Happy New Year Income Report: December 2015

I can hardly believe it's been another month, yet another entire freaking year! This is insane! As promised here's this month's income report of everything I made money from online. To be honest, I didn't work that much this past month. I started the month at the circus school up in Pai, Thailand learning how to juggle and do acrobatics, then went on a four day yoga retreat. 

I only really worked for one week in Chiang Mai before flying to San Francisco to spend the holidays with my family. As I'm writing this, I have no idea how badly the break affected me, but honestly, as much as I want to grow my income or at least keep it consistent, I really needed this break which is why I'm so thankful that everything I do online is setup to be semi-passive. I wish you all the best of luck in 2016 with your online businesses, here is everything I earned in these past 31 days.

Follow Along Video:

Watch this video for an indepth explanation of all of my income dashboards, what I did these past 31 days and how it affects the bottom line.

Revenue from Book Sales:

Since my goal has always been to share my story, successes and struggles, I haven't been worrying about income from my book sales and have been using myself as a case study to figure out what the best way to organically get the most sales from Amazon are. I tried enrolling in Amazon's KDP Select program where they allow Prime members to borrow the book for free, and even give it away for 5 days for free as well.

I think it's useful for people who are launching a new book that don't already have an audience, but my income definitely dropped because of it. I also think that people who don't invest the $6-$10 in buying the book don't get around to reading it or really investing in it, which is why it's never a good idea to give away something valuable for free. I've unenrolled in KDP select and won't be trying it again anytime soon.

Kindle Book Sales for both 12 Weeks in Thailand and Life Changes Quick

PDF Direct Download sales for both books

Paperback Sales from LuLu: $14.59

New Reviews for Life Changes Quick:

If you're planning on traveling to Thailand in 2016 make sure you read: 12 Weeks in Thailand: The Good Life on the Cheap

If you want to know how I set my New Year's resolutions and actually stuck with them and made them work for the past two years, check out my latest book: Life Changes Quick: 7 Steps to Getting Everything You've Ever Wanted

Total Profit for Book Sales: $212.47 +/-

Revenue from Udemy Courses

This was one of my lowest months as an instructor on Udemy but it was most likely because everyone who was going to buy a course bought it during the black friday sale last month.  Still $240 in completely passive income isn't bad.

Udemy is also having another $10 sale starting today, January 1st 2016 as part of their New Year's Resolutions promo. So if you wanted to learn how to code, create websites, or pretty much anything else, there's most likely a course for it. You can even find my courses or David Vu's ebay course for almost nothing during the New Year's Udemy Sale. 

Total Profit from Udemy: $240.04

Revenue from Miscellaneous:

In December I took on three coaching clients for a total of around $400 and around $85.48 from advertising on my Youtube channel. It's crazy that even though I don't upload Youtube videos often it's such a high stream of passive income even for videos I made years ago.

I'm always tempted to spend more time making and uploading videos because of that, but I know it's not my calling so I'll continue just to make videos organically and not force myself to upload weekly.

Total Profit from Misc. Income: $485.48

Revenue from Dropshipping Stores

December was okay for both stores, I'm really grateful that taking Anton's Dropshipping Course a few years ago has continued to give me a great source of semi-passive income and the freedom to travel as well as work on other projects. 

Total Sales from Store #1: $25,016.96

Advertising Costs: $713.72

Costs of Goods Sold:

Total Profit from Store 1: $1,972.68 +/-

Total Sales from Store #2: $7,248.00

Advertising Costs: $713.72

Costs of Goods Sold: +/-

Total Profit from Store 2: $1,016.19

My 50/50 Split: $508.09

Total Profit from Dropshipping: $2,480.77 

Total Revenue from Affiliate Income

I had a feeling that December was going to be a good month for affiliate income, but it's not because of what I did this past month to earn it. A lot of people don't realize, but all affiliate commissions are paid out 2 - 8 weeks after you make the referral. This is one of the reasons why it's so important to only recommend products and services that actually work and that you've bought and used yourself, as if someone refunds the product because it sucks, not only do you lose that person's trust, you also lose the affiliate commission you would have gotten.

As always I only show my exact sources of affiliate income inside my paid member's course, Earnest Affiliate but here's a sneak preview of two of my earners:

Affiliate income from Amazon for December

Affiliate income from just one of my affiliate networks

Total Profit from Affiliate Income: $11,118.94

Total Revenue from My Course: Earnest Affiliate

I'm really excited that we're slowly but steadily adding more content and member's into the course and every month people are posting threads on making their first affiliate incomes and really starting to see success. It would be nice if earnest affiliate marketing was something people can see results from overnight but the reality is, it takes time to build valuable content, trust and  credibility when it comes to recommending purchases. 

Congrats to Earnest Affiliate Member Michael for making his first affiliate income a few days ago, i'm sure he's going to continue to do well and really crush it in 2016!

Total Profit from my membership course: Earnest Affiliate $1,204.13

Office of the day: Business Class to San Francisco

Expenses for December 2015:

I'd love to say that I bootstrapped a ton of money into savings this month but the reality is I spent wayyy more this month that I normally do. 

Rent/Expenses in Chiang Mai: $400

Pai Weekend Trip: $120

Yoga Retreat: $230

Business Class Flight: CNX to SFO: $3,163.02

U.S. Phone Bill: $60

Monthly Allowance to Parents: $1,000

Gifts/Stuff: $1,500

Spending in SF/Austin: $1,000 +/-
NYE Tickets: $240

Total Expenses for December: $7,753 +/-

Hanging out with my parents for Christmas

December Wrap Up

As nice as it was to come home for the holidays, and spend time in the U.S. it's just way too expensive to be able to save a significant amount of money every month while still being able to send my parent's money, travel, and enjoy life. 

So after this trip, i'll be back in Chiang Mai for most of the year continuing to bootstrap, build new income streams and save as much money as possible to buy further investments.

Total Profit for December 2015: $16,741.83

Happy New Year's and wishing everyone the best for 2016!

P.S. If you haven't watched the follow along video, check it out here as I go into a lot more detail not on the blog.

Warm Regards,

Johnny

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