January 2021 Online Income Report. Welcome to my first ever online income report! In these monthly reports, I’ll be sharing how much I’ve made online via various income streams. Additionally, I’ll share my blog, YouTube and Social Media analytics. This online blog income report shows all of my online income results before taxes and deductions.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure policy for details.
January 2021 Online Income Report
Welcome to my first ever online income report! In these monthly reports, I’ll be sharing how much I’ve made online via various income streams. Additionally, I’ll share my blog, YouTube and Social Media analytics. This online blog income report shows all of my online income results before taxes and deductions.
Journey To Tolufrimpong.Com
In order to achieve financial freedom, you need to earn more, spend less and invest the difference. I think I’ve pretty much nailed it in the spending less department as I’m always looking for ways to reduce our outgoings. However, this is just one piece of the puzzle. As mentioned, the other important steps are to earn more and invest.
Since becoming debt-free, I must admit I took my foot off the gas when it came to earning more money. I’m determined to do better this year and be proactive and intentional about increasing my income streams in 2021. I’m particularly interested in growing my income online with an emphasis on building passive income streams.
I started this blog in December 2018, and in my first two years of blogging, I’ve made peanuts! Yup, peanuts! Not what you expected me to say after you’ve read hundreds of blog posts with the title – “How I made 10,000 in my second-month blogging.”? But sadly this hasn’t been my reality.
With that being said, I’ve learnt A LOT in my first 2 years blogging and if I could have my time over, boy would I approach things differently. But it’s true, you don’t know what you don’t know. I’m grateful for the experience and the lessons learnt over the last two years and I’m ready to transform this blog from a hobby into a lucrative passive income stream!
January 2021 Online Income Report
Why Am I Publicly Sharing My Online Income?
1) Inspiration
I’ve read a ton of passive income reports online over the years, and they were a huge source of inspiration for me when I started this blog. My hope in sharing my financial journey with you all is to inspire you to go for it too. It’s worked for so many other people before me and I believe it can and it will work for me too.
2) Reflections
God-willing, this time next year it would be great to look at my online income and how much I’ve been able to grow my income streams month-on-month. I’ve never been one to consistently journal, so this is a great way to keep a log of my financial year. These reports will keep me motivated during lean months.
3) Relatable
I’ll be sharing the highs and the lows this year so that you can see a real authentic online financial journey. So many gurus tell you how easy it is to make money online, so I’ll be the guinea pig and let you know if it’s really what it’s cracked up to be. I hope my transparency will build trust between us and you’ll stick around as my journey takes me wherever it takes me.
4) Lessons
This monthly report will be like a diary where I document what worked against what didn’t work. I’ll be able to review and learn from these results in order to do better the next month and avoid the same pitfalls.
5) Feedback
I’m hoping that in sharing these monthly online reports, you will in turn share suggestions in the comments section and perhaps even open my eyes to a new way of seeing and doing things.
This Is How Much I Made – January 2021 Online Income Report
Ok, so now we’ve got the why out of the way, let’s get into the meat of this post and the reason you clicked. Here’s a breakdown of all my online income in January 2021. Most of it was passive and a small percentage of it was active. I’ll start off with the online active income streams.
Active Income
Surveys
Currently, I only have one active online income stream and that is Prolific. I’ve tried a few other survey sites but they have not been great. Being paid 10p for a 25-minute survey just doesn’t cut it for me. Prolific on the other hand has interesting surveys and the commissions are pretty decent. I completed around 15 surveys in total.
Prolific paid me £56.64 in January
In February I want to add user testing and/or focus groups to my online income streams as well as discover some good survey sites. If you know of any great sites for any of the above then let me know in the comments section below.
Passive Income
Blog
I received my first payment from Goggle Adsense this month after finally crossing the £60 payment threshold. This was thanks to my YouTube channel finally being monetised. If I was waiting on AdSense to pay me solely for my blog ads, I probably won’t cross the threshold until January 2022 – their commissions are appalling!
In October I earned – £1.40
In November I earned – £9.60
In December I earned – £8.13
Google Adsense paid me £19.13 in January
January has been the highest month for blog traffic to date. My site had a total of 4,924 views. I published 4 blog posts in January they were:
Money Saving Challenges – How To Save Over £1,200 In 2021
How To Save Money During Lockdown – 10 Simple Ways
13 Financial Goals To Set For 2021
How To Stick To Budget – 12 Simple Ways
YouTube
As I just mentioned, I was able to cross the payment threshold thanks to being monetised on YouTube in November 2020. I started my channel in December 2019, so to be monetised within a year is amazing. Adsense pays you on the 21st of the following month that the money was earned. So the paycheque I received on 25th January 2021 was for November and December 2020.
In November I earned – £38.77
In December I earned – £51.60
Google Adsense paid me £90.42 in January
In total for my blog and YouTube ads in the month of January Google Adsense paid me £109.55.
Here’s a snapshot of my YouTube channel performance across the month of January. I published 9 videos in January, they were as follows:
How To Stick To Budget | 12 Simple Ways
How To Save Money During Lockdown
My reaction to Patricia Bright “Reviewing MY £65,000 BUDGET”
Lessons And Results From Vlogmas
My Passive Income Goals for 2021
Simple Budget Excel Spreadsheet
My impressions went up to 167000 which was up 16% from the preceding month. My views are also up 18% from December which is great to see given that in December I posted 25 videos for vlogmas. To think I posted less than half the amount of videos and still saw my views increase shows that my channel is growing in the right direction which is great. I gained 228 new subscribers in January. If you’re yet to do so, check out my channel here and subscribe.
Etsy
I have an Etsy store, ToluPrintables which I opened in January 2020. However, I must admit that I neglected it after a few months and by April I had stopped adding new products completely. In December 2020 I decided to give Etsy another go. I revamped the store and added some new products. Two of new products performed well and they are,
12 months money saving challenge, save £1,200 in a year
Deluxe Budget Planner and Expenses Tracker
Check them out and grab yourself a copy if you want to create a fool-proof spending plan for your money and start achieving your savings goals.
Etsy paid me £169.46 in January
Own Digital Products
In addition to selling my digital products on Etsy, it dawned on me that I should also sell them on my own website. What’s the point of doing all the work and driving traffic to another site, when I can use the same effort and drive them to my website? It’s a shame I only thought about this properly last week, as all my promo links online currently direct all potential customers to Etsy instead of my own website.
In February I will do the work and update these links online. I have over 100 YouTube videos so it’ll take me a while to update them all! Hopefully, this will be reflected in my sales at the end of February. The same digital products are for sale on my blog and Etsy but Etsy sales were significantly higher.
12 months money saving challenge, save £1,200 in a year
Deluxe Budget Planner and Expenses Tracker
My digital products paid me £52 in January
Affiliates & Referrals
I dropped the ball when it comes to affiliate marketing. In my first year blogging the only affiliate network I joined was Amazon Associates. Fast forward over 2 years and I still haven’t reached the £25 payment threshold for Amazon – what a joke! My account is currently £22 in credit so I’m getting close. Hopefully by the end of the year, Amazon would have paid me something. Fingers crossed!
This year I plan to join a few more affiliate programs. Don’t worry I don’t intend to turn this blog into one of those spammy sites telling you to buy buy buy. I’ll only share products or services that I use and trust and find value in.
FreeTrade & Trading 212
A couple of referral programs that I joined in December year were FreeTrade and Trading 212. They are investing platforms and allow you to invest in the stock market with as little as £1 to get started. What makes the offer even more appealing is you get a free stare for every referral. I received free shares just for signing up to both and the person that referred me received the same.
FreeTrade
Join me and invest commission-free with Freetrade. Get started with a free share worth £3-£200!
Trading 212
Get a free share up to £200 when you sign up and top up £1 or more – Trading 212
Trading 212 paid me £19.49 in January
Freetrade paid me £35.15 in January
All in all, my active and passive income total for January was £442.22
I’m very pleased with January’s report, I made more in a month that I made in my first 2 years blogging – crazy!
What excites me, even more, is that fact that for the first time since starting this blog, I now know what I need to do to grow these income streams further. It’s going to be a lot of work but it will be worth it! I’ll definitely share it all with you over the coming months. So if you’ve not yet subscribed to my blog, then please do so, so that you don’t miss any of these monthly updates and more.
Let me know in the comments section below what you thought of this online income report and also if you have any questions.
More Like This:
If you enjoyed this post, ’January 2021 Online Income Report’, then you will also enjoy my other blog posts on similar topics. Check them out below:
How To Save Money During Lockdown – 10 Simple Ways
Beginners Guide To Sinking Funds
8 Ways To Motivate Yourself To Save Money
