2020 was our 8th full year of life beyond work. After all this time I still feel it is pretty nice.
This year was a bit more disorganized than most, simply because the year was more chaotic – a global pandemic and the birth of our 2nd child may have been contributing factors. As such, 2020 content was more wide than deep. Topics covered include:
- The CARES Act and other tax related gobbledygook
- Life during a pandemic
- The emotional bits of losing a sh#t ton of $$$
- The Award Travel Series – a whole bunch of great travel hacking help and inspiration
- Some fun lifestyle choices we have made – country club, 2 kids, nanny, etc…
Each year we’ve also shared detailed income and blog traffic data – I always suspected that during a big recession readership and income on a blog such as this would plummet. If there are no capital gains, there isn’t much interest in tax optimization. If you can’t or won’t travel, travel hacking isn’t the most exciting topic.
Let’s just say that I was pleasantly surprised on both counts.
GCC Business Review
Here are the traffic, revenue, profit, and hours worked on Go Curry Cracker dot com in 2020.
Blog
The following table shows raw blog traffic and profit, with estimates for hours of my time invested based on number of posts.
There were 34 posts published this year, of which I wrote 26 – presumably that means I did nothing for the other 26 weeks, which seems about right. Or mathematically, I worked about 3 40-hour work-weeks this year and had 49 weeks of vacation.
| Year | Page Views | Profit (Sched C) | PPM ($/1k view) | Posts written | "Work" hrs/wk | $/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 108,451 | $0 | 0 | 80 | 12 | $0 |
| 2014 | 289,908 | $1,987 | $6.85 | 44 | 7 | $5 |
| 2015 | 2,481,852 | $36,419 | $14.67 | 53 | 8 | $88 |
| 2016 | 1,706,533 | $28,271 | $16.57 | 28 | 4 | $136 |
| 2017 | 1,384,909 | $54,097 | $39.06 | 29 | 4 | $260 |
| 2018 | 2,015,269 | $70,548 | $35.01 | 51 | 8 | $180 |
| 2019 | 1,347,807 | $57,250 | $42.48 | 36 | 7 | $157 |
| 2020 | 1,182,686 | $38,923 | $31.91 | 34 | 4 | $192 |
| Total | 10,517,415 | $287,495 | $27.34 | 355 | ~7 | ~$106 |
Traffic definitely dropped due to the ‘rona, but by a lot less than I expected (down only 13%.) Still, 100k page views per month on average is not bad.
Revenue was down much more substantially and in every category. I expected it to be a lot worse though.
Social Media
Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook followers have all increased in the last year. The Forum has also grown. Email subscriptions are up.
I post more regularly on social media, so if you want to turn your GCC experience up to 11 please follow on those platforms. (pretty please.)
As of February 1, 2020, we have:
- 17,532 Facebook likes
- 11,697 Email subscribers (double opt-in – I purged 2k non-readers from the list to save $)
- 9,366 Twitter followers
- 6,710 Instagram followers
- 893 Posts in 191 Topics by 274 Members on the GCC Forum
If you aren’t subscribed to the Go Curry Cracker Cool & Crazy Email List, be sure to do that here. All the cool kids are doing it.
$$$
This is what revenue looked like in 2020 from each source:
Overall revenue was down about 35% yoy. Travel related revenue was down even more so (-50% on credit cards, -100% on travel insurance, etc..) Some of this does appear to be creeping back…
Advertising – $19,420 (context based ads)
Credit cards – $8,859 (FREE travel! Retail price on our latest rtw trip was $7,000. We paid $200.)
Personal Capital – $3,360 (great cash flow and investment tracking tool. And it is free. Read my review.)
Blog hosting – $2,120 (Read my post on how to start a blog.)
Shopping Portals – $885 (see how to Never Pay Retail Again via sites like Rakuten and Befrugal)
Convertkit – $808 (our mailing list tool. It’s great!)
Consulting – $1,500
Traveling Mailbox – $990 (our digital mailbox, read my review)
World Nomads – $0 (travel insurance but nobody traveling)
Amazon.com – $324 (books and stuff)
Elegant Themes – $402 (our blog Theme provider)
Betterment – $0 (meets expectations)
Other – $2,997 (income from smaller sources and other blogs)
Total – $40,130 (compare to last year’s revenue here.)
Not shown in the numbers above are cost savings we get through AirBnB & Raise referrals. This is money we didn’t have to spend thanks to readers signing up and using their services. I don’t know how much new credit we got this year as I wasn’t really paying attention, but we did save some $ on purchases – basically a free Airbnb stay and some Apple app store credit.
AirBnB: $381.93 (some examples from Europe.)
Raise: $25.xx (discount gift cards – $5 off first purchase.)
Total: $407
Expenses were ~7% of revenue this year, which brings real profit in around $39k. On paper, the home office deduction reduces that another few thousand, and the kids are able to contribute a bit to their Roth IRAs thanks to charging me modeling fees.
2021 Focus
For 2021 I have a backlog of stuff I want to write about, and I expect we’ll see some interesting legislation around taxes and health insurance that I’ll want to explore. I’ll work on that as time and interest allow. At this point things are largely on auto-pilot.
With things starting to return towards normal, we’ll also continue the Award Travel Series with fun things like how to get a free trip to Hawaii, etc… Hawaii is always a nice way to unwind.
I’ll also continue to answer questions on the Forum and for those who want more individual attention with their early retirement goals and aspirations.
Since tax season is nigh, I recently updated all of our tax tools and calculators. Be sure to check em out:
- Income tax calculator (could be useful between now and April!)
- Self-employment tax calculator
- Solo 401(k) Contribution Calculator
- ACA Premium / Subsidy calculator
If there is any topic you are interested in that you think would be a good fit on this blog, let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
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I lol’d at the Betterment jab.
2020 was a strange year. I also felt like writing was a bit different during a time when there was high anxiety, no travel, plummeting stock market, and just dealing with a health crisis.
It feels like it was a bad dream at this stage, with us building up a new routine that makes sense. Hopefully it remains that and people can find a way to get through the current recession/health issues.
Great to see the growth in numbers. It’s crazy to think that 8 years have passed.
Do you ever miss pre-FIRE work? Technical challenges or team mates? Obviously not meetings, performance reviews and stress, but is there anything besides a big paycheck?
Good luck for 2021
>Do you ever miss pre-FIRE work?
I’ve filled my life with other rewarding things, so no, can’t say I miss work at all. I suppose it is a bit like high school or college… sure, I had some good times. There is some nostalgia there, but I definitely wouldn’t choose to repeat those years at this stage of life.
Nice work if you can get it. :)
I work about 3x more than you and made about 5% more. Obviously, you’re doing something right!
Can’t complain :)
I feel like a lot of it is just luck – there are a lot of backlinks to GCC from big sites from the press we got in 2015/16 and they are the gift that keeps on giving. The mailing list is also strong – lots of people who read the new stuff too (thanks all!)
Good job! I saw a little bit of a dip in revenue in 2020, especially during the pandemic’s early days. But that’s probably because I didn’t post as much as I did a couple years ago. Laziness is good though :)
Safe travels in 2021!
Thanks man, and right back atcha
Probably no travel for us in 2021 – taking it easy on the home front.
Looking forward to a more-traveled and tax-optimized 2021!
I’ll have to live vicariously through you for travel this year, but 2022 maybe we visit the US during the summer.
I enjoy reading these updates. I’m guessing your revenues will pop back quite a bit this year–they might even boom if the prognosticators are right about a travel boom coming this fall….. Fingers crossed!
Thx man. Things did start picking up at the end of 2020… the US is up to 2 million vaccines per day now, hopefully the super bowl and related super-spreader parties don’t mess things up too bad.
I appreciate the work you are doing even though you don’t need the income. Good content and fun to read. Happy New Year 2021! Happy Year of the Ox!
Thanks Charlotte. Happy new year! 新年快樂
Glad that you and your family are well and safe!
I always enjoy reading these. Hopefully, I will get there one day if I ever transform my blog into something that makes money.
It’s really just a question of traffic – at 100k page views per month it is fairly straightforward to make $. Less than that and it is super difficult.
The million dollar question is how to get reliable/repeatable/regular traffic.
Love it! The jab at Betterment was awesome. 4 hours a week for $40K…I would take that. Keep up the good work as always!
Yeah it seems like a good work/life balance. I would probably accept 2x the work for 2x the $, but working harder hasn’t seemed to help based on the prior few years.
Maybe part 3? is-your-401k-too-big?
Thanks for all your work. It radically changed my thought process and trajectory for early retirement.
I do need to finish that one… I’ve written it maybe 3 times now, but what seemed like a simple concept in my head is hard to explain in a simple way. I’ll try again this year.
2020 is hopefully always going to be considered a weird year and by that I mean hopefully it never becomes a normal year. I will say it got me to finally start a blog and share some of the spreadsheets/ideas I have been working on so I am grateful for that. Glad to hear that even in one of the craziest years people didn’t lose faith and stop reading (only down 13% views)
Nice one! Always fulfilling to introspect and look back at the journey. Guess the revenue impact is expected but it’s great when it’s lower than expected. Personally, I’ve also seen a dip in my expenses and some variable costs last year with less outdoor activities, travel and overall just reduced spending I guess lol.
All the best for 2021!
Good post and have enjoyed the content over the years. Want to let you know your ACA calculator needs to be updated for 2021.
Thanks, the calculator is fixed now.
Link: ACA Premium Calculator
Nice job for the GCC business! These looks behind the curtain are always interesting.
We closed 2020 (started in May) with just over 60k views which I was pleasantly surprised by. We’re about to cross 50k already and it’s only late Feb!
Cracking 100k in your first year seems pretty fantastic. Not to mention 2 million in the third.
Is most of your traffic from search these days or referrals? Has that changed over time?
Hopefully travel really starts recovering in summer. We’re so cooped up we’re going to write a 2019 travel review for spending/points/value just to get a chance to talk travel! Ha.
Congrats on the success :) Always enjoy your posts!