Hey, savings account, remember me???

"We're baaaaaack!" You have no idea how excited I am to report that that's exactly what I said to my savings account the other day. Yes, we've missed each other for the last 11 months. It's been that long...basically since I stopped working to become a SAHM...that my husband and I have actually been able to put money into the savings. Last month though, my online writing earnings (which totaled $604 and change) provided us with a surplus...and therefore "We're back!" The best part is, it isn't a small surplus it's several hundred dollars...$300 to be exact!

Let me explain how it all works out b/c this is possible for all stay-at-home moms to achieve. By looking at my monthly earnings you'll see it takes time (and all I have is nap time)...but a year isn't much, if you think about it. While I never thought I'd be where I am, less than year after leaving the workforce,  I'm so happy I've put the dedication in to give my family several online revenue streams.

The only two websites I write for are Examiner.com and eHow.com, each a little different, but each a great gig in its own right.

The last eHow article I wrote was on 9/3/09, the last one before that was on 7/31/09.  In other words: I've been on hiatis from eHow for awhile. However, I've continued to earn, and increase my monthly income, each month as you can see from screen grabs of my eHow earnings reports.  And this, my friends is the beauty of passive residual income!

So why I haven't I written for eHow lately if I continue to see such dramatic monthly earning increases? Well, I heard about this great little start-up writing site called Examiner.com. Perhaps you've heard of it. Perhaps you even write for it. I have to admit, when I first started on Examiner I wasn't too impressed with the earnings. The site pays what usually equals out to a little less than a penny a page view.   Doesn't sound like much, does it? Well, that's where a penny/page view can be deceiving.

 I have two "spots" on Examiner.  My original spot was as the Baltimore SAHMs Examiner. I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed in the payoff considering the time and effort I put into writing daily articles.  Since the site only lets you see earnings for the current and previous months, I'll just have to tell you that in July (my first month) I earned $33.95. In August, I did slightly better earning $44.24. And in September Examiner deposted $299.67 into my PayPal account.

So what happened in October? A few things:

• Started second spot as the Celebrity Kids Examiner (earning $160.00 from September 16-30)
  
• Two Examiner referrals at $50 each

So in actuality I made $199.67 for my writing efforts. (Clearly, the majority was from my new gig.) But look what happened in October with strictly writing and NO referrals. (Since I have two spots, I have two earnings reports.)

If you do the math you'll see that in just my third full month on Examiner I made almost $500! Combined with my monthly earnings from eHow, in October my grand total is just about $825!!!! And you know what that means..."Hey savings, we'll be back again, real soon!"

When I started this little thing I now call freelance writing my goal was to pay off one bill. I was so excited when I was able to do that with an ehow deposit of $26.75. Granted, it was a small bill. Now my goal is to pay the entire monthly credit card bill (which ranges between $1000-$1300 in a typical month) with just my freelance writing earnings. I hope to do it by March 2010.

I'll keep you posted!

PS. If you're wondering why I haven't been making as many blog posts as of late...now you know!

Related Links:

Earn Passive Residual Income on eHow.com (by a SAHM making $1300 a month...it's how I cracked the code)

Ehow's legit...Don't say I didn't tell you so

eHow pays moms for their expertise

Make real money writing for Examiner.com (part of my Make Money Monday series)

My eHow story...month by month