One Year of Passive Income with Mr. Rebates

It's been just over a year since I posted to this blog. One year and nine days, to be exact.

That last post, Six Months of Residual Income with Mr. Rebates, outlined six months of earnings, which totaled $1200. I'm back to update what my earnings have been like since then.
In the twelve months since I wrote that post, I've earned $1,911.20 from one passive income source: Mr. Rebates.


My earnings have broken down like this:


July 2011: $197.03
August: $279.38
September: $375.72
October: $121.34
November: $95.71
December: $121.23
January 2012: $66.82
February: $128.27
March: $138.60
April: $155.94
May: $84.54
June: $146.62


Why the drop?

Despite these strong passive income numbers, the fact remains that my monthly average earnings dropped from $200/month to $159/month. 

So, why the drop?

During this time, eBay pulled out of its cash back rebate arrangements with Mr. Rebates and other sites like it. eBay was a huge source of referral commissions at Mr. Rebates. In fact, I didn't realize how much of my commissions came from eBay purchases until they were gone.

But, eBay made a business decision to discontinue cash back rebate arrangements and -- while it was disappointing -- it was by no means the end of the story.


Mr. Rebates Still a Strong Source of Passive Income

Instead of focusing on the loss of the eBay commissions, I'm focused on the fact that Mr. Rebates has still been a reliable source of passive income to me for six years now.

I continue to get regular referrals -- 204 in the last twelve months -- from blog posts, etc. that I've had up forever. That makes this income stream completely passive. All I do is check my earnings and request a Paypal payment at the end of each month.


$1900/year is not bad for doing that. :)


Why Mr. Rebates is my Favorite Source of Passive Income

But the very best part is that the fact that I've earned $1900 in the last year means that those who I've referred have gotten back $9500 in cash back rebates during that same time period. That's what makes this referral program such a pleasure to be a part of.

Whether you're interested in Mr. Rebates as a referral program where you can earn commission or as a cash back program as a shopper, I encourage you to check out Mr. Rebates for yourself. Not only is it free to sign up, but you'll get a $5 signup bonus credited to your account right away.

Six Months of Residual Income with Mr. Rebates

Legitimate sources of passive income seem to be dropping all over. At least when it comes to online or internet sources of passive income.

eHow is no longer an option, unless you are accepted as a Demand Studios writer and choose to write revenue share articles there.

The Google Panda update has also negatively affected other sites like Hubpages.

One source of passive income that has stayed strong and continued to grow for me, however, is referring people to the online shopping rebates site, Mr. Rebates.

Since the first of the year I have earned over $1200 from this one stream of income. My earnings have broken down like this:

January: $234.67
February: $159.65
March: $141.68
April: $206.97
May: $291.61
June: $195.49

Why I Like This Income Stream

1. It's win/win.

You don't have to convince anyone to buy something in order to become a referral. In fact, they'll have money on the things they're already buying. That's great - especially in these economic times.

And they'll get $5 just for signing up, which is free to do.

I use this site for my own online shopping, so I feel great recommending it to others.

2. I have a long history of being paid by Mr. Rebates.

I can't speak for every cash back rebate site on the internet, but I can tell you that I have been reliably paid by Mr. Rebates, going back several years.

You don't have to take my word for it, however. Mr. Rebates is an accredited business with the Better Business Bureau, with a rating of A+.

3. It's completely passive.

Most months, all I do is request my payout. I am usually paid the next day via Paypal.

Check out Mr. Rebates for yourself. Even if you only use it as a shopper, it's a great deal. But it can be an awesome source of passive income as well.

Six Months of Residual Income Earnings

It's been a long, long time since I posted any residual income reports. Six months to be exact. So, let me make that right. Here is a report of my residual income earnings from October 2010 - March 2011.

eHow Earnings

My eHow earnings have continued to grow and grow and grow. I haven't added any new eHow articles during this time, since the changes were made to the WCP. So this represents truly passive income, which is fabulous! (It's still possible to add revenue share articles through Demand Studios, but the only articles I've written for them have been for upfront pay and aren't included here.)

October 2010 - $271.70
November 2010 - $266.19
December 2010 - $301.53
January 2011 - $367.97
February 2011 - $350.83
March 2011 - $440.84
 
Cash Back Sites

These are my referral earnings from cash back sites like Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs. Again, this is truly passive income. Once the referrals are made, I earn a small percentage of their savings every time they shop through these sites. I love this income stream because my referrals are saving money too. My "commission" comes from the company and not from the referrals' savings so it is truly win/win/win.

October 2010 - $177.94
November 2010 - $133.01
December 2010 - $214.00
January 2011 - $246.63
February 2011 - $190.57
March 2011 - $160.90

I also use these sites to save money on my own online shopping, but those amounts aren't included here.

Adsense

During the period from October 2010 - March 2011, I received two Adsense checks totallying $226.90. Those are primarily from writing at Hubpages, Xomba, and at my Family CEO blog.

Amazon

Amazon affiliate earnings totalled $206.92 for the six month period. Again, those come from a variety of online sources.

Miscellaneous

I also had another $65 in residual online income that came from several other miscellaneous sources.

Final Thoughts

This report is encouraging to me, because it covers a six month period where these income sources were somewhat neglected. This is just residual income (or passive income, if you prefer) that was thrown off from work I've done earlier.

The residual income stream I am most excited about are the referrals from the savings sites Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs. If you haven't checked out those sites, I highly recommend you do so. Even referring a few friends or family can create a little income stream and you'll earn cash back on your shopping as well. (The links above are referral links and will put you in my network when you sign up. Oh, and they're both free, plus Mr. Rebates will give you a $5 cash back bonus just for signing up.)

Let me know if you have any questions and I'd love to hear how your residual income businesses are going as well!

Xomba Goes in a New Direction

WebProNews has a really interesting article about Xomba's new direction. In short, they're making it more of a community site, and creating a business model that relies less on Google searches. After all the hubub about the latest Google algorithm change, a site with a different way of driving traffic is refreshing.

Here's a quote from the article:

"While most content sites rely on Google or search in general for the bulk of their traffic, Xomba’s approach reflects a newer way of thinking throughout the web – that less dependence on search (and being less at the mercy of algorithms) is a better approach for a sustainable business. In other words, it’s best not to put your eggs all in one basket."

For what it's worth, my Xomba earnings have started to rebound more quickly than my other Adsense sources.

When Writing for Upfront Pay Has Residual Results

Much has been written about the wisdom of writing for upfront pay vs. writing for residual income. Up until now, I have mostly been focused on writing for residual income. I have already blogged about the fact that my online residual income goes toward paying cash for my daughter's college education, which is one of our financial goals. Another goal we have is paying off debt, and lately I have been feeling that our progress in that area has been too slow. I wanted to do something to speed it up, and I had started to consider looking for a part-time holiday job or tax season job. That's when an email from Demand Studios landed in my inbox.

Up until this point, I had written exactly three articles for Demand Studios (now called Demand Media Studios). Each was an eHow article for an upfront payment of $15. I had since decided that writing for Demand was too time intensive and not much fun, and I focused on residual income. But since I was considering taking on some part-time work, and since the email from Demand was an offer to write personal finance articles for a $20 pay rate instead of $15, I decided to take a look.

Upon logging into Demand, I updated my bio, and starting browsing available articles. I quickly claimed several and set about writing one. It took a while because I had last written for Demand over a year ago and I had to reacquaint myself with their requirements. Still, it felt good to know that when I was finished with the process, I would have $20 in my pocket (or, more correctly, my Paypal account) that could be applied to the credit card we are working to pay off.

How to Turn Up Front Payments into Residual Income

In the time I was considering looking for a part-time job, the though of writing for up front pay never occurred to me, even though I had done it successfully in the past. The Demand email caused me to rethink writing flat fee articles, as long as the money was applied to my debt. My reasoning is that every dollar that our debt is paid down results in reduced interest payments and an increase in cash flow, which becomes a kind of residual income.And while I could continue to write flat fee articles indefinitely, using the money to pay off debt gives it a finite time frame, in a way that using it to pay for ongoing expenses does not.

During the time that we're paying off debt, I plan to research other kinds of residual income that are not writing related. My thinking is that if I still want to continue writing for up front pay, I could use the money to invest in a residual income investment such as dividend paying stocks, thus using writing to create residual income in a non-direct way.

A Helpful Demand Studios Ebook

As I was about to begin working on my next batch of articles for Demand Studios, I ran across the ebook, Demand Studio Secrets, by experienced Demand Studios writer and copy editor, Kent Ninomiya. In addition to writing and copy editing for Demand, Kent has reviewed writer bios, reviewed writer applications, moderated eHow articles, managed eHow topic guides, and was the first ever Featured Creator and winner of the Quality and Quantity Award from Demand. In other words, he knows what he's talking about and this is 182 pages of quality, insider information about succeeding as a Demand Studios writer.

I read Kent's ebook before I began my next article at Demand, and I can say without a doubt that it provided me with valuable information, even though I had already been accepted at Demand Studios and had four articles approved. (If you haven't yet applied to Demand or have had your application rejected, Demand Studio Secrets can help you with that process. Remember, Kent has worked as an application reviewer at Demand and has approved and rejected many writer applications.)

Demand Studio Secrets is offered at a cost of $19.99, which is simply amazing to me. I made it back with the first article I wrote after reading it. The sections on writing strategies and improving my scores have been especially helpful to me. I plan to write a more detailed review of the book in the future, but for now I'll give you my three word review: worth every penny. It's one of the least expensive ebooks I have read and it's been one of the most valuable.

Click here to read more about Demand Studio Secrets

Conclusion

Since I received my Demand Studios email and read Kent Ninomiya's ebook, I have earned $120 in the span of a view days to apply to my debt. Writing for upfront pay is definitely going to speed up our debt reduction efforts and Demand's twice weekly paydays (they pay via Paypal on Tuesdays and Fridays) is helping to keep me motivated. And the good news is that my residual income will continue to grow in the meantime.

What's your split between writing for up front pay and writing for residuals? I'd love to hear other thoughts on the topic.

Redgage Earnings

I use the Redgage site for two things: to create backlinks to my other online content and to upload photos. As I wrote about earlier, Redgage is a great site to use to earn some money for your photos, particularly if those photos don't meet the criteria for photo stock sites.

I'm guessing that I log onto Redgage about once a month or so to see what's happening with my content and to upload a few more links or photos. Recently I logged on and discovered that my account stood at $48.20 in earnings. You are eligible to withdraw money in $25 increments, so I put in my first withdrawal request (Redgage pays by sending you a Visa check card, which they refill for future withdrawals).

A quick check of my account shows that it took me a little over a year to earn that money. My first earnings were in August, 2009. My earnings break down as follows:

Content earnings: $5.35 (I currently make 88 cents per each 1000 page views of my content.)
Feature bonuses: $17.85 (Anytime your content is featured on the Redgage homepage, you earn a bonus. Usually it's in the neighborhood of a few dollars.)
Contest Earnings: $25.00 (Redgage holds a daily $25 contest, and I won during September. You earn entries by uploading content, writing original content, and referring others to the site.)

I've requested a $25 withdrawal to my Redgage Visa check card, and hopefully I'll soon be able to do that again.

Probably the biggest benefit of Redgage, however, is that it allows me to create do-follow backlinks to my other online content. The way the site is set up, I can do that with anchored text for exactly the keywords I want to target. Redgage can be glitchy, but this morning I found it working fine and very quickly created about 20 backlinks.

If you'd like to create backlinks to your other content, or simply earn some extra money through page views and bonuses, I encourage you to sign up for Redgage today (referral link). It's free and easy to do. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them!

Sign Up for Redgage (referral link)

September Earnings Report

September was a great month in my efforts to earn residual income online.

eHow Earnings

I wasn't sure what to expect out of eHow, as August was my best month ever. My earnings did decline, but not by much, and September ended up being my second highest month ever at eHow, with earnings of $244.95. This brings my total eHow earnings to date to $4457.97. 


It's so exciting to see eHow earnings remain strong this long after the change in the Writers Compensation Program. I currently have one article with earnings of about $345, two additional articles with earnings between $200 and $300, and four articles with earnings of between $100 and $200. With 204 articles published at eHow, my average earnings per article is currently $21.85 and that will only continue to grow each month.

Cash Back Sites

My payouts from these sites was $128.62 from Mr. Rebates and $62.88 from Big Crumbs. I post more detail on these passive income streams at my blog Make Money with Cash Back Sites.

Adsense

My Adsense earnings were down a bit from last month. The total for September was $27.14. Hubpages contributed 44% ($11.94) and Xomba was responsible for 43% ($11.74).

Amazon

Amazon earnings held steady at $32.31. Xomba was responsible for over half of my Amazon earnings at $16.73. The rest was fairly equally split between Hubpages and eHow.

So, all told, I almost reached the $500 mark last month. Reaching that regularly would be a major milestone for me. So, onto October. How are your passive earnings doing?