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Passive Income Update – Passive Income Quest

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Break Over

After about six weeks of straight work on Passive Income
Quest and an unfortunate incident with Google AdSense I decided to take a week
off.

About a week ago I got a breakup letter from Google AdSense. It’s your basic, “it’s you, not me” kind of a deal with no actual explanation of why. They only offered a referral to their top 10 offenses that get people booted list.

Anyway, no sense in worrying about it. Like when someone breaks up with you and you go…”ok,” and move on. I’m sure that’s how everyone handles it. So, as we used to say, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone. 😊

Media.net is the website’s new mistress. I’m not sure how it’ll
go but hooking up with her was way easier than Google AdSenese.

Now that I’m back let’s review the passive income progress.

  • Ad Revenue from AdSense: $0
  • Etsy, Redbubble, and Shutterstock: $0
  • Affiliates: $0
  • Investments: $22.61/mo. (TGT (x20), T (x50), PG (x13), XOM (x25)) — Aside from the expected dividends the stocks themselves have gained 8.99% (aggregate, unrealized gains) from their original price (cost basis). So far, the investments have been the most reliable and least work.
  • P2P Lending: $11.65/mo. — I’ve said it before but it’s still worth noting. I’m not taking the riskier notes; just staying with the A credit ratings is pretty reliable and around 7%.
  • Bank interest: $24.75/mo. — This one is variable of course, depending on how much is in the savings and IRAs. Just before I took a break, I wrote about switching over to Ally with its 2.2% interest rate on savings and IRAs (not to mention it’s 12-month CDs at 2.75%). This is a zero-risk way to make some additional passive income.
  • Credit card rewards: $49.58/mo. — Again, this one is variable depending on how much you spend per month and I don’t have enough data to determine a yearly average. So, after the first month of using my new Capital One Venture card which offers 2% rewards. So, kind of a heavy month for us because we also paid for the next four years’ worth of furnace maintenance. Part of the spending has to do with the fact that the 50k point bonus requirement is spending $3k in the first three months. No problem here and that’s effectively worth $500.
  • Other: $5-9/mo. — This is from the post about free passive income. I said it wouldn’t be much and here we are. After about two weeks LoadTeam has made me a dollar and Presearch has made me about 56 PRE (converts to about $3.50 USD at the moment). Qmee appears to be completely useless unless you take their surveys. However, the surveys (if there are any for you) are not worth the time. I’ll give it a bit longer but I’m probably done with Qmee. Oh, and rewards from Bing could be about $3/mo.
  • Current Total: $117.09

What we’ve learned so far.

Affiliate programs are not a good source of income for a passive income blog (at least in the beginning). They don’t seem to connect very well or it could just be that not enough people read this blog to get the occasional conversion (where someone uses the link to buy the product which makes me a commission).

Advertising with AdSense; this may also have to do with low
traffic but so far has made nothing (despite the encouraging estimated income).
We’ll see if Media.net is any better.

Blogging. This makes you no money unless you can monetize it. Ads and affiliates have made no money for the blog this year. Also, the virtual tip jar remains empty. I see that it gets some views every once in a while, but no donations yet. I’ve had a couple of issues with Facebook while attempting to get into social media and I’ll probably try again to see if I can get better visibility. Twitter has helped; I’ve nearly doubled followership in the past month with it. I’m still looking for critical mass on social media though. I even got set up with Pinterest but I feel like it’s not quite the right social venue for passive income though. Perhaps if I was making passive income related arts and crafts.

Etsy, Shutterstock, and Redbubble – no action yet. Shutterstock and Redbubble give me no information as to whether my items have been seen or not. Etsy shows me how many visitors I’ve had to the shop and how many products they’ve viewed. So, at least with Etsy, I can see that people are looking at my products. Unless you’re a photographer or graphic designer, you likely won’t make money with Redbubble or Shutterstock. Etsy however, could be a good avenue for your handmade goods. Consider this, you have a niche website all about knitting hats for cats with cancer. Use your website to advertise for your cat hats.

P2P Lending has been working pretty steadily for me. If there’s an issue that I have, it might just be that in times where the economy is doing pretty good. I have a harder time finding notes that fit what I’m trying to purchase. Overall though, I have no complaints. It’s easy to get into and provides steady returns.

Investing – caveat emptor.
This isn’t for everyone but if you have a pretty good idea of what you’re doing
and you’re in it for the long run you can do pretty well. Don’t try to time the
market and use dollar cost averaging. If you’re buying for passive income,
stick to stocks that have a dividend. Investing has, by far, made me the most passive
income in my lifetime.

Banking and Credit cards. Interest from savings accounts is by far your least risky way to make passive income. You probably won’t beat inflation but at least you won’t lose your shirt. If you also happen to spend a lot of money be sure you’re using a credit card with your highest reward potential. Always pay off your credit card monthly; if you can’t afford to do it, don’t use the credit card just to get the points. Also, if you don’t like the terms of your current credit card, you can always call them and ask them to lower your interest rate if you carry a balance.

Other free passive income with LoadTeam, Bing, and Presearch. I said that it wouldn’t make much but it is making a little. I’d estimate that LoadTeam is producing about $2/mo. Presearch is making a few dollars, and Bing should produce a $5 gift card in about four more weeks. So, if things continue the way they have it could be $5-8/mo. However, I’m not doing anything more than I would have been doing already.


Categories: Advertising, Blogging, Credit Card Rewards, increasing traffic, Interest, investing, Not Passive Income, P2P Lending, Review, The Quest, writing

Tags: ad revenue, Affiliates, Blogging, investing, P2P Lending, passive income, update



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