Note that unless otherwise specified, all amounts indicated are pre-tax. Note also that payments are indicated in the month they are received, not in the month that work is completed. Parenthesis show change from the previous month.
I share my income because I want people to know that working online is a serious possibility, but it does require a lot of hard work and it will take you a while to find your niche and build your business. In 2015, I barely made more than I did working part time at $10 per hour in college. Now things are looking up but are still realistic. There are a handful of very very very successful bloggers that share their income online, and while I believe then and am impressed by them, making over a million dollars a year online is probably not something most people are going to be able to achieve. Making a livable income and having the flexibility to go where you want and even to work when you want? Yes. That’s what I do, and I think you can too.
April 2016 Income Report
Affiliate Revenue – $45.28 (-$82.80)
Airbnb – $531.00 (-$451.00)
Award Bookings – $243.38 (-$965.70)
Cash Back Promotions – $10 (-$1,338.60)
Freelance Writing – $3,920.79 (+$2,045.79)
Misc. – $0.00 (-$72)
Substitute Teaching – $0.00 (-$161.00)
Travel Agency – $0.00 (same)
Tutoring (online) – $143.90 (+$106.35)
Total: $4,891.35 5,813.31 (-$921.96)
April 2016 Reflections
April was a pretty crazy month in a lot of ways. I was still out in Colorado and had met a really cool group of people so I was trying to make the most of my last couple of weeks out there – and the last couple of weeks of skiing for the season. Depending on how you look at it, you could call my last day of the ski season (this year) a success. I wasn’t at all ready to head back to Michigan, but at least from the work perspective it was probably a good thing considering I hadn’t really been pushing things at the beginning of the month (and that will partially be reflected in next month’s income report as well).
Even with all of that considered, this month was a pretty good one! My freelance writing is really taking off and currently providing the bulk of my income. There are two blogs that I am regularly contributing for plus a handful of random gigs here and there.
It was a bit of a tough month for award bookings, which is two-faceted. 1 – we got less booking requests this month and 2 – I wasn’t spending my days sitting at my computer a whole lot and especially when demand is a bit low, competition is high between the award booking specialists to take on new bookings. Overall, I’m find with it and I wouldn’t trade my last few weeks of being in Colorado for a couple extra hundred dollars. Though, maybe next year I’ll rethink jumping off cliffs.
![Russia – Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Velicky Novgorod [VIDEO]](https://carolinelupini.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/russia-500x383.jpg)
![The Dead Sea – Don’t Miss It! [VIDEO]](https://carolinelupini.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Screen-Shot-2018-03-11-at-1.44.10-PM-500x383.png)
So awesome! Congrats on getting those freelance gigs. Would love to know how you do it.
So far it’s been all about the network and the writing I have done! My first freelance gig came directly through someone I knew. The one-time gigs I’ve done have always been through people contacting me via email after seeing something else I wrote. The second main freelance gig I have also came from an email contact of someone else heavily involved in points/miles/travel blogs. I think part of it is that the ‘travel hacking’ niche is relatively small, but there’s a lot of money in it for the more established blogs, so it is worth their time to seek out writers who are knowledgable on the subject and willing to write for them whereas for regular travel blogs (and a lot of other subject blogs in general) there is a lot less money in it therefore it is tougher to justify paying someone to write.
Great work, and I definitely agree – making a livable wage and being able to be flexible to go and work where you want is pretty sweet!
Thanks for the comment Daryl! I especially like being able to reduce my cost of living even more when I am traveling to some regions in the world and can contribute extra money to paying off student loans and into savings!