The Profit Maze

Here is the breakdown of September earnings :

- Richdad Affiliate Program : $32.85
- Google Adsense : $88.59
- Ebay Partner Network : $128.38

TOTAL: $249.82

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Here is the breakdown of my August’s passive earnings :

- Richdad Affiliate Program : $62.99
- Google Adsense : $79.35
- Ebay Partner Network : $158.07

TOTAL: $300.41

Since late 2008, the Ebay program really started to work on some of my websites…

It’s been a while that I have not updated the blog…Well I got side tracked big time : 9-5 job, the family life with 2 kids, developing new sites I guess ;(!

From now on, I want to use this blog mainly for tracking my monthly financial reports. I think it should be motivating to realize how I improve over time. Currently since I don’t track very precisely, I just know / have the feeling that I do better… but that’s all. A visual aid will be great to put in place here.

So long…

Here is the breakdown of my October’s passive earnings :

- Richdad Affiliate Program : $59.52
- Google Adsense : $67.31
- Commission Junction : $11.39
- Ebay Publisher Network : $0
- Chitika : $0
- Amazon : $0

TOTAL: $138.22

The adsense money is slightly less than the previous month but nothing major. I added a new website to my web portfolio recently and I made the mistake to put the adsense code right away… I think that trigger “smart pricing” on my account which results in less money per clicks. That might be why it’s less dollars.
No money from Ebay : I noticed that I got one ACRU (active confirmed registered user) from ebay.com in October which should bring around $25 normally. But the Ebay reports show no money for this… not sure why?

Well that’s it for October… hopefully I will see the numbers on the raise before the end of the year .

Once in a while I try to see how I can save a bit of money and one way I found is to research and try to make some of my own products instead of buying them all prepared and paying much more money than the actual components.

Last month, I researched how to make my own laundry detergent and quickly I found the post of Trent from The Simple Dollar where he goes in details on how to proceed.

I bought all the ingredients : the soap, borax powder and the washing soda were all quite easy to find. I then followed the process and waited overnight like explained to see how the final product would thicken…  The mixture did thicken but not a lot at all. I tried to mix well but it was like oil and water… no way to have it blend well. Anyway, my wife and I are using this for now. It does seem to clean well enough… so that’s good.

I want to try again soon to make some more and see if I can make it more thick like described in this more recent and more visual post from Trent.

There are a lot of comments on the 2 links above… basically discussing to know if making its own detergent is worth the money or not… my wife is a little skeptical about it. Is it worth it ? In the second post from Trent, you can find some answers.

I am glad I got to try it, I agree with Trent, it’s a fun experience.

I intend to give updates about my earnings online every month. It will be great to keep track of how I am doing. In addition, when reading other money making blogs, I always like when they display financial updates… it reminds me that it can be done, it gives motivation. It could be a bit frustrating too if you wish you were doing better but I always try to focus only on my own progression towards the goals I set.

My Earnings :

- Richdad Affiliate Program : $74.57
- Google Adsense : $70.31
- Commission Junction : $13.92
- Ebay Publisher Network : $7.54
- Chitika : $0
- Amazon : $0

TOTAL: $166.34

These dollars come from a handful of websites. Once in a while, I get to sell a link as well but it is so occasional that I prefer to leave that out of the picture for now.

My numbers are not the kind of amounts that you could see on guru’s blogs. But that’s where I stand for September 2008 and I hope to increase these amounts regularly. Currently, my online income is quite unstable. Some months are much better than others and my first goal is to stabilize this monthly earning.

A lot of people are actually really wondering how realistic it is to get an income from a blog. Hopefully you and I will find out…

You probably know that starting in 2009, Canadian can open Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) where the interest grows tax free (up to $5,000 every year). All the details can be found on the Department of Finance Canada website.

If you are currently a client of ING Direct like me, you might have received a Tax-Free Savings Account related message. ING Direct offers to give a portion of the interest you earned in 2008 (between October 4th, 2008 and December 31st, 2008) to start up your new 2009 TFSA account. You can read about it on ING Direct website.

Enjoy that’s free money!

Well here we are… this is my first post on TheProfitMaze. To start I invite you to read about me.

Because this blog first intent is to track my financial progress, I will start the proper way. In the next posts, I will display my baselines ie both my financial net worth and my current passive income streams. I plan to publish updates on this 2 reports every months after that.

So stay tuned for more.

Thanks for visiting my new blog…