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Life has been busy as of late. Newborn babies are exhausting little creatures, and sometimes we aren’t sure if it is day or night. To parents who survive these early days while holding down a job, we salute you.
But each day is a little brighter. GCCjr sometimes sleeps 3 hours before screaming bloody murder, a big improvement over the usual 2. He’s also figured out that his left hand is really tasty, which has improved his self soothing skills. And I’ve learned to change a diaper without getting peed on.
All of this to say we are beginning to feel less like one of the Walking Dead, and a little more like our old selves. Sometimes we even have a brief moment of clarity during which we actually accomplish something! I took advantage of one of these moments recently to process all of our income & expenses for the 1st Half of 2015 (Yeah, I know how to party! Woot!)
Imagine my surprise when… *GASP*… this little blog accidentally made some serious bank!
Instead of continuing the income trend of previous years…
Blog Income
2012 – $0
2013 – $0
2014 – $1,987
We got:
2015 – $25,372 (through June 30th)
For the first half of the year, we have had an effective portfolio withdrawal rate of ~0%. HOLY CRAP!
As an added bonus, Go Curry Cracker! was recently named by Wisebread.com as one of the 5 Best Websites to Help You Retire Early.
Richard Branson just may have been right:
Have Fun, Do Good, Success Will Come – Richard Branson
Accidental Income
Thank you!
I started writing this blog almost 3 years ago about two of our favorite topics, Money and Travel. I never knew so many other people loved Travel and Money as much as we do. Thank you for reading and commenting and sharing!
Along the way we added some advertisements and affiliate links for things that we personally use and love. For example, TurboTax has been my tax tool of choice for years, so it was a great opportunity when I had the chance to be a TurboTax affiliate.
I really know nothing about SEO or how to optimize revenue, so getting any income at all is a novelty. It just sort of happened.
Blogging Income
This is how we started making money online. To get started blogging, see our post on How to Start a Blog.
Advertising
All of our advertising income comes from Google’s AdSense. It pays anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars if you click on an ad of interest.
There are other ad platforms, and it is possible to earn more by selling advertising space directly. I haven’t explored this option. The offers I have received for direct advertising haven’t been a good fit.
Affiliate Links
– Flexoffers – flexoffers.com hosts an affiliate program for thousands of unique companies, products, and services. To get started getting affiliate income from the things you already use and love, Flexoffers is the place to start.
Even better for bloggers, if you refer other people into the flexoffers affiliate program, you can earn commissions from their sales. Can you see how powerful that can be?
Get started with Flexoffers asap.
– Amazon.com’s affiliate program is one of the best around. If a reader clicks on an Amazon link and purchases anything within the next 24 hours, we get paid a small percentage of the sale. The sale price is the same regardless.
Usually sales are for books that we recommend, such as Your Money or Your Life
. But sometimes it is for really weird stuff, like a Hazmat Suit
– Personal Capital – PC is a great tool for tracking expenses, analyzing 401k fees, managing cash flow, and optimizing asset allocation. Recently, budgeting tools and a high quality Retirement Planner / Calculator. And it is FREE.
If you give it a try we get a referral fee, and is one of our best income sources.
If you are interested for your own site, click here to become a Personal Capital affiliate. The payouts are well worth it.
– Credit Cards – We use cash back and rewards cards whenever we can. We even had $10k in free travel to Europe. Credit cards are a great example of getting paid to do what you were going to do anyway. We’ve had a few conversions from recommending cards we like.
– Other products and services – sites like linkoffers.com and Commission Junction represent thousands of affiliate publishers. Almost any product or service can be offered.
Some examples include PerformanceBike.com
and Nashbar.com for bike stuff, and Blue Host for WordPress Hosting.
– Free stuff – Many services and sites offer free stuff for referrals. Some examples are in the “Things we love” section in the sidebar, such as Airbnb Credit of $35 and A free Ride on Uber.
Sponsored Links and Posts
Some advertisers will pay for bloggers to include links to their sites, to write articles about a product or service, or to share a guest post from the advertiser.
I’ve turned down all of these offers to date as none of them have been a good fit.
Other
There are many other potential sources of income, many I’m probably not aware of. Some bloggers write books or write for other sites, others sell apps they created or offer consulting services, and some even have How to Make Money Blogging courses. There is really no limit to the possibilities.
Multiple Streams of Income
With a potential 60+ year retirement, we always considered earning an income on the side as a possibility. Any additional income can significantly boost a portfolio’s longevity as the 4% Rule assumes future income is zero.
The opportunities seem endless.
I’ve been offered some consulting work from time to time, but even thinking about it is unpleasant. I think this would be an income source used only in the case of emergency.
Winnie has had requests to use some of her photos, and may put her portfolio online for that purpose (many photos already on her public Facebook page.) She has also sold a few pieces of her jewelry, although so far just for the cost of materials, but maybe there is an Etsy store in her future.
We’ve also both talked about writing a book.
It is an amazing thing to earn income for doing something you were going to do anyway. I suspect many Early Retirees have already or will discover something similar.
Repeat our Results?
Is this kind of income sustainable? I am skeptical, although by objective measures I’m sure the blog is underperforming.
Is this repeatable? I really have no idea.
But I think sharing a passion through blogging is rewarding in itself, whether that be Travel and Money or Underwater Basket Weaving. So much so that I think everyone should blog!
Sound interesting? I have a step-by-step guide that can have you up and running in 30 minutes for less than the price of a monthly latte.
Get started with blogging today!
Have Fun, Do Good, and who knows, maybe you’ll make some accidental income.
What I love about your blog is that it is so authentic, innovative and fun. I have shared your site with a lot of friends because of the incredible analyses you have done. When you have a blog that is REALLY good, people can’t help but share it. I’m glad you’re getting paid for your hard, thoughtful work.
Thanks Nate! Blogging is becoming a whole lot more fun with all of the great ideas that get shared in the comments. Thank you for sharing! I have a list of posts to write that I’m excited about, so I’m optimistic about building this little blog even more
Congratulations on your success from your friends over at Dividend Growth Investor. You deserve every penny of it.
The “problem” you have now is that this income will change your tax situation drastically. However, you can always do a solo 401 (k) for you and Winnie, deduct a lot of money (up to $18K each plus “employer matching”), and would mostly have to end up paying the self employment taxes. The rest could go to regular IRA’s or Roth IRA’s.
Of course, if you are doing any business related expenses, such as travel to go to a conference in Latin America to meet MMM, Mad Fientist, JC etc.. You can deduct that too.
Oh well, that’s a good “problem” to have ;-)
In Paul Terrhost’s book “Cashing in on the American Dream”, he provided examples how many of the people who “retired early”, ended up making more money during that “leisure time” than during their careers. Fascinating that your story is another example of that. On a side note, have you met the Terrhost’s before?
Thanks! I think you’ve summarized our tax situation for this year. 15.3% of whatever we don’t spend on business needs (we “need” a new laptop) and the rest goes into a solo 401k. Our net tax rate will likely still be close to 0%, so a Roth solo 401k most likely
The employer matching part I’m not yet sure about, as it is based on percentage of salary. I’m not sure if that just means total business income as I’m a sole proprietor. I still have 6 months to figure it out :)
I haven’t met the Terhorsts, but I have read their book, Cashing in on the American Dream
I’ve met the Kaderlis, who retired in a similar timeframe. Really nice people
Congratulations! That’s fantastic. I’m glad you’re getting paid for something you enjoy and us readers can help by using/buying things we would use anyway. I don’t know anything about blog sustainability, but I know you have a lot of readers for life (myself included). Thank you so much for your insights. Good luck with GCCjr!
Wow, thanks Semira! GCCjr is giving us a whole different level of motivation to build a happy life. Good luck to you too!
This is such a great blog! The posts really make my day! Thank you for all that you’ve done for my family financially. You deserve all the monetary and personal gratification you receive and much more! I was a self induced financial disaster and with the help of blogs like yours we are definitely on the right track now. Luckily our high incomes make it easier to correct mistakes(like a 6000 sq ft house in need of rehab–BUT it’s such a great investment!!!!–Not so much!).
You have such a cute baby. I especially liked the picture of the leaking diaper. Been there done that! My favorite memory is 3am with my son when he was just a few months old. At the time it sucked because he wanted to play but now he’s 9 and that’s one of my favorite memories. Of all the successes in my life having children has been by far the greatest. Enjoy the time.
Congrats on getting on the right track!
I’ve had some pretty exhausting 3 am to 6 am play sessions, but they are definitely a wonderful thing in hind sight. We keep saying, “Wow he is growing up so fast!” and he is only 3 months old
I’ll be happy when he grows out of diapers though :)
Congratulations and wow! Big earner! What are you going to do with all that extra money? ;)
I’m sort of in the same position in terms of accidental income. It’s roughly paying for most our living expenses so far in 2015. But who knows if it will continue at that level forever? Who knows if I’ll get bored of it and move on to something else?
Oh, and about that hazmat suite someone ordered off amazon. Someone else ordered a hazmat suite through my amazon affiliate links. Wonder why hazmat suits are so popular to the travel/ER crowd?
Nice, congrats to you too
What are we going to do with all that extra money? We are going to Disney Land! haha OK really it is just sitting in the bank account and I’ll probably buy some more VTI next time I get around to managing investments. Or maybe I’ll buy a hazmat suit.. gotta watch out for that ebola and MERS
Hazmat suits are also useful if the kiddo gets sick.
Wow, inspiring!
I’m definitely with you on the Richard Branson quote. Doing what you love and helping other people at the same time is the best way to live (and apparently it pays well too).
Definitely interested to see what a book from you two would look like. :)
FM
Thanks FM!
Winnie has had two publishers in Taiwan ask her to write a book version of her blog. In Chinese of course. She would also like to put together a photo book
I have an outline for an ER book, but have been on page 1 for a long time. Maybe this winter I’ll focus on that
Yeah, I feel your pain there. I’ve tried to write a regular book and couldn’t get past the first chapter for some reason. I think it has to do with perfectionism. We want everyone to like our book and reduce judgement from those we respect as much as possible. Eventually, you have to trust your gut and just go for it. I’ll let you know when I take my own advice on that one, too. :D
I’m OK with imperfection. It just hasn’t been the big priority. That will probably be my winter project
That is an impressive growth curve for your blogging income! Imagine projecting that out 10 years? This would look great as PowerPoint slide in one of those energy sucking meetings we have to attend each day. Wait – you don’t have to attend them anymore. :)
I am definitely enjoying and following your journey. The added benefit of doing something you love (to write about money and travel) and receiving income, probably does not feel like work.
At this rate, we will be billionaires in just a few years ;)
I definitely prefer the hours and pace of blogging to business meetings.
Congrats to you and your family! Hopefully you keep surviving with the kids. It’s not easy, but it gets better eventually.
What I love best about your blog are the specifics of tax arbitrage. You’ve made me a much richer man, and you deserve all the success you have (and will continue to) achieved..
Awesome! Congrats to becoming a richer man, also well deserved
Things seem to be getting easier with the little guy as he sleeps more. Sleep makes everything better
Oops….I think someone’s going to owe taxes this year ;) By the way, awesome blog. Very encouraging and entertaining. Keep up the great work!
I assume they will just have to adjust how much capital gains they cash in on through rollovers, but it does make the tax planning a little more interesting especially if this income holds steady or increases.
Well my initial thought was 25.3k x 2 ~ 51k of self employment income. Subtract 1 standard deduction (12.4k) and 3 personal exceptions (12k). This would only be enough to cover roughly half of the self employment income, however, they should be able to continue to realize capital gains tax free until the $74,900 threshold. Good opportunity to throw some extra $’s in a Roth IRA, and as always, an extra $1 of income never (except in some very rare circumstances) creates more than $1 of taxes, so everybody wins!
I’ll write about this when I get it all figured out
We’ll owe self-employment taxes on what doesn’t get spent on business expenses (hosting fees, new laptop, etc…) We can contribute some to Roth IRAs but that won’t reduce today’s tax burden.
As OK said, we’ll have to adjust how much cap gain harvesting we do, and may not be able to do any tax free Roth IRA conversion. All TBD
Does living out of the country affect self-employment taxes as it does with taxes on wages (you can deduct up to a certain amount)?
Alternatively, not sure if Winnie is a US Citizen, but if not, could it be advantageous to explore putting all the blog stuff in her name?
It is possible to claim the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.
Since we are married, any of Winnie’s income is considered our income for US tax purposes. We could do some stuff as married filing separately, but that starts to limit tax free investment income
I’ll figure this out more, and will share in a future post
Yeah, oops. This is what happens when you violate Rule #1 (Choose Leisure over Labor)
You’re definitely an inspiration to all of us who want to enjoy a life of FI :)
Keep the articles coming.
Thank you!
Oops. Was I the hazmat suit?!
I think there were some hip waders in that order as well, so yeah, probably ;)
That sounds right! :)
First of all, congrats on the online income. Very impressive!
Sounds like you guys are doing alright with the new parents thing. We had to live through 2 months of feeding every 3 hours sharp. I have no idea how I didn’t fall asleep in the office during that time.
Thanks Tawcan
We are on a 2-3 hour feeding schedule, it is pretty brutal. Naps are a wonderful thing, that you didn’t fall asleep is really impressive
Thanks for sharing all those information!
My pleasure, Sherry. Thanks for reading!
I love reading posts like this, on what someone actaully does vs just plain how to posts. And you guys should definitely write a book!
Thanks Mrs B! I’ll probably get the book going this winter
Awesome job! Hope too many people don’t learn about early retirement, still need the cogs to keep the economy machine running ;)
I think I would like the world where everybody knew about early retirement. The transition would be tough, but the results would be worth it
It won’t happen though. Everybody knows how to exercise and eat well, but few do
I had a friend in college who participated in a sleep deprivation experiment to earn some extra money. She said parenting an infant was very similar but no check!
Congratulations on the income.Nice to see good work rewarded!
Thanks Madeline. Not only do you get no check with the infant, but they drain your wallet haha
Congrats on the extra income that you didn’t even expect and for doing something you were going to do anyways. That’s truly incredible. Keep up the good work.
I still don’t believe it, but I’ll cash the checks :) It will be interesting to see if this is sustainable
Wow, fantastic! We are building a blog too, and will use many of these links. Thanks for putting them out there. You are having a great year, enjoy!
Nice, good luck Jeremy! (great name ;) )
I would definitely be interested in a book! Your story is very inspiring. I also think early/semi retirement is easier to reach than most people think if we just rethink the modern workforce and learn to value meaningful pursuits over keeping up with the Jones’. You are proof of that with travel, blogging, writing, etc…
Thank you. I agree, it is easier than most people think. Biking over driving, cooking over restaurants, and small apartment over a big house will get anybody making above median income there
A lot of people say those are big sacrifices, but after doing it, I loathe owning a car and a house. The real sacrifice is working until you drop
Wow, that accidental income is pretty awesome. It’s crazy that it made that sudden and huge leap from 2014 to 2015. What do you attribute that to? I started my blog a few months before my son was born, but’s tough put in the work on that, regular job and hanging out with the family. I wish I had started early…the little ones take up a lot of your time, though I really do enjoy spending that time with him. The early months with the lack of sleep is a bit of a blur to me, even though it wasn’t too long ago.
I attribute it to traffic growth due to media exposure. We will sometimes have more traffic in a day than we did in a month in 2014
I never would have had time to blog while working. Even without work these months are a blur
Congratulations on the side income. I found this blog a few months ago and the article on how to pay no taxes again was an eye opener. Awesome blog!
Thanks Mr E!
That’s fantastic! The extra income is great when you didn’t plan for it.
The baby will get easier and easier until he’s 2. Then it will get more and more difficult again as he become a little boy. :) Enjoy!
I’m most excited about the income because now I’m motivated to figure out how to minimize the taxes :)
I’m excited about the little boy phase. We are going to do a lot of swimming and biking together
I’m just going to come out and say it if no one else will: you are the greatest blogger that ever lived!
It’s about time that greatness started to pay.
Haha, I wish :)
Nice photo on Forbes! Speaking of that,I saw an article or two on yahoo a few weeks back and was amazed by how ignorant and ridiculous the comments were.
Instead of trying to learn how to live a financially independent life, they just doubt everything and ignore the math. Sometimes I forget how isolated the financial independence community is from main stream America.
Anyway, congrats on the significant blog income! That’s super motivating coming from someone that’s 6 months in and has made $0 :)… although I haven’t actively put advertisements on the site. Once the following grows, I may change my mind.
Hopefully the 2nd half looks even better!
yeah, the Yahoo article is interesting. You can learn everything you need to know about the state of financial education in the US from the 1,000+ angry comments
I’m not sure if income will continue at this level. It will be cool if it does, but we are lucky to not depend on it
Hey GCC,
Thanks for sharing some of the details for the coverage and the revenue it generated, this is quite interesting to see how much power (and $$) there is having a feature in Forbes & Co. So congrats (and the article was pretty cool).
I am thinking though, would you mind sharing how you went to get an interview with Forbes? That’d be interesting too.
Nick
The Forbes thing was an accident. They contacted us
Well, that is a pretty happy accident :)
Quick comment and quick question.
Regarding the lack of sleep. The weirdest part of being a new parent is that all you want is a full night of good sleep. Then one day you will wake up after 6-8 hours of sleep, fully refreshed and you will only enjoy it for about 5 seconds before complete panic sets in. Baby must be dead! Several people told us this and we thought they were crazy until it happened to us. Consider yourself warned.
As for the massive spike in income, was it simply a matter of massively increased traffic? Like you we started with no plan to monetize, but as I’ve found a love of writing and feel good knowing it is helping people I find it encouraging to see it is a possible way to make some side income in retirement.
Congrats on the good fortune with the blog!
EE
Congrats and thank you for the transparency you continue to provide. It is really refreshing to read such honesty.
Very cool and glad you are getting some renumeration for the good content you put out there!
No doubt, if you did 1:1 coaching to help others design their ideal lifestyle you could surely pull in some good money on the side (and have fun doing)….but I suppose that would mean more work!
I’ve started coaching (after leaving my job of 14 years at MSFT to travel the world for 18 months, I think you were there too?) and absolutely love it….
All my best,
Ravi
http://Motivated.Life
Hey Ravi, yeah I was at MS for ~12 years.
There are many ways we could make some $. I’ve had many offers for consulting work, etc… but I will only do stuff that I would be willing to do for free. If it accidentally makes some money that is fine too
Sounds like you have a great lifestyle
Cheers
Jeremy
Hey GCC, do you have to pay self employment taxes on this income? Are you coming up with ways to minimize that?
We do have to pay SE taxes. Options to reduce this are limited. I’ll share when I have a better grasp of the options
This is the price we pay for violating Rule #1, choose leisure over labor
Love that your blog is financially rewarding *and* is a great source of information for all us novices out there. Great job and thanks for sharing this information.