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Side Hustle Income Report

Final 2018 Side Hustle Income Report & Month 12

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more information.

Happy new year!

It’s the final side hustle income report of 2018 AND my 2018 wrap up post!

Rest of the year’s reports:

Amazon Finally got back to me with a cryptic message (albeit from a seemingly real person) basically saying “suck it.” You can read more in my Merch category but if you don’t make it that far just know I am totally done with them.

As always, I only include income that’s deposited into my account so sometimes it’s from stuff I did a while ago but none of it is speculative. If you want more ideas on making money at home you can grab the list of work-from-home jobs I started with by entering your deets below.

Airbnb: $924.41

We’re back baby! It was very nice to see our Airbnb income pay for our mortgage again after several months of being dismal.

In December we were booked 24 nights over 11 stays.  We charged $35-$46 per night and a $12 cleaning fee. The room is in the front of the house and we let the people use the spare bathroom privately.

I highly recommend Airbnb to monetize unused space. It’s fun to meet new people and easy because you’re never too far if something goes wrong. If you want to get started, sign up through this link and you’ll help us earn a little extra too!

T-Shirts: $90.70

This is all from Etsy. This is what I anticipate my monthly T-Shirt income to be moving forward. My view is everything that comes is a blessing because I’m not putting any effort in.

Books: $1418.11

Amazon Kindle has been increasingly great to work with and I can’t say enough good things about it. These are my book earnings from October. I sold 444 copies of The No-Spend Challenge Guide and 24 copies of Meal Planning on a Budget.

NSCG and MPOAB are both on sale and NSCG is free to Prime members through Prime Reading now through March! So if you have Prime you should check it out!

I’ve paused the ad for NSCG because of the Prime Reading promo but my ads since July have netted an extra $432.66 which is $8.37 over last month.

Mystery Shopping: $10

We did one restaurant shop in November that was paid out in December.

If you want to learn more about mystery shopping you can read my post about it.

Blog: $179.53

  • $19.54 from Amazon Associates
  • $99.06 from Other Affiliates
  • $60.93 from the Financial Freedom Planner

To put this in perspective, I had 24,088 page views per month from 17,217 sessions (or 1.4 pages per session) and I have 2,131 active email subscribers. I did nothing to get traffic to the blog but I was featured in several articles on Time Magazine so that helped. I have a lot of pins on Pinterest and one of them is the third to pop up when you search “pay off debt.”

Travis’ Side Job: $74.34

Next year I won’t add this to the income report because taxes are already taken out of it and it’s not really my income to report. But this was a nice treat this month!

Total: $2,697.09

Total Passive Income: $1,688.23 (56% to $3K per month goal)

Expenses:

  • Book Ads: $12.99
  • Etsy Seller Fees: $1.65
  • New Theme: $31
  • New domain Transfer: $157

Total: $202.64

Set aside for taxes: $548

December Grand Total: $1946.45

AND NOW…. Full totals for 2018

After every record I’ll do a quick recap of the year (so you don’t have to look back through every month) and tell you our plans for the future with it.

Airbnb: $10,522.41

In 2018 we were booked 253 of 365 nights. That’s a 78% occupancy rate. We charged between $30-$46 per night and made $900 in just cleaning fees.

We’ll continue to do Airbnb through April and take a break for at least 4-6 months.

I thought we’d be totally done but we recently had guests who stayed with a couple and a baby and they LOVED it. So we’re considering continuing it depending on the temperament of our baby but we wouldn’t open up again before October.

If you want to get started, sign up through this link and you’ll help us earn a little extra too!

T-Shirts: $11,888.03

Despite everything that happened this year, it was a good year. So whether Amazon keeps me frozen or opens me back up, I’m thankful for what I’ve got.

We used most of this to buy an RV to fix and flip and we’ll be listing it for sale at the end of January so even though this income didn’t turn out to be sustainable, because I diversified, I don’t lose anything.

Books: $11,306.99

In 2018 we gave away over 5,000 and sold over 5,100 copies of The No-Spend Challenge Guide and Meal Planning on a Budget. That means over 10K have chosen my books! I am floored and honored.

Amazon Kindle has been so good to me. I’ve been in Great on Kindle and they’ve run 2 specials on my book. I’ve also been selected for a Prime Reading special.

Moving forward I’ll be riding this wave and writing my next book over the summer for an early fall release. I’ll also be releasing a combo of all my books with audiobook!

Mystery Shopping: $127

Mystery shopping is obviously something we do for fun that just happens to produce a little profit. Going forward we’ll continue to do them when we feel like it but it won’t stay on the next iteration of income reports.

If you want to learn more about mystery shopping you can read my post about it.

Blog: $2,220.18

This is on an average of 15,265 page views per month from 11,833 sessions (or 1.29 pages per session) and less than 2,000 email subscribers.

I think there’s a direct correlation to how much I make with how many newsletter subscribers I have. I also saw an increase in base monthly income after I launched my first digital product, The Financial Freedom Planner.

In 2019 I’ll be doubling down my efforts in this category. my goal is to make this number in one month. I think it’ll be possible if I can increase my email subscribers. I’d love to add 1,000 readers every month putting me at 14,000 by the end of the year.

Travis’ Side Job: $1263.34

It goes to show that little things add up. Even if you’re just casually doing extra things you can afford a really nice vacation or a home repair by doing that!null

2018 After Tax Running Total: $29,231.56

What’s next for the Side Hustle Income Report?

They’re not going anywhere! But instead of doing them monthly I’ll be doing them every other month and only reporting income made online. So that includes the blog, printables, and books.

You’ll be seeing the next income report in March and subsequent reports in May, July, Sept, Nov, and next January. This’ll give me more space to keep these consistent once baby comes and to focus on posts that are more focused to minimalism and frugality.

The reports will look very similar to these but I’ll be able to expand on particular topics and deep dive into them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these and I’ll see you in March with the first 2019 Online Side Hustle Income Report!

This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. I am over 55 years old and have had a really bad experience trying to do surveys. I do not quality for many Medical Surveys, as I do not have the disease they are interested in. I have spent hours and hours filling out the starter questions, only to be told I do not qualify. I get 20 or 30 sent a day, but have not received any income from three months invested in filling out the survey forms. Is there something else I can do from home without telephone work?

    1. Hey Barbara. I agree surveys are not the best way to make extra money. I have a list of some better ways to make money, some are at home some aren’t, over here at this link: modernfrugality.com/ways-to-make-extra-money/

  2. Nearly $30k I’m profit from almost all passive sources is FI for most. If we didn’t include our kids, our monthly expenses would only be $2,200 per month. Great job!

  4. This is so incredibly impressive! I especially like how diversified your side hustle income is. I get nervous when people get 98% of their income from Amazon or something like that.

    Did you have any book writing experience before you wrote those 2 e-books? Do you have any suggestions for getting started in that area?

    Thanks for posting. I love your podcast!

    1. Thanks Margot! I’m always trying to diversify. I know our city could stop us from doing Airbnb and Kindle poachers just took a hit at my book that took it off kdp for 3 days! Never safe to rely on one place for all your income.

      I had no book experience but I did a lot of research before I launched. I like self-publishing school (didn’t take the course), kindleprenuer, and anything from SJ Scott. They all really helped!

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