So let’s talk about something fun: the surprising amount of money I made in retirement this year. It’s surprising because I expected this amount to be $0 after I quit my job in October 2020, but like a lot of things in life, I was wrong 🙂 . So let’s get into it!
Income
Here’s where my accidental income came from in 2024:
Yep – I was totally wrong. I assumed I would never make another dime after quitting my job (unless some serious unforeseen situation arose that required it). But instead, the universe threw that idea in the garbage. I made a little money from this blog and a few other random things my limitless amount of free time had me stumbling into 🙂 .
So far, despite all of my jokes about spreading birding knowledge somehow being a pyramid scheme, my other hobbies have not accidentally created any income. Phew! Let’s try to keep it that way 😉 . Anyway, here’s all the money I’ve made this year:
Blog
Income: $4,430.49
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$664.57
Expenses: -$700.56
Profit: $3,065.36
Hourly Wage: $5.38/hour
Shockingly, this blog made money this year. And because I didn’t have a lot of large expenses, that profit was way larger than I expected.
However, before you think blogging is the path to riches, please check out the below posts I’ve written on the subject (Spoiler: It is definitely not). Still, it’s nice that this site is paying for itself and currently bringing in a little extra.
- I Found My Dream Job And It Pays $225 A Year
- The Meta-Weirdness Of Making Money From A FIRE Blog In Retirement
Patreon
Income: $192
Fees: -$30.60
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$28.80
Profit: $132.60
After a few threats from friends, I created a Patreon for the 17% of the recipients of my Accountability Beast tweets who want to pay for the service (the rest are on the free.99 plan 😉 ). Every Wednesday I remind people of their goals…and bother them until they accomplish them 🙂 . I’ve been doing this for 5 years now and it’s currently the only thing keeping me from deleting my Twitter account so you know it’s important to me 😉 .
Hello from Switzerland🇨🇭! I'm sleepy from meeting with 3 readers for coffee this morning so while I take a nap🤣, here are the things you asked me to remind you about: pic.twitter.com/GfmpPTzD8X
— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) October 9, 2024
Interest
Income: $1,205.36
This is interest I received from my Ally High-Yield Savings Account. I use that account to store most of my cash and have been excited to see their interest rate growing. Their current interest rate is 3.85% as of this writing. Nice 🙂 .
Prolific
Income: $347.48
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$52.12
Profit: $295.36
This is new! I’m planning to write an entire post about my love of Prolific, but in the meantime I originally heard about Prolific from my friends at Dragons On FIRE. After applying and waiting for a while to get approved and then accidentally forgetting about it for a while I tried it and I made $290 in my first month using the app. I found it a really fun and mentally stimulating way to start my day.
Prolific pays way more than I’ve seen on other survey apps and mostly includes educational surveys from universities that actually get my brain working instead of the more mindless surveys I’ve seen in the past. However, Prolific only works when I’m in my home country, which I only visited for about half of this year so it wasn’t always an option for me, but I enjoyed it every time it was.
EU Regulation 261/2004 Delay Compensation
‘Income’: $646.10 (€600)
This is not technically income, but it shows as an inflow in my accounts so I’m listing it here since I’ve done the same with other money I’ve received (like settlements in the past). This was compensation I received from my IcelandAir flight that was delayed a full 24 hours. I talk about how I applied for this compensation and all those details in the post here:
I wasn’t sure I would qualify for this since I’m American, but I did and I was pleasantly surprised to receive some cash for my inconvenience. This is all based on EU Regulation 261/2004, which I’ll definitely keep in mind when I’m flying to the EU again.
Conclusion
So I made $5,344.78 of profit in 2024. That sounds like a legit chunk of change! Not bad for a lazy retired bum 😉 . I seriously expected this amount to be $0 when I retired, but like life – it surprised me.
I guess I didn’t give myself enough credit for what my work-free brain would be able to accomplish. I’m curious to see if this trend will continue or if I’ll go deeper into hobbies that make no money. We shall see – on to 2025!
How was your 2024? Did you hit your money goals?
Get outta here: “you filthy animal!”
Yay for your blog. I feel better reading it always. Glad all your hard work is providing a tangible result. Perhaps the intangible is all the people you’ve helped over the years. Thank you.
Haha that’s a great reminder to do my annual Home Alone rewatch so thank you for that and for your kind words! I’m glad you enjoy reading it. Hearing that I’ve helped people has been the highlight of this experience.
I appreciate this post. I often fall into the same thought that if I FIRE then I will not earn another dollar, but I think I will also find some amount of side income just from doing what I would normally do. $5300 is a serious chunk of change for frugal minded folks.
Yeah it’s wild what can happen accidentally 🙂 .
Make it rain!!
Woot woot!
Don’t you also earn income from your investments?
Yep – I’m writing a separate post at the end of the year with all of that (dividends, investment withdrawals etc). I used to combine that information with this kind of income recap, but I thought it was confusing so I separate out investment income now.
I’m curious to hear more about Prolific. Seems like a decent chunk of change for completing surveys.
Yeah it’s lots of fun. I have a post about it in the works, but I’m not sure when it’ll come out. I’m going to need a rest after PurpleMas 😉 .
The approval process for Prolific takes months in my experience though so feel free to apply now if you feel like checking it out at some point. It’s very self-explanatory. And hopefully by the time you’re approved my post will be out too lol.
Thanks Purple for your continued posting! I start my every Tuesday reading this
Thank you for your continued reading! And at least in December you can start your Thursdays that way as well 😉 .
Nice! Can’t say no to a chunk of money like that! And surely you won’t have to pay taxes on it? Or will you go into taxes in your post about dividends and investment income?
True 🙂 . Based on past retired years I’ll have to pay about $500-700 of taxes on this accidental income, which is why I included those estimates in this post. I don’t have to pay any taxes on my investments or anything outside this income so it’s only mentioned in this post.
You made just over $3,000 in profit from the blog, and that’s $5 an hour… so you spent about 600 hours on writing it? That’s a lot of time! Not as much as a real job, but still a lot. 🙂
Well, since you asked, my 2024 was straight ridiculous when it came to money. I made like $20k during this year of sorta retirement/coastish FI/whatever thing I’m doing. The executive protection (fancy bodyguard) side-gig has been stupid fun, and my spreadsheet says I’ve worked 346.546 hours there so far this year. Way better hourly rate than my former professions, and the few times it sucks make me appreciate the long stretches of slug life.
Thought about monetizing my blog, but 1. I’m lazy 2. don’t have near your traffic which means 3. it costs less to run than yours.
If I ever got the traffic which increased the operating expenses, it’s even money whether I’d monetize or just shut it down.
Anywho, glad you’re reducing sequence of return risk to super low levels with some income. And glad you monetized this place, it’s always worth it reading your stuff!