2017 End of Year Side Income Report
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Yet another income report. Well, for this blog, it’s only the second one - my previous one was last year’s end-of-year income report. Income reports still seem to be a popular topic in the blogosphere, although most who do income reports do monthly income reports rather than yearly income reports.
Survey Sites & Rebate Apps
The winner here is clear Amazon Mechanical Turk, but it’s only a little over half the $1,227.42 I made last year. That’s mostly because I moved my focus more to the print-on-demand sites (details below).
A lot of the surveys from OnGo Surveys / Surveys on the Go I was disqualified from but got a quick 10¢. Those dimes quickly added up.
Receipt Hog changed their payout thresholds earlier this year, so I had to cash out at the $20 level under the old system since it gave a better coin-to-cash ratio than any level of the new system. I just recently redeemed 6,500 coins for $40, so together I made $60.
I was surprised I had made anything from Ibotta since I stopped using it a while ago - the twenty or so bucks is just a holdover from 2016 that I cashed out in January.
I don’t make as much using eBates as most people, but I think that’s either because I won’t make a purchase just to get cash back, plus I don’t push the referrals much. Here’s my eBates referral link.
Square Cash is just referral money, although I’m unsure how much is from my Square Cash review post and how much is from /r/churning referral threads. Here’s my Square Cash referral link.
| site | amount |
|---|---|
| Amazon Mechanical Turk | $733.19 |
| OnGo Surveys | $77.05 |
| Receipt Hog | $60.00 |
| Ibotta | $20.50 |
| eBates | $33.87 |
| Square Cash | $50.00 |
Flipping
Flipping, or arbitrage, is the art of buying something at a low price and then selling later at a higher price. This is essentially how every retailer works. I sell across three platforms, namely Craigslist, Facebook, and eBay. I sell larger items locally, so those go on Craigslist and Facebook. I sold a lot more on Facebook than I did on Craigslist. I also did okay on eBay. Quite a few people sell on Amazon as well, but I haven’t gotten into that area.
I actually haven’t sold anything in the last couple months. I’ve increased my focus on print-on-demand sites, which doesn’t require an inventory. Plus I’ve been focusing on decluttering.
You can check out what I’m currently selling on eBay here → https://www.ebay.com/sch/yknowitsjoe/m.html. As you can see, there’s not a lot right now, maybe about ten items.
| source | amount |
|---|---|
| craigslist | $6.08 |
| $219.94 | |
| eBay | $238.44 |
Credit Card Rewards
I’m quite surprised how much I made on the two Chase cards considering I received the bonuses for them last year, I’ve had no referrals, and won’t spend money just to get points. Here are my Chase Freedom referral link and my Chase Freedom Unlimited referral link if you’re interested - both are a $150 bonus after $500 spend. Be sure to read the fine print and details for each.
I got the Quicksilver for my honeymoon trip to Iceland since there are no foreign transaction fees. I believe the bonus was $150, and Capital One provides no referral bonuses.
There are no referrals for the US Bank card, either.
| Card | Amount |
|---|---|
| Chase Freedom Unlimited | $577.05 |
| Chase Freedom | $661.26 |
| Capital One Quicksilver | $353.55 |
| US Bank Cash+ | $197.93 |
Bank Accounts
Only three of these are checking account bonuses - US Bank, Quorum, and Santander. I’ve since closed the US Bank and Santander accounts, but I’ve kept the Quorum open since they provided me free checks. I might close it once all the checks are gone - which, at the rate I write checks, might be never.
WPCU (Wright-Patt Credit Union) is a popular local credit union. In addition to some dividends they pay out, they provide a savings account that has 3% interest on the first $500.
Finally, Ally is a high-interest savings account that I keep most of my emergency fund in. They started the year at 1.00% interest, and after raising the rate a couple times, are finishing the year at 1.25%. Considering most banks do somewhere around 0.01% interest, it’s a no-brainer. Check out my post on living off the interest if you want to see what a drastic difference that is.
| bank | type | amount |
|---|---|---|
| US Bank | checking account | $200.06 |
| Quorum | checking account | $305.36 |
| Santander | checking account | $450.00 |
| WPCU | checking & savings account | $199.14 |
| Ally | savings account | $112.24 |
Print-On-Demand Sites
These are mostly t-shirt designs. I never expected my Amazon t-shirts to sell so well. I more expected something like my TeeSpring or Redbubble sales.
I’m not complaining, though.
| site | amount |
|---|---|
| Merch by Amazon | $996.15 |
| TeeSpring | $17.48 + $18.00 = $35.48 |
| Redbubble | $2.72 |
Blogging
Here’s where I really scraped by - with this blog and my dog-oriented blog. Neither site was designed to make a ton of money. They’re both intended to improve my web design and writing skills.
That said, I did make a small amount from Amazon Affiliates. $1.28 of that was carry over from last year. There’s an additional $9.50 that I won’t be paid until next year.
Google AdSense has a minimum payment threshold of $100 so I have a long way to go before I get paid. I did better than I did last year, though - my balance at the end of 2016 was only a paltry $1.27.
| what | amount |
|---|---|
| Amazon Affiliates | $34.12 |
| Google Adsense | $11.22 |
Totals
| what | amount |
|---|---|
| survey sites & rebate apps | $974.61 |
| flipping | $464.46 |
| credit card rewards | $1789.79 |
| bank accounts | $1266.80 |
| print-on-demand sites | $1034.35 |
| blogging | $45.34 |
13 comments for 2017 End of Year Side Income Report
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Very nice, sir! I just had some stickers made up for my blog, and I was wanting to look into shirts but really don’t want to handle shipping them. I’ll have to checkout the Amazon t-shirt thing!
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Your year was full of experiments, congratulations Joe! Also you are getting into affiliate marketing as well, I think you have a lot of potential considering what you now know and it seems you are on track.
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Nice work! I’m intrigued by the Mechanical Turk side gig. That’s something I’ll have to look into for 2018. Cheers!
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I say keep going with the shirts, the check engine light one cracked me up.
The check engine light t-shirt is actually my best seller!
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I love seeing these kinds of income reports. I’m kinda surprised by Mechanical Turk accounting for so much. I used it once several years ago, but never made more than a dollar or two. Maybe I need to check it out again.
Mechanical Turk is fairly low-pay, so it’s definitely a last-priority side gig. it’s great to do mindless batches while watching Netflix
Was thinking the exact same thing! Share your secret! Lol
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It looks like you made about $5,500. Not bad. And it looks like you sold even more items since 10 days ago when you published this post. Your eBay store is almost sold out (only 1 item left).
99to1percent recently posted: How I make 6 Figures Working Only 16 hours/week https://99to1percent.com/six-figures-working-16-hours-week/
unfortunately I only had one item because my listings had expired and i hadn’t gotten around to relisting them since I was headed out for a week for new year’s. they should be back up now
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This is a nice summary of different income / revenue items to track.
I never considered tracking our credit card cash rewards, etc.
A lot of different items to keep in mind - thanks for sharing.
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Not bad at all. One thing I won’t do is the accounts rewards - I think this takes too much time to manage and that this time can be used for something that scales much better (e.g. creates value and insane profits :).
Do you mean the credit card rewards? There’s really no time commitment involved, although it does force me to pay closer attention to my budget, which is a good thing.
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