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  • October 2022 Earnings Report — a Repeat of September

    Not a great month

    Photo by Dziana Hasanbekava

    My stats for October are almost identical to the previous month. I am tempted to just change the title of that report. If you’re reading this and feel like you’ve already read it, it’s because not much has changed from last month.

    Ever since May, many writers have been talking about a summer slump in views and earnings. October is definitely not summer, so something else must be going on.

    The current theory of most writers is that the new CEO has made changes that have tanked views and earnings for most writers.

    Some writers have higher views and earnings though, so that can’t be the whole story. It’s probably a big part of it though.

    All through September and October, I’ve been thinking about living Medium for good. I’m simply not enjoying writing here like I used to, and the earnings are not really worth the effort I’m putting in.

    I’ve started to diversify away from this platform my started my own side hustle blog. You can read about how it only cost $33 to set up the blog.

    So, back to October.

    Stories

    I published 24 stories in October, which is five more than in September. It’s well below my average of 35 stories per month which I’ve achieved over the last year. Back in April, I published 58 stories.

    You may think my views may be down because I’ve published fewer stories, but that’s not the case. In April, my stories averaged almost 1,000 views per story. In October, they averaged under 500 views per story.

    Views & Reads

    Medium views for October 2022 — Screenshot by the author

    Views for October came in at 11,577. That’s up 14% from 10,138 in September. For most of the month, it’s been downhill, although views picked up on Halloween. Probably because I wrote a few posts about Medium, and those always do fairly well. The numbers differ from the screenshot because the dates don’t match up.

    My read ratio in October shows as 54%. But no individual story from October is showing a read ratio of over 50%, so I’m a bit baffled by the stats.

    Followers, Subscribers & Referred Members

    Medium audience for October 2022 — Screenshot by the author

    Back in April, I gained 657 new followers. In September, it slumped to an all-time low of 222. In October, it’s fallen even further. I got 193 new followers, giving a total of 4,627.

    I find the follower count to be a pointless number though. I guess that most are no longer on Medium and many others have never really followed me anyway.

    I gained 7subscribers in October, which is two more than in September. In April, I got 30 new subscribers. I now have 143.

    I got one new referral this month. I now have 16. That gives me an extra $33.46 a month.

    Earnings

    Medium audience for October 2022 — Screenshot by the author

    My earnings for October were $234.76, which is almost identical to September’s $228.95.

    In April, I earned $1,695.06.

    In the last year, I’ve earned a total of $7,023.90 here. That’s an average of $585.32 per month.

    The Future

    I’ve more or less decided to continue writing here until the end of the year. If my views and earnings slump even more before then, I may leave sooner rather than later.

    I find it harder and harder to motivate myself to write here. I’d earn more taking a minimum wage job. I’m not going to take one though. I don’t need the money. I’m just pointing out how low the “pay” is here.

    We’re all competing against each other though. If we earn more, others will earn less. Writers like Tim Denning are still making great money here, so it’s obviously possible. But he’s a better writer than most of us, so he deserves what he earns.

    If we want to earn more, we have to become as good as writers like Tim. That’s down to us.

    Hopefully, November and December will be better months.

    ,

  • My 1st Medium Anniversary — It Wasn’t Supposed to Be Like This

    My month-by-month account of how it turned out

    Photo by George Dolgikh

    I published my first story on Medium on 30 October 2021. I’m writing this on 30 October 2022. It’s been a real rollercoaster of a ride. Here’s the month by month account of the highs, the lows, and everything in between.

    Will there be a 2nd Anniversary update at this time next year? I doubt it very much.

    At the time of writing this, I have 420 stories published on Medium. No, that wasn’t planned and doesn’t have some hidden meaning.

    I have deleted quite a few stories recently, so I’ve actually published more than 420. I will delete many more over the coming weeks.

    So, let’s get started.

    October 2021

    • Stories published: 2
    • Views: 36
    • Earnings: $0

    I didn’t know what to expect when I first joined Medium. I had read that you could earn good money, so decided to give it a go.

    November 2021

    • Stories published: 38
    • Views: 6,635
    • Earnings: $92.88

    I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I gained followers and how many views my stories were getting. I reached 100 followers on 12 November. I applied to join the Medium Partner Program right away and was accepted on the same day.

    On the first day, my stories earned over $3. I was astounded. I was very happy with my first month’s earnings and decided to write and publish a story every day until at least the end of the year.

    December 2021

    • Stories published: 38
    • Views: 16,045
    • Earnings: $468.28

    The good times kept rolling. I earned almost $500 in December. This was the first time I started thinking that I could earn a very decent income on Medium. I started seeing the potential of making $1,000+ per month.

    January 2022

    • Stories published: 34
    • Views: 14,113
    • Earnings: $431.97

    Although my earnings dipped slightly this month, I was starting to understand how the platform worked. I saw other writers that were making $1,000 to $3,000 a month and thought I could easily get there as well.

    In fact, I was so optimistic that I wrote a post entitled By The End Of This Year, I’ll Be Earning Over $3,000 A Month On Medium.

    Read on to see if I got there.

    February 2022

    • Stories published: 52
    • Views: 19,817
    • Earnings: $400.70

    I managed to publish 52 stories in February. That was 37% more than the previous month, but it wasn’t reflected in the earnings. My earnings were pretty flat for three months in a row. Maybe this was as good as it would get. Could I really get to $3,000 a month? I was starting to have doubts.

    March 2022

    • Stories published: 47
    • Views: 28,390
    • Earnings: $684.01

    March was the best month so far. I was back on track toward my target of $3,000 a month. The number of views was the best ever and I was really enjoying writing every day.

    April 2022

    • Stories published: 58
    • Views: 56,181
    • Earnings: $1,695.06

    This was my best month ever. Views were almost double what I got in March and my earnings were almost 150% higher.

    At this point, I was as certain as I could be that I would eventually earn $3,000 a month.

    SPOILER ALERT: This was as good as it got. Everything has been downhill since April.

    May 2022

    • Stories published: 34
    • Views: 31,445
    • Earnings: $1,081.01

    My earnings dropped a fair amount in May, but that could have been because I wrote fewer stories. I heard many writers talk about a summer slowdown, so it’s also possible that my stats drifted lower because of that. However, I was happy that I still earned over $1,000 for the month.

    June 2022

    • Stories published: 34
    • Views: 32,218
    • Earnings: $955.33

    June started very well indeed. On 3rd June, I earned over $100 in a day for the first time ever. If I could keep that up, I’d earned $3,000 a month, which was the target I’d set back in January. My views on 3rd June were 4,095, which was also the highest ever. Where’s the summer slump?

    But June turned out to be a month of two halves. During the first half of the month, I was on target to make $1,500 for the month. The second half of the month got worse and worse though.

    On 30th June my stories only got 398 views. That’s 90% down from 3rd June.

    I ended the month earning $955.33. I was hopeful that if I could earn that in what seemed like a bad month, I’d do quite well when things improved.

    July 2022

    • Stories published: 32
    • Views: 18,814
    • Earnings: $360.98

    July felt like a disaster. Maybe this really was a summer slump. My earnings dropped 62%. This was my worst monthly earnings since I joined Medium, excluding the first month.

    August 2022

    • Stories published: 37
    • Views: 30,069
    • Earnings: $384.47

    August was another disappointing month, although my earnings rose slightly. If this was a summer slump, as most writers were claiming, it looked like earnings of around $400 could be the bottom. It wasn’t great, but it was a little comforting that I could make this much in a bad month.

    September 2022

    • Stories published: 19
    • Views: 10,138
    • Earnings: $228.95

    September started so badly that I lost the will to write. I only published 19 stories and had my lowest views and earnings since November 2021. It started to feel like something had fundamentally changed. This seemed more than a summer slump.

    Stories just weren’t gaining traction like they used to. Many times, I thought about quitting. I decided to keep going though.

    October 2022

    • Stories published: 22
    • Views: 10,896
    • Earnings: $225.66

    There is still one day of the month left, but the figures above won’t change much. October has been almost identical to September.

    Conclusion

    I published four travel stories and three of them earned under $1 each. It’s very rare for that to happen. It might be because my followers aren’t interested in travel stories, so I won’t be writing any more of them here.

    I’m still thinking of quitting, but I still feel like there’s some hope that the situation will improve. Medium has a new CEO and has made many changes to the platform. I assume it’s these that have caused all the problems that many writers talk about.

    I will try to keep publishing until the end of the year at least.

    But I’ve started my own side hustle blog where I’ll be publishing more often from now on. I’ll also be transferring my side hustle articles from Medium to my blog. Most of my older stories no longer make any money here, so they’re completely wasted. They should do better on a dedicated blog. As most currently earn $o, they can’t get any worse.

  • Only 11% of My Medium Stories Have Over 1,000 Views

    The Pareto principle is alive and well

    Photo by the author

    As it’s been a year since I published my first post on Medium (30 October 2021), I’ve decided to delve into the stats to see if there are any patterns that I can learn from.

    Here are 3 things that the data showed me.

    #1 — The top-line stats — averages per story

    I currently have 420 published stories on Medium.

    To date, I’ve had the following views, reads, fans, and claps.

    • 214,400 views
    • 90,800 reads (42.39% read ratio)
    • 15,800 fans
    • 357,000 claps

    That means that the average number of views per story is 510.

    The average number of reads per story is 216.

    The average number of fans per story is 38.

    The average number of claps per story is 850

    Overall, I’m pretty happy with these figures. However, if I removed the top 10 stories, all the stats would look much worse. The best stories mask how badly most stories are doing.

    #2 – Only 11% of stories got 1,000 views or more

    Only 46 of the 420 published stories have 1,000 views or higher. That’s around 11%.

    Those 46 stories have received 136,560 views — that’s 64% of the views.

    That’s in line with the Pareto principle. In case you don’t know what that is, here’s how Wikipedia explains it.

    The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the “vital few”). Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

    Even though most people think of it as the 80/20 rule, it often works out as 90/10, 95/5, or similar. In this case, it’s 64/11.

    64% of the views are a result of only 11% of the stories.

    The other 89% of the stories only got 36% of the total views.

    Above, I said that:

    That means that the average number of views per story is 510.

    If I exclude the 46 stories that got 1,000 views or more, the average number of views for the other 374 stories is only 208.

    The average number of views for the top 46 stories is 2,969.

    So, 11% of stories have an average of 2,969 views, while the rest have an average of 208 views. That’s a massive discrepancy.

    #3 – 32% of my stories got under 100 views

    This is one of the most shocking stats for me.

    135 out of 420 stories got under 100 views. And this is after I’ve deleted between 10 and 20 of my worst-performing stories. I will likely delete quite a few more.

    I’m starting to get a bit of a feel for what makes a good or bad story. If I compare my top 40 stories to my bottom 40 stories, I can see quite clearly that the top ones are way better than the bottom ones.

    The top stories have better headlines, are more structured, and generally help the reader in some way.

    The stories that don’t have hardly any views usually don’t have great headlines and are more about me than the reader.

    Overall, it’s not always clear cut though.

    What all this means is that out of each set of 10 stories I write, one will get over 1,000 views, three will get under 100 views, and the other six will get between 100 and 1,000 views.

    But these are the averages for the last year. My stats have got much worse over the last six months.

    I’ve written 22 stories in October. The top story has 511 views, so there aren’t any at all with more than 1,000 views. 7 out of 22 have under 100 views. That’s 32%. This could change though, as many are close to 100 views and will likely get there in a few weeks.

    I wrote 19 stories in September. The best one had 411 views. That means that none of the last 41 stories have had over 1,000 views. None are even close. I have to go back to August to find the last story that had over 1,000 views. There were two such stories, but most views were external.

    The last time I had a story with over 1,000 internal views was way back in June.

    In April, I had seven stories with over 1,000 views.

    My point is that the average above may look good, but they don’t reflect what I’m currently seeing.

    Conclusion

    I probably need to stop publishing stories that are most likely to end up with under 100 views. That’s easier said than done though. Sometimes, a story I think will do well sink without a trace. Meanwhile, a story that I think will only get a few views ends up being one of my most-viewed stories.

    These things are easier to see in hindsight. I don’t know what the answer is.

    I also need to write more stories that are similar to the ones that have done well in the past. Not easy either, but if I put in the work, I should at least be able to improve these ratios.

    The unknowns in all of this are the changes that have been taking place recently. Many writers are reporting lower views and earnings, so what does that mean? Maybe the good days are over. Maybe I need to work harder and smarter.

    After all, writers like Tim Denning still make good money here, so at least I know it’s possible. That means that I need to improve my writing massively to get closer to his earnings.

    There’s a lot going on, and figuring it all out is not a simple matter. But all I can do is focus on what’s in my control. That means continuing to learn and improving my writing over time.

    If you’ve analyzed your own stats, are you seeing similar patterns? Do you have any insights about what’s happening here? Do you have any advice for other writers?

  • How to turn your $150 a month in Medium earnings into $300,000 (Definitely not Clickbait)

    Screenshot by the author
    Screenshot by the author

    Ok, I guess you’re all thinking that clickbait like this shouldn’t be allowed. I think the same thing when I see headlines like this. But I can assure you that this stuff really works. This i how average people build wealth.

    I’ve set the figure at $150 a month because almost anyone can afford that. One small side hustle can easily make that amount of money with very little effort. This site has a ton of ideas you can try.

    Have you heard of compound interest?

    Have you heard of patience?

    You need both of these to pull this off.

    So what’s the deal?

    If you earn $150 a month on Medium (or some other side hustle), all you need to do is invest it every month for 30 years.

    What? 30 years? Ah, that’s where the patience comes into it.

    Invest $150 a month for the next 30 years at a 10% rate of return, and you’ll end up with over $300,000.

    I know this may sound impossible to some of you. But this is how ordinary people with ordinary jobs become millionaires.

    You don’t even need a side hustle. You can invest $150 a month from your salary each month.

    This is not such a good strategy for those of you, like me, who are older. But if you’re in your 20s, then this should be a no-brainer.

    I realize that some may also not have this amount to invest every month. That’s ok. Just start with a smaller amount.

    There are many investment calculators online. This is the one I used.

    You can plug in your own figures and see what amount you could get to over different time periods.

    You can thank me in 30 years’ time!

  • 397 Stories Have Averaged $0.14 in Earnings This Month

    This is truly shocking

    Photo by Amelia Spink on Unsplash

    October has been another abysmal month for me on Medium. Something has seriously changed for the worst in the last few months. I know that’s not true for everyone, but it seems to be true for the majority.

    So, I decided to take a deeper look at my stats for the first 29 days of October. Waiting another two days to get the stats for the whole month isn’t going to make any difference.

    In fact, today is the perfect day to look into my stats, because I wrote my first story here on 30 October last year. Today is my 1st anniversary here. And probably my last. I seriously doubt I’ll be here at this time next year. Not just that, but I doubt I’ll even be here after the end of this year.

    I’ve written 419 stories in a year

    That’s a lot of stories. In my best month (April), I earned $1,695. Last month was my worst month, with earnings of $228.

    This month, I’ve earned $221 so far, with two days to go. I’ll end up not much changed from last month.

    I’ve written 22 stories this month

    This month, I’ve written 22 stories. They have earned $132.82. That’s an average of $6.04 per story. That’s pretty pathetic for me, though it could be great for others. We’re all at different stages of our journey, so what’s true for one person might not be for another.

    It’s very rare for my stories to earn under $1. Three of my last four stories have earned $0.28, $0.84, and $0.78. They may make it over $1 eventually. Who knows?

    These are travel stories though, so maybe that’s why they’re unpopular here. I won’t be writing any more of those here. My travel blog earned me $60,000, so it’s not like travel stories aren’t popular. But they don’t seem to be popular here for me. Possibly because my followers aren’t looking for travel stories. Travel stories might work well for others though.

    I wrote 397 stories up until the end of last month

    As I mentioned above, my 22 stories this month have earned $132.82.

    But this is what’s the most shocking to me. The 397 stories that I wrote previously have only earned $55.31 this month. That means they’ve earned an average of $0.14 each.

    In the past, older stories continued to earn quite well, so I’m not sure why that’s suddenly changed.

    What I see these days is stories earned a few dollars in the first few days and then disappearing into oblivion.

    276 stories earned $0

    276 out of those 397 stories earned $0.

    That is a total waste. It’s why I’ve started transferring my stories over to my own blog.

    You can see it at Side Hustle Monkey.

    You can set up a site similar to this for just $33.

    If this doesn’t work out, I won’t have lost much. If it does work out, I could potentially gain a lot.

    Medium is a waste of time for me

    At the moment, Medium is a waste of time for me. I’m barely making minimum wage.

    I enjoy writing here, so I’d rather stay, but I’m getting closer and closer to leaving. The only thing that keeps me here is the social aspect and the hope that things will improve.

    But how much longer can I just hope?

  • How I Made $60,000 Writing For My Travel Blog

    Photo by DoDo PHANTHAMALY: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-sitting-on-chair-while-using-laptop-735855/
    Photo by DoDo PHANTHAMALY

    When I first started traveling I decided to document my journey via a travel blog. At the time I didn’t have any expectations about making money. All I wanted was a record of my travels and to help my fellow travelers.

    It’s only recently that I’ve started thinking of myself as a writer. After all, I write, so I must be a writer.

    School days

    But it wasn’t always like that. When I was in school, many moons ago, my English teacher constantly told me how my writing was average at best. I only managed to get a grade of “C” in my final English Language exam. That’s a pass, but pretty average.

    This is partly why I never considered myself to be a writer. I thought of writers as great storytellers, like Stephen King. I was certainly not in that league.

    Setting up the blog

    But when I started my blog, I had to write. And take photos. But I was neither a writer nor a photographer in my eyes. But what does that matter?

    To begin with, I set up a very basic blog using WordPress. It wasn’t great to look at, but it served its purpose.

    So I set off on my travels, beginning in Southeast Asia. I documented almost everything. Like how to get a bus from A to B, what the hotel was like, what the food was like. It was fairly easy because I just reported what I did and saw.

    South East Asia

    For the first six months, I traveled through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Singapore.

    In the first week, I got a handful of visitors to my site. I was amazed that people were interested in what I wrote. As time went by, more and more people started following my journey.

    I had joined a few Facebook travel groups, mainly to get help, but also shared my posts with them. This helped grow my followers.

    After a few months, I started thinking that I might be able to make some money from the site. At that point, I spent around $500 to get someone to install a better theme. My site then looked pretty good.

    Adding affiliate links

    Next, I added some affiliate links from Agoda. That meant that if someone booked a hotel after clicking the link on my website, I got a small commission.

    And when I say small, I mean small. My first commission was for under $1 after someone booked a single night at a hostel in China Mai.

    It wasn’t much, but I know if one person booked, then others would follow. I still wasn’t expecting to make much money. If I’d made $100 a month I would have been happy.

    Success

    The website visitors started growing quickly. Within a year the site was getting around 30,000 visitors a month.

    I gave the website another revamp, and added the Agoda link to a prominent position at the top of every page.

    This is when my earnings took off. During years 2 and 3, the site was making an average of $1,000 a month.

    After my initial travels around Southeast Asia, I traveled back to Thailand. I used that as a base to travel around other Asian countries. I visited Malaysia, Hong Kong, and South Korea These were multi-month visits.

    Europe

    In year three, I spent six months traveling around Europe. As my blog was fairly successful by then, I started getting offers to do hotel, product, and travel reviews.

    In all, I got around $10,000 worth of freebies. One of the best was a free 3-night stay in a hotel in Oxford, England. The usual price of the room was $600 per night. I wouldn’t have been able to stay in such a place if I’d had to pay for it myself.

    I also got a month’s free rail travel in Europe. That was one of the best freebies.

    The end

    After three years, I wasn’t traveling so much and had got a bit tired of having to constantly update the blog. It was at that point that I decided to sell it.

    I sold it through Empire Flippers and got $25,000 for it. It was a big payday.

    Total income

    All in all, I’d earned around $27,000 from affiliate income, $25,000 from the sale, and around $10,000 in freebies.

    If I deducted the expenses, it means I made around $60,000 for writing around 400 articles. That works out at an average of around $150 per article. That is truly amazing.

    It’s funny though that one of the best-performing articles was around 300 words long. It explained how to get by bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai in Thailand. It’s a very popular route, yet I couldn’t find out any info at all about the bus. I didn’t even know where the bus stop was.

    That article averaged around 300–400 visits every single day for years. It just goes to show that you don’t have to write a masterpiece to get readers.

    All this from someone that didn’t even think he was a writer. If I can do it, anyone can.

    Did you know that you can set up a travel blog for just $33?

    Future plans

    My wife and I will be traveling around Europe for 6–7 months from January, so I’m tempted to start another travel blog.

    I’d be happy to make the same amount again.

    Stay tuned.

  • The 5 Weirdest Side Hustles You’ve Never Heard of

    Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@danparlante?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Dan Parlante</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/weird?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>
    Photo by Dan Parlante on Unsplash

    Most side hustle lists are just the same bunch of recycled trash that we’ve all read a hundred times. What we need are new, interesting, weird, and crazy side hustles. Ones that most of us have never heard of.

    And that’s what I’m going to give you here. Even I hadn’t heard about some of these, so I doubt you will have either. Let’s get right into it.

    Weird Side Hustle #1 — Sell your hair

    Sell your hair. Apologies to all of you bald guys, as this won’t work for you. Unless you sell your girlfriend’s hair!

    You may think that you only have hair growing on your head, but actually, you have money growing there. Lots of money. Easy money. You don’t have to do anything except let it grow. How easy is that?

    HairSellOn.com is a site that matches buyers and sellers of hair.

    If you take a look at the list of hair that’s been sold recently, most go for hundreds of dollars. For example, 25 inches of blonde virgin hair sold for $800. The site even has a calculator to estimate the value of your hair.

    The site suggests that your hair length needs to be at least 6 inches long. Virgin hair is worth more money.

    Weird Side Hustle #2 — Wrap your car in ads

    This is one I heard about a while back. I don’t have a car, so it’s not any good for me.

    One place you can check this out is Carvertise.com. According to their website, you can earn $450 to $1,500 for each campaign. The base payment starts at $100 per month and you need to drive at least 30 miles per day.

    This would suit someone that already drives that distance each day. There wouldn’t be much point paying for gas every day just to drive around if you don’t already.

    Weird Side Hustle #3— Cuddle people

    Yes, cuddling is a thing, apparently. This is news to me.

    This sounds so weird and creepy to me that I wouldn’t try it. I’d advise being very careful with this one.

    Cuddlist.com shows that you can also offer virtual cuddles though, which sounds even crazier. Would you pay for a virtual cuddle? How does that even happen?

    Note that you have to pay to become a cuddlist for the site, so it’s possible you could hand over $149 and never get any work. Be very careful.

    Weird Side Hustle #4 — Sell your used ink cartridges and cell phones

    Here’s another weird one, but the money you can make is pretty low.

    This is one for all you Canadians out there. The site I found is InkCanada.ca. They pay $4 for each empty ink cartridge and up to $300 for each used cell phone.

    There are likely other sites that buy used cell phones, so do some research to see where you can get the best deals.

    Weird Side Hustle #5 — Rent yourself out

    RentAFriend.com allows people to rent a friend. This can be a real-life meeting or a virtual meeting. You’ll get paid for being a friend.

    This could be because someone needs to go somewhere but doesn’t want to go on their own. It could be as simple as just going out for a meal. Others just want someone to hang out with or to go to activities with.

    The fees start at $10 an hour but are negotiable. If you like meeting new people, this could be for you. If you’re an introvert, you’ll probably want to steer clear of this.

    Will you be giving any of these a try? And do you know of any other weird side hustles?

  • 5 Monthly Subscriptions I Will Never Pay For

    I’ve saved a huge amount of money by using alternatives

    Photo by alleksana

    I’m more than happy to pay a monthly subscription for useful services. However, I refuse to pay for services that I see as a bit of a rip-off or not worth the money.

    Whatever we spend our money on, we should be making sure we get value for money from out purchases. This is especially true in these tough economic times.

    I previously wrote about the 5 monthly subscriptions I can’t live without.

    Now onto the ones I’ll never pay for.

    1. Microsoft Office

    I don’t consider this to be value for money at all.

    I still use a copy of MS Office 2007 that came bundled with a laptop many years ago. I still have the disks and everything works perfectly.

    In the old days, you used to be able to buy the software outright and use it for as long as you needed to. Nowadays, many companies have changed their products into SAAS — software as a service. All this means is that they charge you a ton of extra money for basically nothing.

    Yes, they say you get regular updates, blah, blah, blah, but you usually don’t need them.

    MS Office costs around $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. I’ve had my free copy for 15 years. If I’d paid annually for it, it would have cost me around $1,500 so far.

    To me, that is beyond ridiculous.

    If my MS Office ever stops working I’ll switch to Google Docs.

    2. Spotify

    I used to have a Spotify subscription but it was worse than useless. I’m an avid traveler and found that lots of music was blocked depending on what country I was in at the time. There were also issues of what country I should be paying the subscription from. It’s cheaper in some countries than in others, but I can’t keep changing my subscription every time I visit a new country, which is often.

    I also prefer to watch YouTube videos rather than just listen to music.

    I might give Spotify another go if they can get it to work properly across countries, but I can’t see that happening any time soon.

    3. QuickBooks

    I used to have a copy of QuickBooks that I paid around $100 for. I used it for 10 years. QuickBooks Essentials is now $50 a month. That’s $6,000 for 10 years.

    $6,000 vs $100. You have got to be joking.

    Next time I need accounting software I’ll likely use a free version of whatever my accountant recommends. At the moment my accounts can be done on MS Excel.

    4. Netflix

    I recently read that around 44% of millennials subscribed to Netflix. I don’t have anything against Netflix. If I was a film buff I’d probably get it.

    I don’t spend much time watching movies though. I prefer to read, play chess or build some side hustles. That way I earn money instead of spending it. It’s also way more fun.

    It should be noted that millennials often complain about their lack of money. Maybe time to build a side hustle instead of sitting on the sofa watching movies.

    Netflix costs around $9.99 a month.

    5. Image Sites

    I regularly use images but get mine from free sites. I have paid for images in the past and don’t mind doing that if the prices are reasonable.

    The problem I find with most image sites though is that they never have a plan that suits my needs. The options are usually a few free images or a ton of images for a big price. I need something in between.

    This is the same for many subscriptions services. Why don’t these companies have some middle-tier pricing?

  • It’s Crazy That My Passion Website Earned Me $1,000 a Month

    And why I’m planning another one

    Split — one of my favorite cities. Photo by Sander Lenaerts on Unsplash

    My main passion in life is traveling. I feel so free when I’m just moving from place to place. Sometimes, I spend a few days somewhere. Other times, I spend a few months. I’m not tied down to any one place, so I can just leave at a moment’s notice if that’s what I want.

    It’s this passion that led me to start documenting my travels. I started when my wife and I spent six months traveling around South East Asia. In the beginning, I didn’t think the site would get many visitors and didn’t expect it to make any money.

    Maybe that has something to do with why it worked out so well. I wasn’t writing with the intention of earning money. I just want to document our journey and maybe help others that would be traveling to similar destinations.

    I wrote about topics that other weren’t writing about

    One thing that I noticed early on in our travels was that there wasn’t any great info on the internet about how to get from A to B.

    In Western countries, it’s easy. You just take a bus or train. Timetables are easy to find.

    But in many parts of South East Asia, there aren’t any regular buses or trains. This meant that we needed to ask around locally. Once we had it figured out, I’d write a blog post about it. Partly to help others, but also to help myself.

    I’d likely revisit some places later, so wanted to remember how I got around.

    I was surprised that some of these incredibly short posts quickly got to page one of Google search. This is because no one else was writing such specific posts. It was fairly easy to rank well. That meant that the website was getting consistent views early on.

    My first 10 visitors

    I still remember the day I first had 10 visitors to my site in a day. It’s funny to look back and think about how excited that made me. It was the first time I realized that there were some real people out there that wanted to read what I was writing about.

    Not long after that, the site got 100 visitors in a day, then 200, and then 300. I was blown away.

    I also started getting comments from other travelers thanking me for helping them figure out how to get from A to B.

    I was loving it.

    There was one couple that followed almost the same route as ours but were a couple of months behind us. They used to comment regularly and ask for specific advice about places we’d visited.

    A few times, I wrote a blog post just for them to answer their questions. If there were asked, there must be others that also wanted those questions answered.

    Monetizing the site

    I can’t remember exactly when I started monetizing the site, but it was probably around three months into our journey. As I was reviewing hotels we stay at, I decided to add hotel affiliate links.

    The first commission I got was for $1. Someone had booked a cheap hostel in Thailand. It was exciting to see the site could make money, but $1 for a booking led me to think I wouldn’t earn much.

    A $1 commission every day would earn me $30. Not great, but better than nothing.

    But I started earning some higher commissions. After a year the site was earning around $500 a month.

    It was at around the 18-month mark that I reached $1,000 a month. It stayed at that level for the next 18 months.

    $400 commission in one day

    I had two big commission days that astounded me. It just shows how lucrative a travel blog could be. One day I woke up to see a $400 commission for one booking. Someone had booked 10 nights at a 5-star hotel in Singapore for around $600 a night.

    It was also interesting to see how different people travel. One person was booking $10-a-night hostels, while the next person was spending $6,000 on a 10-day stay in a top hotel.

    On another day I had a cluster of 10 bookings at the same hotel. At first, I thought it must be some elaborate kind of credit card fraud. It turned out to be some booking agent that booked rooms for a group door.

    After 6 months of travel, we settled in Bangkok for the next year but still traveled a month here and there to countries in Asia. Hong Kong and Seoul were my favorites.

    $10,000 of travel freebies

    After that, we headed to Europe for six months. This is when I started to approach hotels and attractions about featuring them on our site. Some also contacted us directly.

    We got around $10,000 of freebies from that. The best one was three free nights at a hotel that normally cost around $600 a night. We also got free rail travel around Europe. All that was on top of the $1,000 a month I was making.

    At its peak, the site was getting between 30,000 and 45,000 page views a month. I knew other travel bloggers that were getting 100,000+ views per month. It’s not like I was one of the best bloggers. I was maybe slightly above average. But that was enough to make me around $60,000 over three years.

    Selling the site

    After three years, I got a bit fed up of write travel posts. I felt like it was detracting a little from our travels. It was at this point that I decided to sell the site. It sold for $25,000. These days, a similar site would likely sell for around $40,000. That’s 40 times the monthly profit.

    It sold for $25,000

    Overall, it was a great experience. Now that we’ve had a long break from traveling, I’d like to give this another go.

    I think the key to making it work is to travel to lesser-known places. It’s almost impossible to rank well if writing about places like London, Paris, or New York. But writing about Batumi, Yerevan, or Anatolia might mean it’s easier to rank.

    It’s also more of an adventure when you’re visiting lesser-known places. Those are the places where you tend to find the unexpected.

    How to set up a blog

    I’ll probably write about setting up my new blog as well. For anyone that doesn’t know how to, it should help them create their own blog if they want to. Stay tuned.

    If you’re not a traveler, but live in a place that gets tourists, a travel blog might also work for you. One approach could be to document everything your town or city has to offer. As you live there, you know it better than anyone and are in an ideal position to offer the best advice. Something for you to consider.

    Have you ever created a successful blog? Do you have any tips on making it a success?

    And would you like to start a blog?

    See This blog only cost $33 to set up.

  • How I Plan to 10x My Medium Income and How You Can Too

    You need to think outside the box if you want to earn more

    Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

    Lately, I’ve been considering whether writing here is worth my time or not. That got me thinking of ways to increase my income 10x. It may seem like a bold target, but 10x thinking is a very valuable exercise in itself.

    When looking for ways to improve their financial situation or their lives in general, many people just look for gains of a few percent. This often works, but the gains could be so much higher with a better level of thinking.

    I’ve had many friends ask me how they can increase their income. Almost all of them only think about small rises. If they currently earn $40,000 a year, they may aim for $44,000. If they earn $100,000, they may want help getting to $110,000.

    This kind of thinking is incredibly common. It’s almost like everyone thinks their not worthy of earning too much more than they currently earn.

    I also see a similar mindset when I see people compare themselves to others that earn massively more than they do. They simply can’t imagine such a high-income level for themselves. This also leads people to assume others are lying about their earnings. I’ve seen many on this platform do it. They see what others earn as so out of reach that their first thought is that they must be making it up.

    But whether they’re making up or not isn’t important. What’s important is that many people don’t believe it’s even possible. That will hold them back in life.

    Medium Earnings

    If I’m lucky, I may earn $300 from Medium this month. But that’s hardly worth it for me. I want to earn more. But I don’t want 10% extra ($330). I want to 10x my income to $3,000 a month.

    There is nothing wrong with a 10% increase in earnings. In normal times, most would consider it a nice increase. In these times, it’s enough to keep up with inflation.

    But wondering how to get smaller increases in income leads to small thinking. If we engage in small thinking, we’ll only come up with small ideas that give small results.

    Ask anyone how you can increase your Medium earnings by 10% and they can quickly come up with some easy suggestions. Writing 10% more articles is an obvious one.

    If you write 10 articles a month and earn $300, that’s an average of $30 per article. So, write 11 and you should earn $330. Easy, right?

    But if you aim to 10x your income, these simple suggestions just don’t work.

    If we go the route of writing extra stories to get to $3,000 a month, it would mean writing 100. Good luck with that. These simple solutions just don’t scale very well.

    The same is true with income from a 9–5. You can easily get an extra 10% by changing jobs. And maybe another 10% by changing jobs again. But it won’t scale much more than that. You certainly won’t be getting a 10x increase just by changing jobs.

    If you think 10x instead of 10%, it forces you to think outside the box. That’s much harder to do. It may take you hours, days, or even weeks to come up with great ideas. But I can assure you that the effort is worth it.

    You won’t always come up with fantastic 10x ideas though. You may end up with a 2x idea. But that’s still a vast improvement on 10%.

    Thailand

    Quite a few years ago, I was looking for ways to 10x my income. My thinking led me to move to Thailand for a few years. That didn’t increase my income, but it did reduce my housing costs by 75%. That amounts to the same thing.

    It was a little more complicated than this, but here’s roughly how it worked out. I had income of $3,000 and housing costs of $2,000 in the UK, leaving me with $1,000 of spending money per month.

    After moving to Thailand, I still had $3,000 income, but my housing costs dropped to $700 a month. My disposable income then rose to $2,300. So I more than doubled my disposable income. In practice, it was even better because my money went further in Thailand.

    So, back to Medium — How will I 10x my Medium earnings?

    I plan to do the usual hacks like writing a little extra, reading and commenting a little more, and investing all my earnings.

    Hopefully, I can get to $600 a month with the small hacks. The investing hack should increase that amount by 5x over a few years. I will mostly invest in crypto. This is what I’m doing. I’m not suggesting you should do it. You’ll need to do your own research.

    I may also invest a portion in property once it grows enough. After a few years, the $300 a month should turn into $3,000. I see it was working now but getting the rewards in the future.

    This requires patience. I don’t need the money right now, so I can wait. Good things come to those that delay gratification.