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These posts are a way for me to share the ups-and-downs of working for myself, of trying to take my business off the ground, of how to make money as a digital nomad, or whatever you want to call it. They’re a way of holding myself accountable everyday because I know at the end of the month I’m going to have to tell you what I’ve done to be better.

This was the first month where I no longer had my big social media client or my big copywriting gig, so I got really creative and actually made more passive income than ever before. I’m more motivated than ever and feel like I have a really clear vision of where I’m taking my websites in the new year.

Expenses

Email Marketing

I still using MailChimp to manage my emails and ecourses and I’m really happy with the changes they’ve made to the interface. I pay $15 a month and it’s totally worth it for all the automation emails I can send (even while I’m asleep!). It’s definitely the best out there for the price in my opinion.

Facebook Advertising

I didn’t really boost much this month. Not because it’s not helpful, but I’ve just been focusing on different more organic methods of reaching people. I spent $10 this month on FB ads.

Crowdfire

I’m going to stick with Crowdfire until the end of the year. It helps me grow my social media in half the time. I spend $5.99 a month for my subscription.

Udemy Course

This month I got a really great SEO course on Udemy: How I Hit #1 on Google: The 2017 Complete SEO Course. It was on sale in the Black Friday offers and I’m already about halfway through it. It was well worth the money and I’ve already made loads of changes to both of my sites to help speed them up and make them more SEO friendly. There’s always more to learn in this whole blogging game!

Total: $40.99

Income

Sponsored Content

I didn’t actively reach out to brands this month, but still managed to make $100 on sponsored content. I’m hoping to grow this number starting next month and heavily into the new year over on Collecting Labels.

Freelance Writing

I’m still doing a bit of work for one particular company at the moment. This month I made $150 on freelance writing.

Affiliate Marketing

I’m so happy to see this number come to life this month. I’ve been putting in a lot of effort into growing my passive income, and although I’ve got a long way to go to get this number where I want it to be, I’m happy that I’m finally bringing people products and information that they appreciate enough to buy. I also signed up for a few programs, like Siteground’s Affiliate program, which pay a much higher percentage than Amazon. This month I made $120 on affiliate marketing!

Eternal Expat Memberships

If you haven’t noticed on my sidebar, I’ve created an Eternal Expat membership. I get anywhere between 10 and 20 emails a day asking for travel advice and I love spending time answering these questions, but as the emails increase, the time I can actually afford to spend answering them is shrinking. So I came up with the idea to offer a little something extra. For $25, members get full access to me via Skype, email, and Whatsapp to answer all their travel and expat questions, as well as ecourses that I create and longer, more detailed blog posts that aren’t available to the average reader.

I have had four people sign up, so I’ve made $100 on memberships this month. Want to join the member zone? Check it out here.

Youtube

I’ve been really enjoying making Youtube videos and I’m looking forward to the income stream this will create in the future. It’s a niec creative outlet and I’m looking forward to using this one page for both of my websites, so it will be a good mix of travel, beauty, and monthly vlogs. It would mean the world to me if you subscribed, liked, commented or shared any of the videos on the channel (which you can find here). This month there was no income from Youtube.

Total: $470

I know it was another dip in income, but I’m feeling so good about where these income streams are coming from. It’s also more than enough to live here in Mexico. I’m learning to grow my affiliate income which I earn in my sleep, I’m growing my email lists and building a community of likeminded people with the Eternal Expat Memberships. I’m creating things I love on Youtube. I’m cutting back on writing content on other websites which has given me the freedom to write more on this site and on Collecting Labels. I feel like I really have direction and drive to build my personal businesses and I’m really looking forward to what 2017 brings and finishing this year with a bang!

Check out previous month’s Posts here:

Month One

Month Two

Month Three

Month Four

Have any questions about how I earn money online that I haven’t answered here? Let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them in next month’s post!