy! Plus since I’m living in Bangladesh, the cheapest place in the known universe, and not paying any rent or food, I’m well in the black as far as my overall earning vs. spending.

March

March was total crap. My worst month since last July but I’m not too worried because, once again, I did no work. Earning $1192 for about 10 hours of work this month is a pretty good rate in my books. Plus I spent the entire month here in Bangladesh still spending nothing and have made up fpr all the money I spent in The Philippines and think I have more in the bank now than when I left home a couple months ago.

Up Ahead…

I fully recognise that my lack of work has led to a fall in income and I intend on doing something about this. The problem is that I’m heading to Malaysia to meet up with some friends and this will potentially lead to many hangovers and a lack of wifi and that means low productivity on my part. On the up side, I’ll have about three days of hiding away in a Dhaka hotel to attempt to get some things done including approaching potential advertisers and chasing up a few old ones for payment.

Other than that I think I’m going to continue with my alarming level of slackerdom until I get settled in China and then things are going to get serious. I’m going to sign off now because I can’t handle these bugs and have far too many of their guts smeared across my screen and it’s grossing me out but stay tuned for a report on my spending vs. earnings since I started my trip in mid January.

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Hello from the road! I’ve managed to have my best month ever but not by much and definitely not because I’ve been working harder. I had a freakishly good month with Adsense and overall my earnings came in at just over $1900 for January. I’ll write a post shortly once I total up all of my spending for January but it doesn’t bode well. I’ve been on a bit of a spending spree since I arrived in The Philippines but I think I should break even.

Earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $424.55 - Yay! Not only did I finally break that elusive $300 a month mark but I also somehow managed to hit $400. I have absolutely no idea why, either. I haven’t done anything differently so I guess I’ll just chalk it up to January being a good month for travel sites? The same thing happened last year. I had a huge jump from December 2006 to January 2007 and really had no clues as to what caused it. Here’s hoping it’s a trend that continues.
• Affiliate Sales - $1090.35 - I had good months with some affiliate programs that haven’t really done much in the past. Again, I haven’t done anything differently so I can’t really offer an explanation. I migh try to push these a bit more in the coming months to see if I can milk them a bit more.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $135.48 - TLA is still hugely outperforming Linkworth but both are slowly climbing upwards in their earnings. I seem to sell a couple more TLA ads per month while Linkworth seems to be forever stuck at two ads. I’ll be adding TLA to this site shortly as an experiment to see how make money online type blogs do when compared to travel blogs.
• Private Link Sales - $255 - These were all through renewals and then one guy who renewed also wanted an extra couple of links totaling $100. I didn’t pursue any new links but was contacted towards the end but people interested in buying links. These will go onto next month’s earnings though.

So all up I’m really happy. I’ve hit the road and realised that working won’t be as easy as I’d thought and that I tend not to like to work unless I’ve got a wifi connection. I don’t feel like I’ve done much since I left London in mid December but I’ve got a wifi connection for the next week in Manila and will be doing my best to put in a lot of hours and get everything caught up.

I’m due to head to Bangladesh on February 11th and won’t have a net connection for my entire time there, probably five weeks. It’ll be interesting to see what happens but I want to get as much done befor going AWOL. I’ll need to reign in my spending too and being in the boonies in Bangladesh will help with that. Keeping in mind that I’ll be away for most of February I’ll be happy if I can hit the $1800 mark again.

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Happy Year everyone! I started the year off with a crippling hangover, as usual. As usual I swore off drinking ever again and, as usual, I don’t expect that to last long. December was another step backwards by a bit but I’m still pleased overall with there I am. I earned $1605.10 in December and am happy to be staying above that $1500 a month mark. I would have cleared $2000 easily for the first time had I kept my mouth shut about a link sale but I’m happy to have learned that touch lesson and I’m not going to dwell too much on it.

Earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $268.24 - This seems to be stuck around this level and I’m not expecting it to jump up much until I build a few more sites which probably won’t happen until around April when I get to China.
• Affiliate Sales - $674.44 - I had a great month in November for affiliate sales and while I wasn’t expecting to keep that pace up, I wasn’t expecting it to drop off quite as much, either.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $106.99 - This has been pretty steady lately with a link dropped or added here and there without much predictability. I know I said I’d be keeping this site ad free but now that it’s gotten a bit busier I might try for some Text Link Ads. I’m curious to see if a site like this, about making money online, will sel links more quickly than my travel sites.
• Private Link Sales - $355 - I had about $500 worth of links up for renewal and managed $185 worth of renewals plus another $50 that a guy has yet to pay so an almost 50% renewal rate isn’t too bad, I guess. I also sold a yearly link for $170 which was my only new one.

I’ve been home for a couple weeks now and haven’t managed to work on my sites as much as I’d like (story of my life!) but I have got a few little annoying jobs done so it hasn’t been a total waste. Things are going to get interesting from here on in as I see whether working on the road is something I’ll be able to pull off and if my earnings will increase as a result.

I’ve booked my flight from Manila to Bangladesh for February 11th so I’d better get my arse into gear before I ship off to the land that the internet forgot! I think my goal for January will be to not lose or break my laptop! I don’t see myself getting much done until I settle in Beijing in April so I’ll keep my expectations low and hope for the best!

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This month has been the first time since June where I didn’t set a record with my earnings. They came in at $1648.80 for November though which I’m still really pleased with. That’s still my second best month ever and considering I was only aiming for a consistent $500 a month by December, I’m really happy to continually exceed my expectations.

Earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $276.21 - Once again I just missed the $300 mark which is frustrating but I can live with that. I’m just happy to continuously be coming close to $300.
• Affiliate Sales - $1188.37 - Another great month for affiliate sales but it’s still the same single program that’s coming through. Trade Doubler did well for me last month with around $80 in commission and that dropped off to $2 this month which is a let down. I need to find ways to get the other programs on board.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $114.22 - This is creeping up slowly without much work on my part so that’s always nice. I had two Linkworth links but one has just been cancelled. I’ve never really had much consistency from them.
• Private Link Sales - $70 - This is where my earnings took the biggest hit. I usually seem to get link sales out of the blue and I didn’t this month. Well, I got two but one of them hasn’t paid yet so I’ll roll that over to next month. I have two recurring links for $10 each as well and it’s nice to be able to count on that. Setting up monthly Paypal payments for link sales is a great way to go.

Next month will be an interesting one because I have $700 worth of private link sales that are due for renewal. I can’t believe a year has gone by since I first discovered this revenue stream! I’m curious to see how many renew, especially since my PR is now 4 instead of 5. I think December could be the month where I break through the $2000 mark if some of the links renew.

December will also be the month when I get my freedom! I don’t start travelling properly until January but I’ll be home in Canada for three weeks starting December 14th and I’ll be able to work full time on my sites. I doubt that will have an impact on my earnings until down the road but it will be interesting to see if it does.

So all in all I’l extremely happy once again and looking forward to seeing what the future holds!

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I’ve had another record month by a lot coming in at $1895.21 for October. I’m surprised with this because, while I’ve been been doing loads of work, most of my have been going towards a new site that’s not online. I haven’t really done anything to improve my active sites but earnings have still increased which is pretty surprising to me.

Here’s my earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $290.61 - Sooooo close to the $10 a day mark I desperately want to reach but I just missed it. I still had my best month by a massive $2 so that’s good. I think my new site is well set up for Adsense and I’m hoping it will bump my earnings up by $50 at least.
• Affiliate Sales - $1144.50 - My main affiliate program performed really well once again and I’m starting to rely on it as steady income whereas before I was fearful that it would crash and burn at some point. Some of my other programs came through with a few sales here and there this month too which is encouraging. Nothing major but it’s nice to see that they actually work. Hostelworld continues to suck.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $93.10 - Linkworth is a pile of poop. Text Link Ads were steady again. I’ve maxed my links on Travoholic.com and have three sold on my working holidays site which I expect to improve once I launch the new site.  I’ve just had my living in London site approved too and expect a few more sales. I’m not happy with the prices TLA have offered but for now I’ll take it.
• Private Link Sales - $367 - I have a couple links for $10 each that are on a subscription with Paypal so they come in each month with no effort. Plus I had a renewal of a six month link for $27. But the biggies were links for $120 and another for $200 that came totally out of the blue, as usual. Each month I wonder if I’ll land any big sales like these and each month something seems to pop up from nowhere.

I couldn’t really be more pleased with this month! I was expecting a drop in income since I was away for 10 days and am spending all of my time working on a new site. I think my earnings are a bit inflated due to over half of my earnings coming in currencies that are strong at the moment against the pitiful US dollar. I think it’s important to try to diversify currencies as well as income streams. So with that in mind, one of my goals for November is to snag some private link sales with British companies.

I plan to spend most of my time in November focusing on my London site. I want to move it to a better template (that is already built), add as much content as I can muster, snap lots of photos and get in contact with some potential advertisers. I’ve only got six weeks left here and I know once I’m gone my focus will shift so I really want to make it as good a resource as I can and then I’ll forget about it for a while.

I’m getting closer to that $2000 mark and with a final push I think I can get there by December. It’s strange to think that my goal for December about 6 months ago was only $500. Onwards and upwards!

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So I earned nearly $1300 in September, more than I could have ever imagined and it all feels a bit, I dunno, like I should be happier than I am. If you were to tell me a year ago that I would be earning over $1000 doing this first I would have said “Shut UP! No way!” and then I would have been giddy with excitement.

But now that I’m at this point, I just want to keep pushing for more. It seems like the more I earn, the more I want to earn which is a bit of a worry because I’ve never really been the money hungry type. While I’m still working a regular a job I consider the money earned from the web as extra cash. Now that I’m packing it in, my thoughts are less about what I’ll do with the money and more about how much I’ll need to survive and suddenly $1300 doesn’t seem like as much as it used to.

I wonder what my reaction will be if I ever start making the really big bucks. Earning $2000 is within reach and more than enough to live in the places I’ll be going but I wonder if I’ll still be left unsatisfied because I won’t be able to stash enough away into my savings. Figures like $5000 a month seem out of reach and that would be nearly twice as much as I’ve ever earned in the rat race but I wonder if, once (if) I ever reach that point I’ll still come away wanting more more more.

I think this feeling might be less about greed and more about wanting security. Being my own boss is great but if the business fails, that’s it, there’s nobody to give me a severance package. Plus I think it might have something to do with the unsteadiness of the internet world. If Google decides they don’t like my sites anymore then things will come crashing down pretty quickly. Or the internet could just all implode one day, who knows! Then there’s always the drive to succeed and do well in business. I’m pretty competitive and hearing how much others are earning drives me to try and get to that point as well.

I’m not sure how much I’ll need to be earning to feel secure. I think it has less to do with monthly earnings and more to do with how much I have in the bank though. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still utterly amazed, grateful and excited to be earning this much but if you would have told me this a year ago I would be dancing in the streets. As yet, there has been no street dancing. Talk to me when I’m raking in $5000 a month though and if I’m not dancing jigs in streets all around the world then someone track me down and give me a massive kick in the arse!

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September has topped August by just over $100 as my best month to date. My earnings came in at $1385.28 but not because of anything new I’ve tried. I think I’ve sort of neglected things a bit this month, actually.

Here’s my earnings breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $288.90 - This was my best month ever and for awhile there I thought I was going to make it to the $10 a day mark. I’m working on a site at the moment and once that’s done I expect to be earning well over $300 a month.
• Affiliate Sales - $667.32 - This was lower than I was hoping for but I’m still counting on one main affiliate program and until I can find others then I think I’ll be floating around this amount. What have I done about finding more programs? Not a thing! I’ve got to fix that.
• Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $77.06 - Linkworth only accounted for $8.40 but it’s nice to see them come back from the dead, even if it’s only one link. TLA have been steady but still no word about getting Stuck in London accepted into the program. I think it’s because it’s only a PR2.
• Private Link Sales - $332 - I had 5 out of 6 links renew for a total of $92. Getting renewals is pretty easy. My PR has since fallen from 5 to 4 but I’ve only ever had one person ask for a reduced price because of it. Getting a renewal is as easy as sending a friendly reminder email. A bit of work and I have to keep track of them but all up it’s no big deal. I was approached out of the blue from a company wanting to buy two links for $90/year on Travoholic.com’s main page. I got them up to $120/year per link so that was an easy $240 out of the blue.
• Writing - $20 - I was lazy this month and only wrote one article for my pals over at Brave New Traveler. The extra money is nice but it’s not how I expect to make my living online by any means. I’m all about residual income and making money in my sleep so writing will be something I do on the side because I enjoy it.

So all up, not only am I pleased with this month but I’m pretty amazed too. I’ve been working hard, but almost exclusively on a site that still isn’t finished. So it feels like all of my efforts are getting sucked into some black hole and until this site is launched I won’t get rewarded. So I definitely wasn’t expecting to have my best month!

A big part of this month’s success was those links I sold for $240. If they hadn’t come along it would have been just an average earnings report. It seems like I always have at least one or two nice surprises like this each month. Things just seem to pop out of nowhere right into my lap. I’ve got another sale supposedly lined up for $180 next month so if that goes through then I’ll be off to a good start.

My goals for October are to maintain this level of earnings and to get this friggin’ new site up because I’m sick of looking at it. I’ll be up in Scotland for 10 days for a wedding and some family time and I’m really curious to see if I’ll be able to sneak in any work… or if I’ll want to. It’s the first road trip for the new (used) laptop too so hopefully it doesn’t explode or anything.

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