Welcome to my first annual multiple income stream report! I’m very excited to share with you my first full year of earnings, and recap some of the biggest lessons learned. You may be confused by this being my first annual income report, but looking back, I never did a full annual one because 2012 was actually my first full year of keeping track (2011 was a partial year). An interesting note, I started The College Investor, my first blog, in 2009…so you can see that it took me almost 2 years before I started making decent money…definitely not an overnight success story here.
As with all my income stream reports this year, I share this information with you so that:
- I can keep track of my progress over time
- Hold myself accountable to goals I set
- Be transparent and authentic about what I’m doing to build multiple income streams
- Hopefully inspire you to do the same!
After adding everything up this year, I’m shocked about how far I’ve come developing multiple income streams.
One of the biggest questions I get from readers is “what else is there beyond blogging, since you talk about blogging a lot”. And you’re right, I do talk about blogging a lot, but I also made a decent amount of money from other income streams as well – most notably investing and freelance writing. In the end, making money via multiple income streams still requires work. Whether you’re using your mind, or body, income comes from blood, sweat, and tears.
I’m a firm believer that anyone can build a diverse cash flow base to support their lifestyle, but you can’t do it by being lazy. The truth is, unless you’re willing to get up early, stay up late, and put in the time and effort, you will fail – online and offline. Living off dividends, royalties, and affiliate income only comes once the hard work has been put in.
You can do it, and hopefully this report inspires you to make it happen right now!
Multiple Income Stream Breakdown
Here is the breakdown of my multiple income streams for 2012. I’ve just summarized everything by main source, since most of you probably read my monthly income stream reports anyway.
Investing
- Dividends: $8,205.68
- Capital Gains: $6,876.44
Websites
- The College Investor: $17,973.32
- My Multiple Incomes: $5,717.38
- Entrepreneurship Life: $3,208.54
- Kids Ain’t Cheap: $244
- Niche Sites: $47.20
Other Streams
- Writing Services: $10,425
- eBay Sales: $4,357.93
Gross Total: $57,055.49
Expenses
Everyone loves to talk “well, how much did you spend to earn that…”, so here are my expenses for 2012 in full.
- Subcontracted Services (staff writers, developers, etc.): $6,070
- Merchant Account Fees (PayPal): $875.26
- Commissions Paid (eBay): $535.39
- Computer Stuff (hosting, software, internet, etc.): $4,992.26
- Advertising and Promotions (including giveaways): $1,332.59
- Other Business Stuff: $2,130.30
Total Expenses: $15,935.80
The Results from 2012
Gross Income for 2012 – $57,055.49
Expenses – $15,935.80
Net Total Side Income for 2012 – $41,119.69
That’s AMAZING! Truly AMAZING! When I first start blogging and thought of the idea of developing multiple income streams, I never thought I’d earn this much in one year.
What’s even more amazing is how it is really about developing multiple streams of income, not just about blogging. Just look at the breakdown by percentage of where my income came from last year:
- Investing: 26.4%
- Websites: 47.7%
- Writing: 18.3%
- Sales: 7.6%
So, yes, while blogging is the biggest chunk of income from 2012, it isn’t the only one, and my other income streams did provide great results last year.
I appreciate all of your support in making this a wonderful year! It’s my readers, like you, that make this possible. If you haven’t done so yet, I’d love it if you subscribed to my newsletter:
Goals from 2012
I always think that it is important to look back on the past year to move forward into the future. I did this a little last week in my post New Year, New Goals, but I want to look at the income side of things and how I challenged myself this year.
The first thing I did in 2012 was join a challenge – the 30k Challenge. It was a group of bloggers who challenged themselves to make $30,000 online in one year – doing anything related to their blogs: advertising, freelancing, selling a product. At first, earning $30,000 seemed crazy considering I had only earned roughly $10,000 from blogging in my entire life prior to 2012. But, I broke down the challenge into little steps: just earn $2,500 per month, each month, and you’ll be there.
And that has been my goal all year. Earn $2,500 per month. I’m glad I beat the challenge, and as a result, I’m going to up the challenge in 2013.
Goals for 2013
I have two big goals for 2013 when it comes to developing multiple income streams.
- Get 1,000,000 Unique Visitors in 2013 to my websites. This includes all 4 of my websites, which would be about double the traffic that I’m currently getting. I think it would be amazing to have over 1,000,000 people reading my content.
- Earn $100,000 in 2013. My new goal is to double what I did in 2012. Earn $100k with my multiple income streams. Now, that’s a scary number, and even when I break it down to $8,300 per month, I’m still a bit scared because I only earned that amount once in 2012, and it was due to investing gains. But, once again, if you look back on my $2,500 challenge, in 2011 I had only earned that amount once as well – so it’s possible!
As I mentioned last week, I’m going to go after this goal by re-focusing. I’m refocusing on what matters – the content and the community. That’s why goal #1 is about readership, not money. I’m a believer that the money will come if the community and reader engagement is there. I want to develop a product (i.e. a website) that people want to go to everyday and see what’s new. For my wife, she loves Radar Online. She goes there multiple times per day. Well, I want my sites to be the same for their readers – to go there to get the latest updates and feel engaged. While I’m not posting everyday, I think that this is still very possible.
Big News!
A Pea in the Pod
To top it all off, I’m very excited to share some big news from my household – my wife and I are expecting our first child this year! She’s currently about 3 months pregnant, so this summer will be a big change for us!
It should be interesting to see how a baby will impact our lives and change the way we think about multiple income streams. My wife and I have already had some interesting discussions around it – i.e. staying home, can we afford it, etc. and once the baby is here, it will be interesting to see how we adjust.
The great thing is, that as a reader of My Multiple Incomes, you can read first hand how this is affecting our lives and my goals of building multiple income streams. I’ve set some high goals for myself this year, so I hope I can still achieve them.
The bottom line is that I thank you, the readers, for making this possible. If none of you visited, I wouldn’t be able to make this possible. Plus, I also wouldn’t have the motivation to continue. Your engagement is what makes me both energized to continue, while at the same time holds me accountable to the goals I set for myself each year. Hopefully you’ll see success again this year, but if not, I’m sure there will be lessons you can take away from my failure as well.
Either way, 2013 should make for a great year!
This post was written by
Robert is the founder and editor of My Multiple incomes, a personal finance site dedicated to highlighting how anyone can create multiple income streams and diversify their cash flow.
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A third goal I would like you to consider is to continue to maintain your high standard for article and blog content. That’s what draws me to each of your posts. The value generated by your content is the fuel for all the financial goals.
Thanks for throwing out a third goal – I’m totally on the same page as you. I think that high content standards are what is going to make #1 and #2 possible. It’s also why my vision for this year is to re-focus on the content and make sure that I’m delivering! More to come on this soon!
Hey Robert, congrats on your first child! That is the biggest news of them all!
I think $100K is achievable. Why not? It’s America, baby!
Sam
Thanks for the well-wishes!
Congratulations on your income and a big welcome for the new member in the family who is just 6 months away. Do not worry as babies always bring good luck which will at least quadruple your earnings.
Wow, I haven’t heard that before but I’ll take it!
Well you sure did have an awesome 2012!!! I’m just finishing my first year blogging but have not monetized my site but am moving to self-hosted now. I’m not sure how to get involved with making side income writing. Where does one start with that? Congrats on the baby!!! Mr.CBB
Self hosted is the way to go! Glad you’re making the switch, and hopefully you’re using someone like Andrea to help you with the move. If you’re interested in writing, email me and we can chat.
Very inspiring, even if it did take you 2 years to start earning any money. I’ve been at it for 3 years now and last year was the first time that my online income actually exceeded my online expenses.
That’s a huge step in the right direction, and hopefully you’ll be even more successful here in 2013!
You definitely did great in 2012! I hope in 2013 you reach your goals again. And woohooo congrats on the baby
Nice Job Robert! I knew you could beat the challenge. It was unfortunate that the challenge dissolved after the ‘google slap’. I’m glad to see it motivated you. In 2013, I’m focusing on increasing my hourly rate. I invested a lot of time to break 30k and I realized that I can work smarter, while also advancing my career and make as much, if not more money, while my sites develop. I also extended too far and it cost me when it comes to traffic. Time to re-focus and make sure the growth is sustainable. Good luck reaching 100k.
That’s a good point on hourly rate. I’ve thought about that a bit as well – you can earn a lot, but at what cost?
Congrats on the upcoming baby! Life will change indeed, and for the better….nothing more tiring, yet nothing more rewarding.
Secondarily, congrats on a great year with side income. Job well done, best of luck with things this year.
I’m a night person, and can get by on little sleep, so we shall see how I get along with a newborn!
Congrats on all the great news! And good luck on your goals. I’m confident you’ll pull it off.
Thanks for the support! I hope you’re enjoying #NMX!
Congrats on the upcoming addition. Sounds like you had a great year and that this year will be even better in many ways!!!!
I’m very excited about 2013! Thanks for the support!
Congratulations on the baby, exciting news! I have a question about the writing gigs, I assume you write for other blogs and get paid, but hire staff writers for your own sites. Is it because you make more elsewhere, or to keep your content fresh, or to get exposure and backlinks?
You’ve done amazingly well! and congrats on the baby!! Super exciting
Thanks again for having me apart of Kids ain’t Cheap!
Congratulations to the new addition to your family! It is indeed a great blessing to start the year with. With the new inspiration, I am confident that you can achieve your goals for this year.
Great job in 2012 and congratulation! 2013 is going to be tough with a baby, but I’m sure you can do it. I see why you need multiple sites now. I’ll check back to see if you’re on track. Good luck!
Congratulations on the new member family, Robert, and also on your successes — those are some impressive numbers!
Have you written before on what your biggest revenues earners are for your websites? AdSense, affiliates, private ads, etc. I’d be interested in reading a breakdown.
You can go through all my income reports, but private advertising has traditionally been my highest revenue earner.
Congrats, Robert! What a year!!
Congrats on the baby Robert! And I am sure you will make it to 100K through your multiple income streams!
Seems everything is working in your favor, stars are aligned. I would say becoming father is by far the best news, not the income one. Heartiest congratulations.
Such wonderful news….look at that cute chicken nugget!
By my tally, you are doing so incredibly wonderful at creating multiple PASSIVE income streams. Seems like you’re only a couple years away from that being $100,000 in passive income before you even count actively earned $$. Can you imagine what that will be like?!
I’m going to start following suit if you don’t mind!
Congrats on the bun in the oven! Also impressive results and upcoming goals. Hit them as hard as you can because when the baby arrives, you will have almost no time for your side projects. Question, for your website income, was this all from advertising? Congrats again!
Yes, all website income was from advertising – private ads, affiliate income, and PPC. I don’t have any products I sell yet, but that may change…
First of all congratulations on the coming new addition to your family and for your success blogging. Seeing these numbers is really inspiring to me. While I am no where close to shooting for 1 million unique visitors it is reassuring that I have to start somewhere just as you did. Keep up the good work, I will continue to follow you in 2013.
Thanks for the positive support. I never thought I would be where I am either when I started. It takes time and a solid focus.
Great job!!! SO exciting that you overachieved your 30K challenge, and that you are setting such a lofty goal for 2013. Good luck with everything.
Congrats on the success and best wishes going forward!
Congrats on the great income this year and on the baby! That’s really awesome on both accounts.
Great job! Those earnings are amazing! And congrats on the baby, that’s super exciting!!
[...] @ My Multiple Incomes writes My First Annual Multiple Income Stream Report – 2012 – After adding everything up this year, I’m shocked about how far I’ve come developing [...]
What a great 2012. I am sure your 2013 will be awesome, especially with the new addition to te family. Congrats!
Congratulations on the upcoming baby, that’s really exciting!
That is a really amazing income blogging for the year! How much traffic did you get to post those numbers?