January Has Been a Good Month

Well, January has been a pretty good month to me and there are still a few days left.  The month saw the launch of my newest blog which has gotten over 1800 visitors in the last 30 days.  I will probably end up January between 1800 and 2000 which seems like a decent launch considering I am not a professional and only do this part-time.

I also completed the give away for my other blog, Cash Flow Mantra.  I will be announcing the winners tomorrow, but they have all received their money.  Plus I still have enough in the PayPal account to cover February and March blogging expenses.

AdSense revenue is the highest it has been in almost 1 year.  It is a really solid month.  I expect that I might come in close to or just over $50.  A little bit of growth in February would mean that I could get another check after two months.  That would be nice since I am trying to pay off a Discover Card balance with blogging earnings this year.

Finally, I was able to meet my goal with the HubPages Ad Program.  I am just over $26 right now and have been adding a lot of content this month.  I hope to hit it hard in February and get to monthly payouts with HubPages which would require $50 each month.  I figure that $2 per day would do it.  I have had only 2 of those in the past 30 days, but I have had several greater than one dollar which I had only done once in the previous 8 months.  I am definitely headed in the right direction.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to cover my author costs for Grand Per Month with HubPages income so that I could start another blog.  I won't have any additional time to write so I would have to pay to have it done.  At $25 per article and 2 articles per week, I would have to pay $200 per month for content, but I think it would be worth it to be able to expand into other areas and try to multiply revenue even if I can only do this part-time.

How has January been treating you?

Passive Income While Playing Golf

This is my favorite part of the year for passive income.  Why?  Because for one week in January, I get to go and play golf with my wife's brother in South Carolina.  It is something to look forward to following the Holidays and breaks the cold weather in half since it usually starts to warm up a little in March.

I also like it because it provides me a good comparison from year to year on the amount of passive income that I can earn while away on vacation.

Looking back at 2011 during the 7 days while we were away, I earned a total of $6.98 with AdSense or not quite $1 per day.  This year I am pleased to report that I earned $14.15 or more than double with AdSense during those same 7 days away while playing golf.

I am also especially pleased to report that I received an additional $82.47 while away due to efforts on my own blog.  This is what is most exciting because I only started Cash Flow Mantra in late May and now have 2 blogs that I will be working on for the next year.

I would dare say that I could more than double the amount that I can earn in that time frame so that I am earning almost $30 per week with AdSense by January 2013 and about $200 per week with my blogs.  At least that is the target at which I will be aiming.

There is no reason not to think that it will be possible.  I recently published my 100th post at CFM and at a rate of 3 per week should be more than double that number in a year.  Also with GPM, I should be at about 150 posts as well so that will be more than 250 additional blog posts compared to the 100 this year meaning that doubling my income in the next year would seem reasonable. 

Then in another year, I might even be earning enough to cover the whole trip.  Of course, I will be using the money to pay off debt first, but every little bit will help.  Ultimately, though, once the debt is paid off and the kids are out of the house, traveling on blogging income would be so cool.

Announcing a Cash Give Away

I just wanted to take the opportunity to announce that I am giving away cash prizes to celebrate the 100th post of my blog, Cash Flow Mantra.  I am giving away $150 total with $75 going to the first winner, $50 to the second winner, and $25 going to the third winner.

The main criteria for winning is that you must have a PayPal account so that I can get the money to you.  I am using money that I have earned from the blog itself to pay out the prizes keeping with my trend of not investing any of my own money into my online ventures, but only my time.

It has been wonderful to be able to attract advertisers and make money since I have been able to expand using some of that revenue and start a second blog hiring some writers to help with the content since my time is limited.  I am hoping that I can start making some revenue with the new blog as well, and continue to expand.

Extra money is being used to pay off some debt as well which is really nice.  I am hoping to pay off the Discover Card this year.  You can follow my progress as I report it periodically at Cash Flow Mantra.  In the meantime, be sure to go enter the contest.