August Passive Income Report

A new Passive Income Report

As usual, my passive income sources include Digital Products, Online Courses, Adsense, Dividends, and more. I’ve recently begun investing more in Treasury Bills. So, we’ll have some new sources of passive income from here on out. In addition, I got my Etsy affiliate account squared away, so it may start showing some revenue next month.

I saw improvement in YouTube, Adsense, and dividend income. Patreon income slid a bit but July was my highest point for the year. Digital Products fell month-over-month; however, they are up year-over-year. August is typically a slow month for digital product sales.

Yes, I realize that parts of this are not 100% passive income (Patreon for example). However, the majority of it is or requires a minuscule amount of work.

Passive Income Breakdown for August 2022

Digital Products-$25.82 compared to $39.92 doesn’t look good. However, August is always very slow; I looked at my records for the last two years.

Adsense paid me $6.51. I don’t make much from Adsense, but it’s nice to see it trending up at least.

Amazon Affiliate- $2.17. I simply don’t have much income from Amazon, it’s basically from people buying guitar/banjo strings or maybe a book. No large purchases.

Patreon $266.56. Patreon continues to be one of my strongest performers. I did lose some members, but that happens every so often. They almost always get replaced by the next month. I’m having a SERIOUS issue getting past that $300 mark no matter how much content and promotion I do.

Youtube paid me $34.94. YouTube wasn’t bad this month. I did upload more videos in August than in July. At the same time, it’s been months since I’ve uploaded anything but YouTube Shorts which do not pay well. This is all income from videos I posted years ago. This is true passive income!

Taxable Dividends-$59.84.

Retirement Dividends-$12.04. Almost no dividends in my retirement accounts this month (Next month will be my high point!). It’s just the way the cycle falls. These “dividends” are from VBILX (Vanguard Intermediate Bond Fund).

Ibonds-$24. This technically doesn’t pay out each month (it pays when I cash it). However, I like counting it as monthly income as that is how much it’s generating on a month by month basis. I just bought some more i-bonds, so this number will be great as well. As I stated above, I picked up more T-bills, so my bond income is going to start to climb.

Udemy $7.16. Another disappointing month from Udemy. My competitors have cut their courses to as low as $9 (I’m guessing due to low sales). I’m not dropping mine any lower than $20, I’ll just wait it out. People are traveling and aren’t taking online music courses right now, it seems clear.

Skillshare-To be determined on the 16th.

Teachable- It paid me $20.28. I had what I call a “high value” customer buy yet another one of my courses. I’d LOVE to know what the lifetime value of this guy has been for my business 🙂

TeeSpring-Teespring paid me $6.08. It’s been so long since I’ve sold any t-shirts, I almost forgot about them. One of my students purchased a T-shirt. I’m not sure how else to promote my t-shirts, I talked about them on every YouTube video for months. Now I just leave links occasionally (and have a PIN on Pinterest).

Total Passive Income

$468.40

This is my weakest month for the year, but I’m not surprised. August tends to be very slow for online sales in my business.

I feel confident September will be a nice rebound. I’ve got two new sources of passive income, dividends will be higher, and multiple sources are already looking higher.

For comparison, last August I made $330 in passive income. So, that is a 42% increase year-over-year. I hope I can maintain such growth for next year.

Wishing you the best on your INVESTMENT JOURNEY!