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Income Report – November, 2017

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Every month I publish our income reports. These are a “behind the curtains” look at how much Wallet Squirrel (Andrew & Adam) make online. As well as what we do with it.

Typically Adam takes his share of our extra monthly income and pays off his debt and Andrew (me) uses his portion to invest in stocks.

This is great for YOU because we’re covering both major forms of personal finance as we’re writing about both saving and investing. Ying and Yang if you will.

Cool Stuff We Covered In November

Andrew got excited about stocks

Adam’s rocked personal finance and productivity

During November, Our Side Hustles Earned Money

This month we didn’t have any big affiliate sales, which is fine, but hurt our monthly income. We only made $89.57 which is 47% decrease from last month’s $171.10. Graphically, this is how it breaks down.

A few cents shy of $90 which for some reason feels like so much more. Still cool that we made $89.57 from these:

$24.10 – Dividends
$23.94 – Cashback Credit Card
$14.95 – Seeking Alpha Articles
$12.50 – Ebates
$5.17 – Wallet Squirrel AdSense
$3.62 – Lending Club
$3.31 – Stock Photography
$1.39 – Interest Checking/Savings Account
$0.59 – Wallet Squirrel Affiliate Marketing

All of these totals are small. Like really small, but they add up. Most of these are passive incomes, so we’ll continue to do everything we can to build these up!

Anyone notice that my dividend stock portfolio made the most money out of all these passive income streams?

What Do We Do With That $89.57?

Wallet Squirrel is unique in that we show you where all of our money goes. That $89.57 is my portion of our extra monthly income so it goes towards investing and my portfolio, found here. In particular, I bought 1 share of Disney earlier this month as I explained in my article talking about how Disney will soon rock streaming TV.

Adam uses his portion of our extra side income to help pay down his house mortgage and student loans. His goal is to be debt free while mine is to invest and buy more stocks. Both good ideas!

Let’s Talk Goals for Next Month

Did I mean last month’s (October’s) goals? – Yes

Considering I left my goal mysterious, it wasn’t hard to beat. However, that mysterious excitement was about the Epic Niche Site Battle I’m doing in 2018. I think I have an idea of the niche site to build, but I’m still trying to nail down a domain name. It’s surprisingly hard.

December Goals

I am REALLY trying to nail down that domain name and think through on my process because once January 1st hits. I need to be going full stream on the new niche site! Remember this is a competition and I’m using everything I know to build a niche site so strong, it becomes sentient and runs itself. #goals

Income Report – October, 2017

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Wahoo, I get both Halloween this week as well as writing my October Income Report. This income report shows a full transparency of everything I made this month from all the side-hustles on Wallet Squirrel. Everything we make, we invest to show that you can create an entire retirement portfolio from just extra ways to earn money.

What We Accomplished in October

Andrew wrote some sweet articles

  • The Perfect Blog Post Image Size to help you share your blog post on social media. We never had a consistent image size for Wallet Squirrel posts, so this article helped create some consistency for a future post. If you see our homepage or social media posts, you’ll see it turned out well.
  • After hearing about a new stock on Motley Fool, I did some research and checked out Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) to see what they did and analyze their stock for future consideration in my portfolio.
  • Does anyone else get anxious about tipping and judging people based on how well they serve you? I wrote “I Hate Tipping, It Ruins my Budget and Anxiety” because I totally do. I now pay wait staff 20% regardless of the service so I don’t feel like a dick for under-tipping or over tip and break my wallet.

Adam also wrote some great articles

  • He checked out our favorite income bloggers on the web and created the September Income Report Round Up of how much our favorite bloggers made in the month of September
  • Adam frustrated with bad spending habits wrote: “9 Bad Spending Habits that are Killing Your Budget“. I’ll admit I used to be victim to some of these, what about you?
  • Since Amazon is looking for new cities around the US to host their new Amazon headquarters, Adam took a look at Denver as a possibility and how that would affect our cities economy and housing market.

Any favorites?

Income Report – October 2017

We had such a great month last month, so I knew we couldn’t keep it up, but I was still surprised we did so well. We brought in $171.10 in October which is WAY better than our old average of $60 and it wasn’t from any one source. It was a combination of all our different revenue streams that continue to grow. That’s REALLY exciting.

These are all great income sources, but nothing really sticks out as the major money maker. Since all of these are balancing out, maybe it’s time for me to start looking into creating another affiliate marketing website and track its progress on Wallet Squirrel. What do you think?

Here are the sources of income for October.

$50 – Paid link, someone paid me to add a link to an old article. It worked well.
$45.00 – Bluehost Affiliate Income
$21.30 – Robinhood App Affiliate Program
$16.90 – Seeking Alpha Articles
$11.48 – Cashback Credit Card
$10.00 – Dividends
$4.45 – Stock Photography
$4.27 – Wallet Squirrel AdSense
$3.75 – Lending Club
$1.91 – Wallet Squirrel Affiliate Marketing
$1.39 – Interest Checking/Savings Account

Where does that $171.10 go?

A majority of that $171.10 goes toward building a $10 million dollar retirement portfolio of dividend stocks. A few of those dollars are spent to pay for our website services and website goals. Since most of it goes to my retirement portfolio though, I used it to buy more stocks, specifically more positions in Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Realty Income (O).  Wahoo!

Let’s Talk Goals

Did I meet last month’s (October) goals? – Kinda

I was supposed to set up a Pinterest Process, but I think I just created a process on CoSchedule for my Pinterest Boards along with joined a few other boards on Pinterest and Facebook Pinterest Groups. Yes that’s apparently a thing and they are SUPER friendly, try it!

November Goals

It’s a secret, I will share later this month!!!! =)

September Round Up – Our Favorite Income Reports From Around the Web

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September Round Up – Our Favorite Income Reports From Around the Web

Today we take a look around the internet of our favorite income reports from around the web. These articles bring together seven to ten bloggers to see what they did in the past month. Some of these people will be fresh for this month while others will be regulars.

The point of this article is for all of us to learn what other bloggers are doing to bring in income each month. Hopefully, you will find something new to increase your own income next month.

Speaking of increasing income, Andrew had his best month ever in September!  He brought in $368.91 during the month. Check out his income report to see how he accomplished it and give him a congratulations comment at the bottom.

Here we go with this month’s featured bloggers!

 

Pat Flynn – $140,866.38 (August 2017)

Pat posts his income reports a little later than I post this round up so we are going to look at his September numbers.

The difference between Pat’s July and August numbers really show how the launch of a new product can really boost your numbers. In July, Pat’s income was more than $300k, which is insane! In August, he came back to Earth (a little bit) making $140,866.38.

July was so successful because of his new course, Power-Up Podcasting. This course brought in $243,332.00 in one month! In August it brought in $52,477.00. Still really good returns but nothing compared to July.

 

Michelle Schroeder – $113,267.08 (September 2017)

Michelle has had another month of steady income at right around the $115k range. Since she has laid out such a strong foundation, she does not have to work as hard on her blog. She has been working only about 10 hours a week allowing a virtual assistant to help her with time-consuming tasks.

Michelle is an inspiration for me because she is where I want to get with blogging. Reading her blog gives us insight into what all of the time and hard work put into our very own blog will pay off to be.

Andrew, I, and you will get there. We just need to keep pushing forward and working hard like Michelle did.

Alexis – FITnancials – $4,018 (September 2017)

Alexis is a newcomer to the income round up. I found her because she is actually Michelle Schroeder’s sister.

I find Fitnancials interesting because the maturity of the site seems very similar to what Wallet Squirrel is. Which makes me want to work harder on our monthly income as Alexis brought in over $4k for the month of September. We should be doing something similar.

Most of her monthly income comes from sponsored posts, affiliate income, add revenue, free products, and being a virtual assistant.

Alexis mentions she might stop creating the monthly income reports. To her I say, for selfish reasons, don’t. Reading income reports is something I really enjoy and it would be sad to lose yours to read every month.

Bobby Hoyt – Millennial Money Man – $15,551.47 (September 2017)

Bobby made an impressive $15,551.47 in September. This amount is impressive because he only makes his income from affiliate marketing, advertisement, staff writing, and digital marketing.

Even though Bobby is not as diverse with his income sources such as Pat Flynn, he really does well for himself. He could expand out his digital marketing business but does not because he enjoys the lifestyle he has now. I respect him for this decision. There needs

I highly respect him for this decision. Everyone should shoot for a healthy work/life balance. Life is not only about money when you don’t get to enjoy your family as well.

Lanny and Bert – Dividend Diplomats – $200.49 (September 2017 Side Hustle Report)

Here goes the same monthly spiel about why I like to follow Lanny and Bert’s adventure for two reasons. One, they are two best friends seeking financial freedom just like Andrew and I. Second, you can get two different perspectives on dividend investing from one place!

Even though I will probably never change that opener, I will change what income we look at from Lanny and Bert, side hustles! The two have only just recently begun to track and report their side hustle income so it will be fun to see how it develops in the future.

Lanny and Bert mainly made their income from cash back programs such as eBates (see Andrew’s review here), Swagbucks, and Ibotta (see my review here). They also made a good amount from selling unwanted stuff that was cluttering up their homes. They must have read my getting rid of distractions article. 😀

If you are curious about what side hustles that might work for you, check out our Ways to Make Money page.

 

 

Keith Park – DivHut – $867.42 (September 2017)

As always, Keith had another solid month of dividend income. He gained $867.42 in the month of September compared to $658.22 in August.

I would suggest you head over to his post to read his wise words about the stock market as it continues to climb to all-time highs. In short, he says that people have been saying that it will correct to a normal level for over two years now with all of the, “potential monkey wrenches thrown at this market, yet it continues to chug along.” That correction will come, it is something that should be accepted. But it will continue it cycle and bounce back. That is what the market does and you should trust the long game of the market.

I can’t do his wise words justice about not panicking over what analysts are saying so I suggest you read for yourself.

Keith has a very nice and clean strategy to gaining extra income from dividends. Andrew has also written up what his strategy is in his My Dividend Investing Strategy.

Outcomes

Based on what Keith is saying this month. Instead of investing in one area for your income. I always recommend diversifying where your income is coming from. You never know when one source will crash and stop producing income. This is why I am glad to see Lanny and Bert reaching out to different side hustles for more income.

If you are looking to diversify your income sources more. Check out our Ways to Earn More Money page. Here Andrew and I personally review as many different ways to earn extra money as we can to help you decide if it is right for you.

Income Report – September, 2017

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I love these monthly income reports because they show a full transparency of everything we make from all our side-hustles on Wallet Squirrel. Everything we make, we invest to show that you can create an entire retirement portfolio from just extra ways to make money.

So let’s start.

We Accomplished Tons in September

Andrew wrote some awesome articles
Adam also curated some awesome articles

We crushed it!

Income Report – September 2017

Every month as we continue to write articles and build our Wallet Squirrel brand, we’re finding more and more opportunities to earn money. September was a great month!

A lot of the income this month was from our Robinhood App Affiliate Program, which gives you a free share of stock when you sign up along with whoever’s referral code you used. In September, 5 people used my referral code (THANKS!) and we both (referer and new sign up) were randomly selected shares of stock. Most of the stocks I random won were around $5 like Sirius XM and Groupon, but I did get one free share of Apple at $160.

Here are all the sources of income for September

$179.89 – Robinhood App Affiliate Program
$72 – TurboTax (which I use) paid to have a link in the existing Cost-Benefit Analysis article. Cool!
$45.00 – Bluehost Affiliate Income
$28.02 – Seeking Alpha Articles
$23.94 – Cashback Credit Card
$6.70 – Dividends
$5.32 – Wallet Squirrel AdSense
$3.88 – Interest Checking/Savings Account
$2.88 – Lending Club
$1.28 – Stock Photography

Where does that $368.91 go?

Since the goal of Wallet Squirrel is to create a $10,000,000 retirement account. The money I make on Wallet Squirrel is invested in my investment portfolio. This month I invested in both Verizon Communications & Cisco Systems.

Let’s Talk Goals

Did I meet last month’s (August) goals? – Not Really

I was SUPPOSED to build the Ultimate Blog Post Marketing Guide. Here’s the thing, I added so many details to my current marketing guide but I realized it will always be a work in progress. I am constantly adding more news networks and syndication spots, but there are ALWAYS more to add! I’m not sure when to stop. So I may hold off for a while on an ultimate guide until I feel I’m at a good spot.

October Goals

Set up a Pinterest Process! – In August, I finally learned what Pinterest was and how to use it but I haven’t yet fully taken advantage of all the tools. I’m hoping to set up some pins through CoSchedule and view other people’s pins and boards to learn what’s successful for them. The end goal is to increase my Pinterest following, I’m currently at 24 followers.

Does anyone reading this have a successful Pinterest Board they want to share?

Income Report – August, 2017

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With school coming up, that means September is starting and August is over. So I tallied up my August income and excited to share what I made.

It’s exciting because I publish these monthly income reports to show that it is possible to earn extra money (new ways every month), so you can start saving up for retirement. You should totally try some of these! This is how much I’ve made so far.

What we accomplished in August!

• Adam reviewed the Ibotta App, I guess he was pleasantly surprised.
• Adam listed the income reports of our favorite bloggers in the July Income Report Round Up.
• Adam created a list of 14 True Passive Income Ideas You Should Know About. A couple of these are on this income report.
• Adam threw a party and shared with his friends (like me) some awesome backyard games, he made himself. Here’s how he did it.

• Andrew tried out Domain Flipping, seeing how people make money by buying domain names and selling them for a profit.
• Andrew analyzed the Cisco Systems (CSCO) and bought a couple shares.
• Andrew shared how to monetize a blog with affiliate marketing, it’s fairly simple and this is how Adam and I monetize all our blogs.

Income Report – August, 2017

Check out the infographic on where the August income came from.

A majority of the income this month came from our ONE Bluehost Affiliate sale. Wahoo! Apparently, people are finding the How to Start A Blog post helpful. Here are the other sources of income this month.

$45.00 – Bluehost Affiliate Income
$42.77 – Seeking Alpha Articles
$28.95 – Cashback Credit Card
$20.94 – Dividends
$15.08 – Stock Photography
$6.83 – Wallet Squirrel AdSense
$5.63 – Robinhood App Referral
$4.20 – Interest Checking/Savings Account
$3.29 – Lending Club

It’s pretty awesome that all these forms of income combined make up $172.69 for the month of August. That’s my largest income yet without a sponsored post. Yay!

Where does that money go?

Since our goal is to create a $10,000,000 retirement account. The money I make on Wallet Squirrel goes toward that goal. So last month, I invested my extra money into Cisco Systems. I bought 12 shares at $31.54.

Let’s Talk Goals

Did I meet last month’s (August) goals? – Yes

I Learned Pinterest! – This is one of the large social media networks that I didn’t know much about. I spent an entire weekend researching and reading Pinterest Guides. I’ve now started formatting blog post images both horizontally and now vertically for Pinterest.

September Goals

Build the Ultimate Blog Post Marketing Guide! – I’m currently updating our “How To Start A Blog” post and plan to market it heavily. Both because it’s going to have a cool infographic and the Bluehost Affiliate link has the most potential for income.

Income Report – July, 2017

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Wrapping up July means I get to publish my monthly income report! These are some of the most exciting posts for me to write.

It’s exciting because I publish these monthly income reports to show that it is possible to earn extra money (new ways every month), so you can start saving up for retirement. You should totally try some of these! This is how much I’ve made so far.

Income Report – July, 2017

I started off this month taking a bit of a vacation. You see, Adam and I (plus our significant others) went to visit our buddy, Tristian, in Maine for the first week in July. It was awesome but it was tough to take a break from Wallet Squirrel.

Then again how can you work when you’re having this much fun.

Adam takes new photos around Acadia National Park for new Stock Photography images to sell.

Andrew waits for Adam to take photos at every stop. That’s ok because it’s for stock photography and Andrew sucks at taking photos.

Our main July highlights were:

How much did we make in July?

These are technically my income reports, but some of the income streams we share like the affiliate sales and AdSense revenue. So here is my income report for July, just duplicate it for Adams.

I changed the infographic up a bit, focusing more on the income and investments. Not so much the other stuff. It’s still a work in progress. =)

A lot of my side income this month was through my cash back credit because I spent more money than I’d like in Maine. I’m constantly striving to be frugal, it just doesn’t always happen. Here is the break down in order of revenue.

$39.74 – Cashback Credit Card
$29.49 – Seeking Alpha Articles
$5.92 – Dividends
$3.84 – Interest Checking/Savings Account
$3.70 – Wallet Squirrel AdSense
$2.99 – Lending Club
$2.50 – Stock Photography

The biggest surprise was that I was still making money with my Seeking Alpha articles. I’ve only written two articles so far and they pay a base fee of $35 per article when I wrote them, but it adds $0.01 per view afterward. So in August, I didn’t write any new articles, but I received 2,949 views on my previous articles or $29.49 in revenue.

Have you tried any of these to make money?

Where did I invest this month?

As always, I add my extra income every month to my investment portfolio.

This month I invested more into Verizon and Realty Income. I’m glad I picked up a few more shares of Verizon at $43 because it’s back up to $48 now. Wahoo! I will start diversifying into some other stocks soon here.

August Goals for Wallet Squirrel

Did I meet last month’s (July’s) goals? – Yes

  1. I finally built a social media calendar! Our social media game is now on point and we’ve already seen a nice uptick in social media traffic to Wallet Squirrel since I started using CoSchedule. If you’re not using a social media calendar, it helps SO MUCH! It’s great to keep track of everything you’re sending out and web traffic you’re generating for your website.

August Goals

  1. I really want to learn Pinterest – I’m familiar with nearly all the social media platforms, but Pinterest is still a bit of a mystery to me. I see it being successful for so many other bloggers, so I want to really dive into it this month. I’m hoping to create some awesome graphics and learn how to promote them on this social media platform. Any tips?

Income Report – June, 2017

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What are these Income Reports?

Wallet Squirrel is the embodiment of my financial independence journey (it’s really Adam and myself). So monthly, I publish these income reports to show what we did this last month, how we’re doing and what we do with that money (we invest it). Our goal is to prove it’s possible to make extra money on top of your full-time job for retirement. We’re proving this by building a $10M portfolio just from the money we make side hustling.

June Highlights

June was another big month of content and not just because I had lots of time to write while my girlfriend was on vacation. lol. Here are some of the highlights in June.

(New Series) Monthly Income Roundup: Adam has started a new series featuring the income reports of dividend investors and income bloggers to help identify other bloggers making money in different ways. This is a great new series he’ll continue to report how much other bloggers are making.

(New Post) Are You Considering an MBA? Answer these 2 Questions First: This is an article that outlined why I didn’t get my MBA and if you’re considering getting one, it’s a definite read.

(New Way To Make Money) Try Getting Paid Writing for Seeking Alpha: I got my first article published on Seeking Alpha, which is a financial analysis website. I shared how I got my article published, how much I made and how it’s a great way to earn $35 per article and $0.01 cent for every page view which do add up.

Income Report – June, 2017

Six months now after Adam and I have gone full throttle on Wallet Squirrel, writing articles twice a week and marketing the website. We had our highest month yet. Last month’s May Income Report was only $80.48.

Paid Review: It’s always a nice feeling when someone reaches out to you because they like your website. In this case AppMatch asked if we could do a review of their new app. Which I was excited about because the couple app reviews, we did for free, were really successful on Wallet Squirrel. If you recall, these were the Achievemint App and Robinhood App. So I accepted their offer of $200 to a review as long as I could be HONEST. It’s definitely not a fluff piece if you want to check it out. I had some tough critiques of their product, but overall it’s a fun BuzzFeed like Quiz App.

PS. I went through PayPal and that $200 quickly became $193.90 because of PayPal fees. SCREW YOU PayPal!

Where Did I Invest This Month?

I earn side hustle income monthly, but where does it go?

I continued to Dollar Cost Average this month, investing a regular amount into the stocks Verizon and Realty Income on the dip. Both of these stocks keep getting hit, resulting in a lower share price. I know these both will come back so I’m buying low and holding them for their dividend.

July Goals for Wallet Squirrel

Did I meet last month’s (June’s) goals? – YES

  1. Update the About Me Page – YES! – Our About Page is updated with a fun comic graphic up top, explanation of Wallet Squirrel and now includes biographies on both Adam and Myself. I figured it was time to start including Adam in the About page. I finished this at midnight of June 29th. =)
  2. Write 2 Articles for Money – YES! – This was an ambitious goal because if you’ve never got paid for writing (I haven’t) it’s difficult to know who will pay you, how much and how the entire process goes. I ended up trying out Seeking Alpha and wrote about my first experience in “How I published my first article in Seeking Alpha and got paid“. Then after that was a success, I did it again! I wrote another article in 3 hours and it was published the next day. Both of those contributed to a nice income boost ($93.68) for Wallet Squirrel.

July Goals

  1. Build a Social Media Calendar: Our social media is doing better and better, mainly because Adam and I use it to create conversations and help other people with questions. I’m hoping use CoSchedule, Buffer or Meet Edgar to help me manage our social media. Any you use?

How did your month go?

May 2017 Income Reports Roundup

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Income Reports Roundup

There are so many great financial blogs on the internet that we all can learn from. All of them provide great advice and deserve some recognition. Andrew and I want to give that recognition by starting a new series highlighting some of the other financial blogs around the web. After some thought we decided that I should write these highlights around their latest income report (Some blogs are a month behind compared to when I post this article). These income reports show exactly how others are making money. Hopefully this will give you some amazing ideas on how you can expand your own little empire.

I want to highlight people from all phases of their financial freedom journey. This is why you will find big wigs like Pat Flynn and Michelle Schroeder on this list but you will also find lesser knowns such as Nadya from Living Off Cloud. I also want to show a wide variety of how people are making their extra money. You will read of people using affiliate marketing, dividend income, niche websites, and so on.

I look forward to updating this list every month for all of us to learn something new together. This list will not be the same every month as I might find a different blog with something new to share. As always, I am open to suggestions.

Oh yeah! Do not forget to keep up to date with Andrew’s Income report by reading his May 2017 Income Report!

Alright, enough with my rambling. On to the income reports!

Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income – $102,915.99 (April 2017)

Compared to March, Pat had a rough month. He dropped from a $212,111.33 income in March to $102,915.99 in April. That sounds horrible but he explains that in March they launched two new online courses, Smart From Scratch and Power-Up Podcasting that gave their income a surge. In April, that surge settled and he is now back to normal numbers.

In April, Pat made most of his money from affiliate marketing such as Bluehost and Market Samurai. He also makes money through books sales, consulting, his podcast, niche sites. It looks like Pat has also made it into the software and WordPress theme development business as well. Just off of his Smart Podcast Player Licenses and the SPI Pro Them from StudioPress he made a whopping $12,706.32.

Pat really has diversified since I started following him a few years ago. Seeing what he is accomplishing really motivates me to diversify Wallet Squirrel!

Michelle Schroeder – Making Sense of Cents – $120,104.93 (May 2017)

I found Michelle’s blog about three months ago and check in on her updates a couple times a week. Michelle provides excellent content that highlights real life events allowing her readers from all walks of life to connect. Each month I check in for her income reports they have gone up and up. Sadly in May she broke that streak by bringing in $120,104.93 compared to $131,448.35 in April. This is still really impressive even if her numbers dropped slightly.

In May Michelle made just over half of her income from affiliate marketing such as Bluehost and Ebates. Another major income source is from her Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course. This course helps bloggers increase their income by tapping into their own blogs affiliate marketing potential.

Andrew and I have talked about creating a course ourselves but have not yet sat down together to bring that to life. Have you thought about creating one yourself? What is holding you back?

Stefan Sharpe – Millennial Budget – $11.06 (May 2017)

Stefan had an awesome May! He is our first of several income reports that focus on making extra money each money from dividends. Dividend income is special to us at Wallet Squirrel because dividends are at its roots. This is why Andrew started the blog a couple years ago.

Stefan was able to double his dividend income compared to his February report where he made $5.78. He made a killing after purchasing PAYX, Paychex Inc. This purchase brought in an extra $4.60 in May alone.

Keep up the good work Stefan! Learn more about what dividends are and dividend investing.

Investment Hunting – $47.58 (May 2017)

Now, to be fair, this is not an income or dividend report from Investment Hunting. This is his month four report on how his experiment with Lending Club is going. I thought I would share Investment Hunting’s story here because it is looking like a great way to earn some extra money. Lending Club is a lending network that is funded not by the banks but by regular people like you and I.

Investment Hunting started his experiment by investing $5,000 into people on the network. He had a really good month in May by getting a total of $158.38 back. This included receiving back $110.77 in principal and $47.58 in interest. Throughout the four months he has made $134.27 off of the interest.

Andrew has a great article on getting started with this unique way to invest, Lending Club Review, My Experience With Them.

Lanny and Bert – Dividend Diplomats – $275.54 (Bert’s May 2017)

Lanny and Bert are, “Two 20 something dudes who are blogging about #Investing, #Frugality, Passive Income & attempting to Reinvest Our Dividends to Financial Freedom!” Just like Andrew and I, they are two best friends that are striving for that ultimate goal of financial freedom.

This month Bert shares his dividend income summary for the month of May. He and his family (his wife contributes as well) made an amazing $275.54 in May. This is a 61.90% compared to May 2016 or a 14.41% increase if you take out his wife’s portfolio who hadn’t joined the cause yet last year.  Either way, this is some impressive growth!

Bert’s wife was the biggest reason for the enormous increase of income in May. We are only as strong as the woman next to us, right Bert? I must say, my wife helps out so much in the background so I can be a part of Wallet Squirrel for which I am so thankful for.

Keith Park – DivHut – $584.38 (May 2017)

Keith is another one of our featured dividend income gurus. All in all he had a very strong May 2017 compared to May 2016. He increased his dividend income by 11.3% compared to last year. This helped him rake in $584.38 just off of dividends. That is really impressive!

Overall in 2017 he has made $2,672.69 just off of dividends. This really goes to show you that dividend income can help bring in some extra income for your family. It seems like he has a really healthy curve of growth going. Let us all hope that this growth continues for Keith in the second half of 2017.

Keith shows that dividend investing can be very beneficial. If you are interested at getting started here is Andrew’s Dividend Investing Strategy.

Nadya – Living Off Cloud – $1,672.04 (May 2017)

Nadya is new on my radar for bloggers to follow. Her blog really caught my eye because of all the niche sites she manages. It is really impressive that she is able to keep up four niche sites. She does not name her sites by name but gives them a code name instead such as Elephant, Horse, Rat, and Honeybee.

What really intrigued me is that she does not make these sites from scratch like most people, she has purchased them! I did not notice this until I realized that she mentioned that she has just paid off the Elephant site after purchasing it. She was able to pay it off by using its own income. Way to go Nadya!

Overall she made $1,672.04 in the month of May. This income mainly came from her Elephant and Horse websites through Amazon affiliate and Adsense.

Check out some more Affiliate Marketing sites in Andrew’s, 50 Amazon Affiliate Website Examples article.

Sarah Brooks – The Frugal Millionaire – $2,716.75 (May 2017)

Like Nadya, Sarah is another new blogger on my radar. I really liked her site, it is very clean and well organized. The only thing that really annoyed me was that little ad at the bottom of the screen in the blog post that stayed with you no matter where you scrolled. I guess that might be why she made $356.09 just off of ads in May!

Sarah makes most of her income off of affiliate sales, totaling $2,232.70 in the month of May. This is very impressive as we do not come even close to that. It makes me wonder what Andrew and I can do to get Wallet Squirrel to that level. Well done Sarah! Keep up the good work!

Outcomes

I personally learned a lot from my research to find other bloggers to write about. Looking at what other people are do has me think about where I focus my energy when working on Wallet Squirrel. Lately I have been so focused on SEO items. Which is good and we are seeing massive organic traffic growth. Now I am thinking that I need focus on marketing and getting more people to the site.

Hopefully these income reports give you some more ideas on where real people are making more money and what the next steps are for your site.

Do not forget to take a look at our comprehensive list on ways to make more money in 2017.

Income Report – May, 2017

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Hi, I’m Andrew.

Wallet Squirrel is the embodiment of my financial independence journey (it’s really Adam and myself). So monthly, I publish these income reports to show how we’re doing and how we make our money.

I use these to explain where our extra side income is coming from and what we’re doing with it (aka, how we’re investing it). We figure if we find enough extra ways to earn money on the side, we can use that extra cash to plan for our future/retirement (build a $10,000,000 portfolio) on top of our regular 8-5 job.

May Highlights

  • I have to give credit where credit is due, Adam CRUSHED IT with our SEO! We jumped from a MOZ Domain Authority rank of 19 to 23 this month! That is huge! It’s hard. “Domain Authority” is a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages. So basically Adam, with his SEO vodoo, made Google like us more, thus already we’re getting TONS more traffic! Our switch over to Bluehost was probably a big help along with our other SEO Improvements earlier this month.
  • Our highest visited post EVER was this month! Adam’s “How You Can Save Big Money On a Home Remodel” has been a huge hit. There are many DIYers out there using his tips on how to save nearly $5,000 on their back yard remodel. As someone who helped him with the yard work, friends are cheap labor. =)

As always, the main highlight is our Income Report!

Income Report – May, 2017

Anytime I can beat my average $65 a month, it’s a good month. This month I came in at $80.48. I made some extra money through new sources like Ebates where I had one referral PLUS I used it to buy flowers for my Mother through 1-800 Flowers and gained 25% cash back ($12.50 cash back). Pro Son Tip – Mothers love it when flowers are delivered to their work.

Plus our stock photography was awesome, it’s my favorite form of passive income. I will note, It was Adam who made money from his stock photos this month, but they are all under the Wallet Squirrel brand which we split. Below is my income report for May.

 

What did I invest in this month?

I earned all this money, but what did I do with it? Well, as always, I invested it.

This month I started Dollar Cost Averaging into stock I already owned. So I picked up a few more shares of Verizon (VZ) and Realty Income (O) while they were on the dip and diversified more by picking up Microsoft (MSFT).

I think Microsoft is crushing it when it comes to cloud storage, so I just expect their share price continue to climb. It’s definitely a little high right now, but I still think it has room to grow. This is my stock portfolio right now.

Side Note – I also reinvested into my Lending Club account, I only originally put $300 in to test it and it’s averaged about 5% overall so far. It’s not great, but when you have under $2,500 in the account you have to reinvest your interest gained manually. So I bought one more “note” to help someone reconsolidate their credit card loan under a lower interest rate.

June Goals for Wallet Squirrel

Did I meet last month’s (April’s) goals?

  1. Update the About Me Page – SOMEWHAT FAIL, I did update this page adding the purpose and mission of Wallet Squirrel. However I didn’t add a fun comic idea I have. This isn’t a big deal, but the About Me page seperates Wallet Squirrel from every other FI blog out there, so I want to put a little more effort into it this month and finish my comic idea.
  2. Write 2 articles for money – FAIL, I did research to find A LOT more websites that pay for articles however I didn’t have much time this month with 2 separate groups of friends visiting this month. I had an AWESOME time, but they did occupy my weekends which usually are my best writing times. I want to complete these goals this June!

Yes it sucks I didn’t meet these, but I am being completely transparent on what I hope to accomplish. If I don’t get it done, I have to face you. It’s scary.

June goals for the month?

  1. Complete my previous month’s goals of updating my About Me Page and writing 2 articles for money.
  2. Complete my interview for the Fluid App. After my review of the Fluid App, I reached out to their team and offered to do a synopsis interview for their blog of my experience in return for a link back to Wallet Squirrel. They loved the idea! It’s a great app that I enjoy using and I’ll get another link back, increasing our SEO for Wallet Squirrel. I’m stoked!

How did you do this month?

Income Report – April, 2017

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Why do I publish my Income Reports?

This is a trend I started after seeing many of my blogging friends publish what they made online. If it wasn’t for them publishing where they made their money, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible to make money online.

Now I continue this journey, proving it is possible to make extra money online and find new ways to save your current income. These income reports are all made up of EXTRA money I earned, on top of my 9-5 day job. My goal is to prove that even people with no money saved up, there are TONS OF WAYS to earn extra money to start investing for retirement!

Everything extra I make, I invest in an effort to reach my INSANE goal of building a $10,000,000 portfolio from side income.

I finally discovered Wallet Squirrel’s niche!

I FINALLY discovered my niche. What makes Wallet Squirrel different from EVERY OTHER personal finance website online. There are SO many personal finance blogs out there, that it’s hard to distinguish how one is different from another.

After changing the Homepage “header” tag over 52 times this past month, trying out different niche taglines. I am happy with the new direction Wallet Squirrel will take. Or better yet, I’m happy I can finally put into words what Wallet Squirrel always meant to be. It combines my love for investing with my deep curiously on how people make a living online.

One of the biggest excuses why people haven’t started investing for retirement is “I don’t have any extra money to invest with“. Even those who have saved/budgeted/pinched every penny. Wallet Squirrel aims to DESTROY that reason!

We will prove to people that it’s possible to earn extra money, on top of your day job, to start investing now and how to do it. As social proof…..

Wallet Squirrel’s goal is to build a $10,000,000 portfolio by using only extra money we earn online.

Yea, we set the goal ridiculously high, but reach for the stars, right?

We will freelance write articles, sell stock photography, earn cash back through Ebates, sell digital templates, sell t-shirts, do surveys, sell old items on craigslist and do EVERYTHING we can to test myths of earning money online. With the purpose to invest everything we earn.

What Happened in April

April was another awesome month with Adam killing it, increasing our SEO and finding new ways to gain traffic. Here are some of our highlights!

  • April Highlight – AOL Finance Collective asked Wallet Squirrel to contribute to their Finance Network. We’re really excited about this and look forward to reaching more people through their HUGE network. You may notice the AOL Finance Collective tag in the footer of our page. We’re growing in the Personal Finance World
  •  April’s Most Popular Article – How I made $1.88 Selling Stock Photography in 10 days as a new Shutterstock Contributor. This was SO much fun to write and took a whole month to write. After learning Adam made over $1,000 on one photo of the St. Louis Arch, I had to try it myself. This is my experience. We will try to shoot some more stock photography over the summer to create another passive income stream!
  • April’s Most Profitable Post – Ebates Review – I wish I started this 2 years ago. This was also really fun and will be a staple in all my future online shopping. I only made $10 from using a friend’s referral link, but that’s still $10. Plus, if you use my referral link, I’ll make $5 for each sign up and you’ll get $10!

April’s Income Report

I don’t expect my dividends to bring in much of an income in the near future since I paid off my car. However I reached another average $68 dollar month mainly because my 2% Cash Back Credit Card continues to crush it!

It’s hard to imagine that 3 years ago I was paying around $70 on my credit card per month and now that it’s paid off, it continues to make me $15 – $45 per month purchasing things I regularly buy anyway.

What I plan to accomplish in May

With Adam continuing to do awesome work on SEO, I’m further motivated to push Wallet Squirrel to new Google height. So I have some lofty goals for May.

  1. Update the About Me Page – I’m going to include Adam’s Bio and better explain Wallet Squirrel’s purpose, niche and life goal. I have a big “Start Here” button on my site that leads to this page, I can do better to explain Wallet Squirrel to new visitors.
  2. Write 2 articles for money – There are multiple sites that pay for articles on a variety of topics. If I plan to get to my goal of $10,000,000 I need to continue to try new ways to earn an extra dollar. I have 2 in mind. =)

I’m legitly curious, what do you think of the new niche/direction. Am I on to something?