One year ago, my energy level was at it’s lowest. I just passed my 39th birthday and I wasn’t as passionate at work as I used to be. The BIG 40 is just one year away and suddenly there seemed to be an urgency for me to relook at the priorities in life. Time is running out, I need to do things that I want to do and love before it’s too late My Bucket List , yet I need to make sure whatever choices I make is not going to affect the bread & butter that I need to bring to the table for me and my family.
I googled for “passive income” and was blown away by this website Smart Passive Income. The author of this blog, Pat Flynn has been able to constantly increase his monthly income through blogging and his last clocked income for the month was USD $98K !!! Unbelievable !!!
I wanted to test for myself whether this is too good to be true and that triggered me to start this website. One year have passed, I thought I should share my learnings. Maintaining a website can be quite a chore, if you are not blogging about something you truly loved or believed in, you probably won’t last. Your website is constantly under attack from hackers which totally drains your energy. It is a constant struggle being genuine with what you want to share vs creating sensational or advertisement contents to increase viewership. You also have to constantly network with fellow bloggers to drive traffic to your website. Finally, you need the talent to attract and connect with readers and fellow bloggers.
Below is my blogging report card, I have not break-even after one year and my ad revenue is at a meagre SGD $10.62. My website renewal expires this month and I need to fork out another USD $25.98 for domain renewal and privacy protection.
There is a chinese saying “There’s no free lunch in the world”. I guess it’s true ;-p.
Thank you so much for staying with me for 1 year :-). I will be continuing this money losing blog for another year if my hosting site doesn’t screw up on my renewal ;). What has inspired me to continue is the encouraging notes that I get from you. I hope to inspire people especially ladies to start thinking about alternative source of income instead of betting one’s life on one income & starting to scramble when something happens. Moving forward, blogging will be more of a sharing exercise for me, I don’t think I have the time nor energy to make it into a revenue generating passive income source. Too much work ;-p.
Lady, You Can Be Free Blogging Report Card
Expenditure for starting a website :
1) Hosting Site (36 months) & Domain Name (1 year)- USD $142.20
2) WordPress Template – USD $30
3) Domain Privacy Protection (1 year)- USD 4.78
Earnings from website :
1) Nuffnang Ad earnings SGD $10.62
Yes, it is important to maintain multiple stream of income (as passive as possible).
For online marketing/blogging monetization to work, traffics is utmost important..
Besides Nuffnang, you might want to look at Google’s Adsense and Infolinks.
All the best.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the tip :-).
Yes, I’m inspired by your blog! Keep up the good work. But maintaining a blog is really hard work.
Hi Pf,
Thanks for cheering me on :).
why not use free blogging website? is there a difference?
Hi Walter,
Good point. Free blogging sites have rules & restrictions. There’s more flexibility managing own website but it comes with more responsibility when it comes to maintenance.
Hi there, you might want to just try blogger and use a custom domain name. It’s much cheaper and blogger is actually very customisable if you use your own blog templates.
Cheers,
Royston
Hi Royston,
Thanks for the tip. Will check it out :).
Hi, thanks for deciding to continue blogging. I too am single and have been inspired by your posts. I used to aim for a few hundred dollars in monthly dividends to offset some daily expenses but after learning that you collect whopping amount of dividends monthly, I am inspired to do the same 🙂 Thanks for showing that it is possible!
Hi Aurora,
You have a beautiful name. I saw the Aurora this year, it was an amazing sight and experience. I’m glad you got the msg that I was trying to pass on. Hope you can pass on this insight to your other friends as well. Do keep me posted on your progress and hope you achieve your targets soon 🙂
Thank you for your encouragement. Many of my peers (and family members) believe in working and saving but not investing. I tried to talk to them about investing in stocks but somehow they do not subscribe to the idea of passive income or do not believe that passive income can cover their expenses. Many are worried about losing money in the stock market. It is not easy to convince people to invest and this is the reason I really appreciate bloggers like you who take time and effort to share your journey and inspire others 🙂
Hi,
This is probably my first comment in your blog. Your blog inspired me many months ago. I’m amazed that a lady like you can invest to get such good passive income. It is possible to earn from blogging but to say the truth, it won’t be much for financial bloggers in Singapore. A few hundred to 2 hundred dollars a month is probably very good already. But then again, we really do have to write for passion. That’s what keeps us going. Continue writing and inspiring 🙂
Hi SGYI,
I am an avid reader of your blog :-). The effort you pour into your blog and the quality of content is amazing. I really loved the fact that you and a couple of other bloggers in your age group seemed to be carrying on a “mission” to educate your peers and the young ones. Keep it up :). Thanks for the insight in terms of how much one can probably earn per month through blogging. Maybe I should work abit harder to at least cover my expenses in blogging. Else, this site would become a liability when I retire 🙂
If you hv to work at this, then the income won’t be passive anymore. Haha….
Dilemma.
Hi Pf,
I love your sense of humor :). So cute …
true, i guess for people like you, the aim is not so much to make more passive income as yours is already snowballing. the main aim is to reach out to people and tell them that its possible!!!
Hi Paul,
Yes ! It’s definitely possible :-). Please help spread the insight. BTW, I am still looking at growing my passive income though :-p
Thanks for the very encouraging posts. I hope I can be like you too. I am near 40 lady also. but $ far far from my goal 🙁 you are an inspiration !
Hi Scorpio,
It’s never too late to start ! 🙂
Wonder if you might be better off using a free hosting website instead (like Blogspot)?
Must say that my ad revenue has been equally pathetic. Supposedly at $13.71 but have yet to smell a cent. *sniff*
Hi Lizardo,
Actually, we might be better off taking the ads down. Maybe then they would be forced to contact us and negotiate a better rate :-P.
Hi,
I have the same “dream” as you, getting some passive income from blogging.
That’s why I went from WordPress to blogger. Wordpres do not allow 3 party ads. However, do note that Adsense need 6 months of ownership.
Also, when u do move to blogspot, you can export all your past posts and comments to blogger and need not start afresh.
I think I might do worse than u if Adsense get improve ( if it gets improve) in 6 months, but I just have to try and do it for myself.
Blogging is nice by itself, getting to know people, receiving comments, both good and bad, and when I write articles on companies, it actually clears my mind, and my stand on the issue actually become clearer
So.. Keep blogging!!
Hi Silly,
Thanks for the tip. Agree with you ! Blogging can be a really fulfilling and therapeutic exercise. BTW. I love your article http://sillyinvestor.blogspot.sg/2014/09/random-thoughts-making-best-out-of-work.html
hi
your journey would be an encouragement and inspiration to many of my female clients who some are struggling with $$ in addition to their love lives. maybe, when i am available to do another workshop, i can have the honor to invite you to share your experience?
keep up the great work!
desmond
Hi Desmond,
Thanks for the acknowledgement. You have an interesting blog yourself. I’m not ready to do workshops yet. But would definitely check out one of yours when I have time 🙂
Hi Lady You can Be Free 🙂
Maybe you would want to also use Google adsense because they are based not only on click but also on impression, which means traffic site.
I have both on my site and the ad revenue is massively much slower for Nuffnang as compared to adsense.
You have a great blog and good popularity so might want to consider adsense 🙂
Just from my experience 🙂
B
Hi B,
Thanks for sharing. I did apply to Google adsense but apparently adsense is not too impressed with my website. According to them, my content is either lacking or user experience is not there. :-/.
Here’s what they replied ->
Google did not approve your application for the reasons listed below :
Site does not comply with Google policies: We’re unable to approve your AdSense application at this time because your site does not comply with the Google AdSense program policies or adhere to the Webmaster Quality guidelines. It’s our goal to provide our advertisers sites that offer rich and meaningful content, receive organic traffic, and allow us to serve well-targeted ads to users. We believe that currently your site does not fulfill this criteria.
Here are some recommendations to help you improve the user experience on your site and comply with AdSense criteria:
– It’s important for sites displaying Google ads to offer significant value to the user. As a publisher, you must provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.
– Don’t place ads on auto-generated pages or pages with little to no original content.
– Your site should also provide a good user experience through clear navigation and organization. Users should be able to easily click through your pages and find the information they’re seeking.
I’m not too sure about making money through blogging but it seems that beauty blogs are the in thing and where the money is. I guess you have to ask yourself whether you’re doing this because you want to make money out of this or whether you’re doing it for the love of writing and inspiring people with your words.
Noticed that you paid for a blog template. WordPress has lots of free templates with code that you can tweak to your liking. That’s one way to cut down the cost.
By the way, I stumbled upon your blog while searching for information on investing.
Hi Elisia,
Thanks for sharing :). My purpose is to test out different passive income models and share my learnings through my blog. Hopefully, this would inspire people to take actions to seek their own financial freedom. Anyway, I hope you picked up something useful on investment.
Hey Lady,
I have been following Pat Flynn podcast quite closely lately, his sources of income easily more than 10. But even though his blog is Smart Passive Income.
His income is not as passive as many would have though. Those income actually required very active effort for example inviting online entrepreneurs to his daily podcast, his Ebook on his other blog. And most of his income is from affiliate link hence it depend closely with his traffic, so he has to keep his content going be it blog or podcast.
Anway I like that multiple source of income, even though is not passive but it is not Hours for Dollars. Like selling online courses or Ebook. His adsense and affiliate earning as well.
Hi GiraffeValue,
You are spot on. In fact, it takes quite extensive effort, competence, experience and maybe even talent ;).
But, I guess he is working on something he loves, thus to him work may not seemed like work anymore ? Thus Passive?