Disclaimer: I don’t break down the actual amounts in my progress reports in fear of revealing too much of my financials online – my apologies! These posts are merely a way for me to track my progress.
Hi everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve done a progress report. The reason is that I hadn’t surpassed my December 2017 passive income figure in a while, and I felt that there was no need to create updates until I made significant developments in my passive income journey. I also don’t like to go into detail about my earnings as I want to keep my financials private. However if you all enjoy reading these posts talking about my thoughts and feelings, regardless of whether or not I discuss passive income and business, let me know. I’ve been extremely into self development lately, and I’ve been placing a lot more importance on that over my passive income streams.
Despite all this, I knew I wanted to make a progress report for December because I reached a new record high! In this post I wanted to discuss a bit on how I made $6,000/month in passive income in December 2018.
Thoughts
December was a really good month for me in terms of passive income as well as internal growth. I broke a new record for passive income this month, but I need to note two things:
- This number now includes my rental property income. I hadn’t included this number before in my progress reports, but I’m adding it now as I figured, why not? I might as well. I purchased a rental property back when I was 22, and it so far has paid off. The number I’ve added into my passive income figure is the rental profits AFTER paying off my mortgage, property tax, etc.
- Much of this number is due to holiday sales. December sales are always crazy, so I don’t expect to hit that $6k/month figure any time soon again in these next few months. There’s still a lot of work to be done to make this number consistent.
So while this progress report looks amazing, I know that it won’t carry over to the next few months. But hitting new goals is always a great motivator to keep upping my passive income efforts.
Travels/Fun
I went to Orange County for my good friend’s wedding this month. Yeah, I’m not going to have as many exciting travel updates as I did before as I’m back in the Bay Area, lol.
What I wore to the wedding!
I had an unfortunate encounter of unwanted behavior from an AirBnB host that I decided to report about. I’m proud of myself for reporting the behavior as the old me would have been too scared to do so and would have downplayed the behavior.
I also volunteered at a soup kitchen as I was curious how it would be and wanted to help out during the holidays. I enjoyed serving food to people. But to be completely honest, I thought the experience would feel more fulfilling (yes these are selfish thoughts lol). It was just people requesting drinks and me going table to table filling them up and washing the tables at the end, lol. I could tell they were appreciative but I guess I didn’t feel like I was making a large enough impact. But I am happy to have had the experience, and it will be something I think about in the future of how I can give back to the world.
This month I also attended my high school reunion. Our class was terrible about organizing, but luckily one of our classmates decided to step up and host an informal reunion at our local bowling alley. It ended up being tons of fun, though only maybe 10% of our class showed up.
Self Development
This month I got back into figuring out my 25 year, 5-year, and 1-year visions as well as my milestones for the year. You can look at more information on goal setting in this post. It really got me motivated to work hard on myself as well as my external achievements.
December 2018 was honestly such a great month for me, mainly because I felt so much happier. It’s as simple as that! But when reflecting on my entire 2018 – last year was one of the hardest years of my life. I was overcome with negative emotions. I’ll talk about this more in another post, but anyway, I knew I had to take action against these feelings so I did whatever I could to change my state of mind.
Last month was so great for self growth, and I think it was due to all the books I read and the goal setting and monthly trackers I started implementing. Some of my favorite books I read include: The Alchemist, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and The Last Black Unicorn. These were awesome for self development and gave me a lot of perspective. My favorite course was Mark Manson’s Build a Better Life. I currently subscribe to him and plan to go through all his courses. If it weren’t for all of that I would probably still be trapped in a previous lost, confused, anxious, helpless state.
Now I’m really determined to get my shit together in all areas of my life. To be honest January isn’t starting off exactly how I planned, mainly because I started sleeping late during the holidays and drinking a lot more socially. But for January I wrote down the habits I will be pursuing and the times I will do each activity. And I plan to get better with my sleeping habits, exercise, meditation and more. I really hope that I progress to the point in which I am more aware and am better equipped to live in the present.
Passive Income
Okay, so now let’s get into it! Most of the passive income I received this month was through Merch by Amazon. Fulfillment by Amazon and Etsy came in second and third. This was expected as physical products do the best during the holidays. Below is an Instagram post of what I mentioned about December 2018. Also feel free to follow me on IG: @digitalnomadquest . I try to update the platform with videos and photos of tips and thoughts.
Affiliate Marketing
This month I saw significant improvements with my affiliate marketing figures. As I’m focusing a bit more on my blogs and niche sites, I was able to boost my earnings with affiliate marketing. If you’re interested in this, one of the most basic programs to sign up for is the Amazon Associates program.
If you’re interested in improving site traffic, I would take the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course to understand how to leverage Pinterest to really get those clicks for affiliate marketing. I would also use Tailwind to start scheduling out your pins. I’ve taken these steps and it’s really changed the game for my site.
Merch By Amazon
As a quick overview, Merch by Amazon is a platform that allows you to upload and sell shirts by simply uploading designs and crafting descriptions.
I added a few more shirt designs in December, however most of my sales had come from designs I put up maybe a year ago. I actually haven’t touched this income stream in about eight months. The amazing thing is Merch by Amazon is so passive that I don’t even do too much to keep it going. You don’t even need to worry about customer support as Amazon handles it all.
Etsy
On Etsy, I sell digital downloads which generates passive income (besides the active work of responding to customer support e-mails). Check out my guides on how to make passive income with Etsy.
Last month, I kept up with customer support, but I haven’t added any new listings. My main goal with Etsy right now is to boost my customer reviews. If you’d like to open your own Etsy shop, you can use my link here which gives you a free 40 listings (and provides me with 40 free listings as well).
Amazon FBA
If you want to see what Amazon FBA is and how to sell items on the platform check out part 1 of my guide here. On Amazon FBA I did some replenishing of items this month. I need to look into more items I could be adding, but when I step back it’s really about where I want to place my focus when it comes to my business ideas.
Goal Setting
Going back to the goal setting I’ve been doing, I basically need to figure out what passive income streams I want to pursue, or what bigger business ideas I want to undertake. I have a few ideas I am working on with my friend, Heesun (who I work on MeWantTravel with). And I also have this new idea of getting my real estate license to immerse myself in the real estate world. This idea was mainly to supplement my real estate investment endeavors, but now I realize it could be interesting to try my hand at being a part-time agent. It’s definitely something I wouldn’t want to do full-time, but it could be fun learning the ropes to have even more safety nets when it comes to income.
I also know that I really want to build my blogs to be much more profitable, but I also know that quicker passive income can come through leveraging Etsy and Amazon marketplaces. That’s why I’ll need to think through exactly what I want to go more full speed on.
How to Get Started
If you’re interested in getting started with passive income, I would do the following:
- Start tracking your net worth. It is crucial to have a clear understanding of your finances so you can define your financial goals and current state. Use Personal Capital to track your net worth and debt online. It is free to sign up and it automatically updates your account balances. As you start seeing your net worth increase, it’ll add motivation to save and increase your income!
- Read this post on how to make passive income. I spent so much time making that post. It is a brainstorm of a ton of different passive income ideas to pursue (and most of them I have already tried). Let me say this now that pretty much all passive income routes are doable. It’s just a matter of evaluating what you’re passionate about and what your strengths are to understand which income stream you’re willing to work the hardest in.
- Brainstorm and set goals. Start brainstorming which passive income routes to pursue and figure out your plan. Again, read my post on goal setting here. I’m all about it, and it always makes a huge difference for me.
- Test and Pivot. Pretty much what I did was test every single passive income stream that I was interested in, and I would pivot my strategy to make things work.
Conclusion
I love that I ended 2018 on a high note, both internally and externally. I’m motivated, inspired, and ready for what lies ahead with 2019, and I’m seriously proud of myself for how far I’ve come. I recall the days in which I had lost confidence in myself, and also the days in which I started with $50/month in passive income, scared as hell to quit my job and travel the world. And it reminds me to be grateful for the journey and how much progress I’ve made.
How was your December of 2018 and what are your goals for 2019? I’d love to hear in the comments below!
