AMA? Cool. I was just thinking of doing one of these myself on these forums. :)
I currently make my money online through the following sources:
Youtube ad revenue
Adsense earnings from several blogs/websites
Ebay and Amazon sales
Affiliate sales
my product website
My question: What is the breakdown for how much you earn from each of these sources, and time inputted, both up front, and ongoing?
Thanks!
It can vary significantly, but I here are march's numbers:
Online Sales: $779.23 - Maybe 20 hours a week (EDIT: This is incorrect, its about 20 hours for the month, not per week)
This includes eBay sales, Amazon Sales, and Amazon affiliate revenue. In the future I plan to track these individually. This is a net total after accounting for inventory purchase, shipping, listing fees, etc.
Local Sales: $305.16 - 1 to 2 hours a week
These are all sales that I met the buyer locally and did not ship the item. I used Craigslist, Facebook sales groups, and a local auction house.
Adsense: $744.80 - 10 hours a week
I count the income the month I actually get it, so these are actually my earnings from February. Most of this was from my two main Youtube channels, with around $4 coming from Google ads on my websites.
EDIT: I wanted to add that much of the time spent on adsense stuff is on the websites that are not making me almost any money, but might in the future. If I only worked on the youtube videos which are bringing in almost all of the revenue, its less than half this much time)
BuyThermite.com: $243.78 - 1 hour a week
Solid month of sales from my Thermite website. especially when you consider this amount is after accounting for a roughly $180 inventory purchase. Normal income from this site averages 50 to 100 bucks a month.
Credit Card Rewards: $85.02 - 0 hours
Cashing in CC rewards always makes me feel good, as this is basically free money (and I’m taking it from some of the biggest banks in the world – double win!). I don’t get enough to cash them in every month, so this is much higher than the running average. But regardless, with my stable of rewards cards I am getting usually 3% to 6% cash back on almost every dollar I spend, so it still results in hundreds of dollars in free money every year.
My remaining time (I definitely spend more than 40 hours, but spread out whenever I feel like) is spent on projects that aren't yet (and may never) bringing in money. New websites, ebook, etc.
I also get 'rent' from my GF
EDIT: I forgot to mention the upfront time investment. For the youtube channel it took a few years before i started making money, but that was mainly because you couldn't automatically monetize all your videos back then, you had to be invited. i spent less than an hour a week average.
The Thermite site took a little time to set up, but nothing crazy. Maybe 20 hours? I advertise it on my prepping youtube videos
Ebay selling takes very little upfront time investment. There are very few barriers to entry, you can just jump right in. There is no residual income though, as soon as you stop putting in effort, the income goes away.