Building Passive Income – A Five Month Review
In January, I decided to try my hand at creating additional streams of passive income. It all started with eHow and slowly progressed to other avenues such as Today dot com (aka The Biggest Scam on the Internet), Bukisa (worthless waste of space), affiliate marketing (aka Clickbank) and Infobarrel (my new favorite place to write). This afternoon, I decided to compile a simple profit and loss statement to see how I have been doing, and let me tell you….IT AIN’T PRETTY!
I knew that I was not making much money, I just did not realize just how truly pathetic it really was. This has got me thinking about whether or not it is even worth the effort to continue building these income streams. I do, after all, spend a ridiculous amount of time online writing articles, making landing pages, etc. I would be better served working the late night drive through at McDonald’s. At least then I could take that money, invest in a solid dividend paying growth stock and spend more time with my wife and son.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), I am not the type of guy that gives up easily. Nope! I am too hard-headed for that. I am, however, going to set some income goals for the next six months. If I am not achieving these goals by December 31, 2009, I am done – completely done with writing articles, promoting affiliate products, etc. The only thing that will continue is Chasing The Bull, and maybe Experimental Blogging.
I have spent way too much money chasing the newest technique. I should have stopped with One Week Marketing, since that guide actually works, but I could not help myself. As such, I will not be purchasing ANY new eBooks, courses, training manuals, etc. I will take the ones that I have already spent good money on and make them work. No exceptions!
Additionally, I will continue to write for sites that I know make me money. Currently, these include eHow and Infobarrel. I will continue to use Squidoo and Blogger blogs to promote some affiliate products and will create a few Hubs over at HubPages. Each of these will get one day per week maximum, so that I can properly diversify my passive streams of income. Finally, I am going to begin creating a few niche sites that should take about 4 to 5 hours each to complete. Each of these sites will be a few pages of quality content that provides useful information and points to an affiliate product or service.
By the end of December, I want to be making the following monthly income (from passive sources):
Affiliate Sales: $250
Ad Revenue: $50
eHow: $125
Misc: $75
$500 a month should be an attainable goal for me. While many internet marketers would scoff at such low goals, $500 per month would help me pay off my mortgage 15 years earlier. ChasingTheBull, is after all, a blog about personal finance, investing and passive income. It is time to put up or shut up!
What about you? Are you achieving your online goals in 2009?
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Comments
Comment from Corporate Barbarian
Time: June 11, 2009, 3:06 pm
I just started my blog a few months ago, so I didn’t really expect to see any money yet. I haven’t been disappointed. 
I know that building up a readership takes time, and I knew that from the outset. I’m just concentrating on writing good content, and hoping the money will follow when I’m established.
Comment from Shelly
Time: June 11, 2009, 3:17 pm
$500 a month is an attainable goal, I think you will surpass it. 
Comment from Shelly
Time: June 11, 2009, 3:22 pm
I just wanted to add, you should check out this blog: Mikeiser dot com
The author is building up his online income and shares how he’s doing it with daily updates.
Comment from passive family income
Time: June 11, 2009, 3:37 pm
I must admit that you scared me after reading your first paragraph. I thought I was going to have to talk you back into building passive income. Hopefully you start making some good profits so that you stay in the game. You are a hard worker and deserve to be rewarded!
Comment from Infobarrel Ryan
Time: June 12, 2009, 2:07 pm
Hey Dusty,
Don’t get discouraged man, the hardest steps are always the first strides and you have taken plenty of them. Surround yourself with people with positive attitudes and with similar goals and keep up the hard work.
The more passive income you build, the more tricks you will pickup and you will wind up worker smarter not harder. Once you’ve supplemented your income with a few extra thousand dollars a month, you will be looking back at this post and laughing that you ever even considered quitting in six months!
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Time: June 15, 2009, 10:26 am
[...] at Chasing the Bull gives a recap on building his passive income. He evaluates his strategies, and adapts them for the [...]
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Time: June 15, 2009, 6:09 pm
[...] I pointed out in my last post, I have been pretty frustrated with my passive income results for the past five months. My hourly [...]
Comment from Carrie
Time: June 11, 2009, 6:27 am
I’m glad I started tracking my IM expenditures in January or else I would be way overspent. It’s easy to pick up a guide here and there, but it adds up fast. I think your plan sounds good.
I’ve seen your eHow earnings, but how are you doing at Info Barrel and Squidoo? I finally got my first click at IB, but I am hoping things will pick up. Haven’t had much luck with Squidoo, though.