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July is here – that means summer is almost over and it’s already time to start thinking about what the hell we’re going to do in the fall.
We love spending the winter in South Florida – I mean, come on, who wouldn’t? But truth be told, we’re tired of doing the same thing each year. Winter in Fort Lauderdale, Summer on the Chesapeake. It’s becoming redundant, and the whole reason we moved onto a boat was so that we could see new places and go wherever we want.
Unfortunately, the “wherever we want” part is the tough one because I’m still tied to my computer for 8 hours a day, and that’s just with my day job… so hopping off to the Bahamas, or down to Belize or Panama is just not doable yet. But I’m stressing the yet.
I’m slowly but surely planning my exit strategy from the full-time job, and in all honesty, if I were to just quit tomorrow, I could possibly supplement a good part the lost income pretty quickly because I’d have so much more free time to dedicate to creating other income streams, but until I get to a certain point in my side income, it’s no sleep ’til Brooklyn, so to speak.
Niche Site Experiment
Speaking of other income streams, I’ve been experimenting with niche sites as an income stream. If you don’t know what a niche site is, well, I’ll be talking more about it in the next post, and in more posts to come.
I created my own niche site in January, and had no idea what I was doing, really, but it ended up still being ok, because it has taught me more than I ever knew about things like SEO optimization, Adsense, and affiliate income.
Since that first site, I’ve started a couple more, and while I admit that I haven’t made much money off of them yet, they are slowly becoming more profitable. They are now ranking high in Google, and there’s definitely an upswing because my Adsense revenue in June was 15x higher than it was in May! That’s a 1500% increase in one month!
I’m also learning about buying websites and flipping them – although I’m not there yet (you gotta have the money to spare), there are smart ways to do this, but there’s more to it than just finding what you believe to be a marketable domain name and listing it for sale or using it for your own PDN, or Private Domain Network. I’ll post more on that later once I have some experience with it.
Extra Income Summary – June
So here are the totals for June. The below is my side income only. It does not count the income I make from my job, nor the book sales or the honey’s freelance income.
Web Design Work: $185
Sales/Commissions: $210.80
Affiliate Income: $27.43
Adsense: $59.04
Writing Gigs: $0
TOTAL: $452.27
While I’m not breaking any records this month, I am proud of the Adsense increase, because that was all my doing. Tweaking something here, getting better SEO here, and so on…
My affiliate income was also better than last month, and that is due largely to the niche sites as well.
My sales/commissions were higher, but I didn’t have as much time to dedicate to web design jobs which definitely pay a little more than the other stuff, although they take up so much more time. One site that I designed that I’m extremely proud of is for an artist/painter based out of Newfoundland. You can check out her site at TaraBryan.com.
I also updated the website for my jewelry shop, Maggie & Milly. I’ll be adding more product, but I’m thrilled with the new design, and grateful to my friend Jessica at MJsailing.com for her contribution… aka the smokin’ hot bikini shot you see on the front page.
Speaking of bikinis, I better put down my wine and get some beauty sleep so I don’t look so haggard in my bikini this weekend for the Fourth of July celebration.
Peace out, y’all!
