I made over $100,000 in 2007
February 29, 2008 Posted by Tyler Cruz
I apologize for the lack of posts over the past few days. The fact is that I spent most of my working hours compiling, gathering, and sorting out all my accounting from 2007 to give to my accountant.
It took me about a total of 12-14 hours to complete because I have so many different revenue sources. My private ads were the easiest to gather since I keep detailed accounting records in Excel, but I’m an affiliate and referrer of countless websites. I have to log into each one individually, grab the stats for 2007, and then have to export the data into Excel, print each page individually, or paste a cropped screenshot into Photoshop. Then I had PayPal expenses, credit card statements, and other bills to go through…
However, I did finally finish, and am happy I don’t have to go through all that for another year.
Earnings
If you’re a very long-time reader of my blog, you’ll remember how I used to display my online earnings on the side of my site, breaking them down into average daily and monthly earnings.
I’ve received several e-mails asking why I don’t display this anymore, and what my earnings are now. Well, I removed them for mainly two reasons:
First, my income growth plateaued, and so there was no increase to showcase or boast about. But the main reason I stopped posting this was because it simply took me too long to calculate.
I used to recalculate my online earnings monthly, and then bi-monthly, but it is simply not feasible anymore. I have too many different revenue sources that I do not have the time to spend 4-5 hours recalculating everything.
However, since this is the one time in the year that I do calculate my earnings, I’ll disclose how I did during the year 2007. While I have all the 2007 income information broken down for my own records, I’m not going to reveal them to that degree publicly.
I’m not afraid of disclosing this here, as I always declare 100% of everything to the government, and always play by the rules and by the book. Tax-evasion or tax fraud is the last thing you want to do.
2007 Income
- Private Ads: $71,443.20
- 10% Domain Brokerage Fee: $22,984.99
- Affiliate & Ad Networks: $5,954.64
Total 2007 Income: $100,382.83
2007 Expenses
- Hosting: $2,846.50
- Cell Phone: $1,481.05
- Cable Internet: $587.40
- Server Administration: $240.00
- Hydro: $374.41
- Paper Receipts: Not Calculated (Estimating $5,000)
- Rent: $1,200
- Mortgage: $13,822.41
- Strata: $2,015.50
- Condo Content Insurance: $198.00
- Various PayPal Write-Off’s (Programming, Web Design, Advertising, Etc.): $9,929.88
- PRWeb: $369.00
- Yahoo Search Marketing: $300
- MSN adCenter: $277.01
- Google AdWords: $1,405.00
- CafePress.com: $122.38
Total 2007 Expenses: $40,168.54*
*Note: Not all of this will be 100% write-off’s, but is simply the total of all the expenses I can write off. My accountant will calculate the correct amount. For example, I do not get to write off $13,800 for my mortgage costs, but only the percentage of square feet my office takes up.
Now that I know the exact amount (albeit gross) I made in 2007, I can give an update on my daily average earnings. I know from my About page:
“As of Jan 1st, 2007, I’m averaging $256 USD a day.”
$100,382.83 divided by 365 is $275. So, a year ago I was averaging around $256 per day, and in 2007 I averaged $275 per day, or around $8,250 per month.
I hope nobody thinks this is an attempt to brag, because that is certainly not my intention. It’d be foolish to try to brag about making only $100,000, since there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of people who make far more than that online. I know several well-known web entrepreneur bloggers who make 7-figures a year. The title was obviously made to attract backlinks and to grab your attention *smile*.
While I seem to have increased my earnings by a bit, the domain brokerage sale which netted me close to $23,000 obviously inflated the results in my favour. Therefore, my goal for my 2008 earnings is to break $100,000 once again. This may seem like a rather easy goal, but really that’s $23,000 I have to account for, which is certainly not easy.
Since my income has slowly but surely been increasing over the past few years and I’m in the second-highest tax bracket now, it’s time for me to finally incorporate. So, I went to see the corporate accountant at the firm where I get my taxes done, while dropping off my 2007 income tax documents to the female accountant who normally does my income taxes. I went to see him last year, but he decided it was a bit premature at the time to incorporate.
However, he thinks it’s fine for me to incorporate now, and referred me to a corporate lawyer. Fortunately, the corporate lawyer’s building was only a 1-minute walk away, and I managed to book an appointment for this Monday to start on the road to incorporate.
I’m very excited, however, I was rather embarrassed by how just little I understood when my accountant was explaining things to me. While I think I’m pretty good at managing my own money and spending it online, I’m very bad with actual financial analysis and legalities… all that bureaucratic stuff.
I hope the corporate lawyer will explain things to me in very basic and simple terms. Incorporating, as I know it, will mean I’ll have learn a lot of new things in a short period of time. I’ll probably have to open a separate bank account for the corporation, I’ll have to work out how I’ll be paid, and how much to pay myself. I’ll need to know so many things… I hope I’m not in over my head here and drown myself… but I really need to incorporate. I probably owe around $30,000 in income taxes for 2007… I’ll know the exact amount once my accountant finishes with them.
I’ll keep you guys posted on my journey to becoming a corporation and let you know how my appointment with the corporate lawyer goes on Monday.
Well done Tyler, it’s good to see everything organised. All the best for 2008 and there is no doubt that you will earn well over $100,000. Now I’m off to make my $100,000 minus 4 zeros.
Best Wishes
Carl - Thatblogsite.com
Are these hosting expenses for ALL your sites together? The same for your private advertising income, is this combined for all your sites and what is the breakdown?
Tyler,
Great job on your earnings! You should brag! A lot of people wish they could make $100,000 online in a year. It isn’t an easy task! I am sure that you will break it again in 2008. Good luck!
~Debby
Earning so much you have to incorporate is certainly not the worst problem to have in life. Accounting is indeed a nightmare. I am determined not to leave it to the last minute again this year.
Incorporating is the best thing. You should have done it early on considering the rate you were going. There are lots more possibilities as a business than as an individual, both in the area of taxes and in business opportunities.
Also makes everything a lot cleaner and rids you of liabilities.
Congratulations!
That’s great Tyler! Congratulations, you truly inspire me.
These are the types of posts I think the majority of us readers look forward to. I await more.
100,000 is nothing to sniffle at. Congrats Tyler. Im rooting for you to break it in 2008.
Quick question though… Did you use those advertise networks to advertise the blog or to run affiliate campaigns (just curious).
They were from when I tried my hand at affiliate marketing: http://www.tylercruz.com/affiliate-marketing-plunge-day-15/
I believe I spent a total of around $300 or so marketing/advertising my blog since its inception.
Gaah, wrote a long comment earlier and my computer froze
Very interested about the private ad sales - where were the majority of them from, your forums?
very nice earnings. Im hoping to break the 10,000 mark at least this year. In my first half of year trying to earn money online i took in about 5,000. That is without deducting expenses and such though.
So you made about $75,000 after legitimate expenses?
Many people your age, with a regular job make that and Judging from your work ethic in 2008, I would imagine your going to have to pull up your socks to make $60,000.
Sure you can you live easily off $60,000. Is that a number to be proud of, I don’t think so.
The $22,000 brokering you made was lucky, but your not even putting yourself in very many situations to get lucky anymore.
I would like to challenge you to get creative on how to make $100,000 profit this year and don’t stop working until you hit that number.
while I lost money with my dumb website, I did make a lot of money with my brick and mortar business. I think if I could made the money I made last year doing an online business, then I would do it in a heart beat.
Good Job Mr. Cruz.
Tyler, I’m sure you read John Chow. Fortunately for you he’s written a large series on how to incorporate a blog. Maybe you shouldn’t spend money on a lawyer and do it yourself!
I agree–many people make much more than you do online, but I would definitely say that your profit is commendable. There are many people who will hear about great opportunities, but never take action and thus remain where they are. My mentor, James Brausch, just said today that “…98% of people who are handed a goose that lays golden eggs never take any action… they just sit the goose down and walk away.” Kudos to you for doing something with the opportunities you’ve discovered.
Quick question, what portion of your income came from PokerForums.org? That is, how are your other sites doing in comparison.
Congrats on all the earnings, Tyler!
-Mike
Congratulation Tyler.
Nice work, The only question I have is how do you get your private ad sales so high. How do you attract clients that are willing to pay?
The majority of the private ad income comes from PokerForums.org. However, a lot of it also comes from sheer volume.
My smaller sites only make $1,500 - $7,000 a year, but when you have a couple dozen of them it quickly adds up
First congratulations on both your earning and in your decision to incorporate. I’m curious as to whether or not the LLC route is being considered.
I’m pretty sure LLC is an American thing - I’m Canadian
Tyler,
I think that this post is awesome! It is quite unique in the fact that you have listed all of your expenses (well it looks like most of them) along with your earnings. I believe that it gives people a realistic idea what it takes to make $100,000 (gross income) online. I truly appreciate your dedication to letting your readers into your financial world. Thank you.
As for your 2008 goal of earning $100,000 you are simply thinking like a LOSER! I can’t believe that you aren’t thinking on a much larger scale. You have a earn of learning under your belt and you are going to work smarter and expand your businesses on a bigger scale. I think that you should aim at about $250,000!
Let me ask you this. Would you rather achieve a goal of earning $100,000 or ONLY achieve 70% of a goal at $250,000 (which equates out to $175,000!)
I am reading Donald Trump’s new book “Think Big and Kick Ass” and the underlying theme is that if you want great big success and wealth you have to change your thinking to believe that you can achieve big success and wealth.
Great job!
Congrats Tyler on the success of last year. I agree with the poster above and you should set your limits even higher. The internet is just going to get bigger and bigger and us Internet Marketers need to take advantage!
Maaaaan, so rich! I could only dream to earn those figures online. The best thing about your job is your salary increases all the time, so your are forever getting promotions and bonuses, so to speak!
Nice long post about your blog income!
Also in your case we see that you suppose to make from your blog at least the same amount of money as your RSS subscribers or even higher in order to do well. This is what we can take as one of the guidelines to see how much money potential a blog has: no. of subscribers!
I see that I scrolled to far down and posted my reply in your yearly revenue instead of blog income. My excuses! LOL
Interesting to see that most of your revenue is from private ads!
What kind of sites do you run to have these earnings?
[...] is now Merendi Networks Inc. March 7, 2008 Posted by Tyler Cruz Paid Advertisement In my I made over $100,000 in 2007 post from last week, I mentioned how I was finally taking the steps to incorporating, and had made [...]
Interesting stats. Good to see the numbers. Congrats.
Good move on incorporating. It hurts to see so much of your money go to Uncle Sam.
Good job.. now try and make $200,000 or more this year
Very inspiring. Can I buy you lunch and pick your brain next time you’re in Vancouver?
Hey Tyler, this is an inspiring blog because your quite young and it is some achievement to make that much money going alone…congrats…I am an 18 year old from Ireland currently finishing school.I’ve dabbled in an out of a few sites just seeing what’s out there..I hope to have my own site in September..just thought I’d tell you you’ve been a motivation!!