Let’s talk about something wild: 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 π . So let’s get into it!
And in case you’re curious, here are my previous income posts in this series:
- How I Made $5,344 While Retired In 2024
- How I Made $4,359 While Retired In 2023
- How I Made $4,617 While Retired In 2022
- How I Made $6,989 While Retired In 2021
Income
Here’s where my accidental income came from in 2025:
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. So far, despite all of my jokes about spreading birding, nail sticker and knitting knowledge somehow being a pyramid scheme, my other hobbies have not accidentally created any income. Phew! Let’s try to keep it that way π .
Anyway, here’s all the money I’ve made this year:
Blog
Income: $7,496.74
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$1,124.51
Estimated State Taxes (4%): -$299.86
PayPal Fees (4%): -$3.24
Expenses: -$165.71
Profit: $5,903.42
Hourly Wage: $10.54/hour
Well, this is an unexpected amount. The only thing I changed that would affect blog income this year was my ad network. I switched to get rid of tech issues that y’all were reporting.
But Journey by Mediavine and regular Mediavine (which I switched to in September) apparently have higher RPMs than my old network (Monumetric) so despite writing the same number and types of posts, this increased a fair bit in 2025.
For context, here’s how much profit I’ve previously made on this blog (and yes that’s a negative number on top π ):
2019: -$839.29
2020: $2,070.75
2021: $4,077.15
2022: $3,768.30
2023: $2,520.54
2024: $3,065.36
This might not even be chump change anymore. When reading FIRE blogs while still working, it always made me laugh when people spent years and years saving money only to turn around and accidentally make enough money to fund their lifestyle in retirement.
I’m definitely not there, but I never would have expected that something I do for fun and did for free for 3.5 years would ever end up making 24.6% of my $24K budget.
I know that this might have only happened because I wasn’t trying to make it a money making venture. I wasn’t worried about paying my rent and didn’t even care about the money because I don’t need it.
This seems to be a weird paradox because not trying to make money and only doing what is true to myself seems to have been a large part of why I’m now making this money. I’ve always written this blog for myself first, and done whatever I felt was fun and let anything else go (I’m looking at you SEO π ) while also turning down almost all of the money making opportunities people pitch me.
I feel very grateful that I don’t need to care about this accidental income and therefore won’t be concerned if it disappears tomorrow as online revenue has been known to do π .
Anyway, I never expected this to happen and now I’m part of the statistic of early retirees that accidentally make a significant amount of their budget amount in retirement. Whoopsie π .
Now for a Purple PSA: 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).
- I Found My Dream Job And It Pays $225 A Year
- The Meta-Weirdness Of Making Money From A FIRE Blog In Retirement
Still, it’s nice that this site is paying for itself and currently bringing in a little extra.
Income: $38.08
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$5.71
Estimated State Taxes (4%): -$1.52
Profit: $30.85
This is a funny one. After learning my lesson in 2023 that Instagram trying to give me money was in fact not a scam, I decided to opt into their new program out of curiosity.
And what I discovered made me cackle π . It seems that after making a big Reels push two years ago, Insta is now trying to incentivize people to make more Posts.
But here’s the problem, their incentive is so small that I doubt it matters to anyone and I’m almost sure it’s not incentivizing anything π . This is the amount they paid for hundreds of thousands of views, which is a bit hilarious. But whatever, thanks for a few cents for something I do for free I guess.
Speaking
Income: $500
PayPal Fees (3%): -$14.95
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$75
Estimated State Taxes (4%): -$20
Profit: $390.05
I was asked to speak at a black womanβs investing club called “The Stocks & Stilettos Society.” About 100 people joined the virtual meeting live, which was cool. Interestingly, when I was originally asked to speak for this private group that pays membership fees, I wasn’t offered any compensation.
I find it strange when a company doesn’t offer the people providing a talk money for their time when they are being paid by the people that are attending the event. Since they didn’t mention payment at all, I just nicely asked if they had a budget for speakers and it turns out yes they did and this is what they offered me. It’s wild what one, small question can do π .
Patreon
Income: $183
Patreon Fees (16%): -$28.80
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$27.45
Estimated State Taxes (4%): -$7.32
Profit: $119.43
After a few threats from friends, I created a Patreon for the 13% of the recipients of my Accountability Beast tweets who want to pay for the service (the rest are on the free.99 plan π ). Every Wednesday I remind people of their goals…and bother them until they accomplish them π .
I’ve been doing this for 6 years now and it’s currently the only thing keeping me from deleting my Twitter account so you know it’s important to me π .
Interest
Income: $1,325.91
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$198.89
Estimated State Taxes (4%): -$53.04
Profit: $1,073.98
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 3.3% as of this writing. Nice π .
Settlement
Income: $44.32
Estimated Taxes (15%): -$6.65
Estimated State Taxes (4%): -$1.77
Profit: $35.90
I received a small settlement from the Stark et al. v. Patreon Inc. case. Alrighty then.
Conclusion
So I made $7,553.63 of profit in 2025. That sounds like a legit chunk of change! Not bad for a lazy retired bum π . 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.
Also if you’re looking for information on my investment income (dividends, withdrawals, roth conversions etc), a post about that will be published before the new year. On to 2026!
It is well worth it and even you are mentioning the “a lazy retired bum” , behind is a lot of tome spend writing and taking care of the blog /other source of the money.
What is different from the others? you did it because you liked it, not because you need it. Here is the difference. Still you deserve it.
Curious how you integrate this money into your annual budget? did you take out less from IRA or less often?
Haha – fair enough π . Thank you! So far I haven’t changed my withdrawal strategy at all based on this income because I didn’t think it would last honestly, but if it does I might change it down the line by converting less in my Roth IRA Conversion Ladder.
Are you not including your dividends in income?
I say at the end of the post that dividends and all other investment income will be in my investment post later this month. I used to include them here, but realized it doesn’t make sense since it’s not regular income.
Congrats, Purple! The Insta amount is a crying shame though. Because you have such consistency and high-value information for FIRE-aspirants I hope this amount grows!
Thank you! And haha yeah it’s a pretty funny amount, but I do all that stuff gladly for free and haven’t received any money for my Insta posts before so it’s all good. I was just laughing at their failed incentive system.
I guess you’re not still doing Prolific?
I put my name down on your recommendation, and because it looked like a fun and easy way to make a few bucks. I never heard back from them, and I totally forgot I’d signed up… until today, when they sent me an e-mail asking me to click a button if I wanted to stay on their waitlist. I guess that means it’s still running, but they probably have all the volunteers they need.
Nope π . I got busy and then realized a year had passed since I’d done a survey lol. I’m surprised they took that long to get back to you – that’s weird. I would imagine they would still want all the volunteers they could get.
Is this more income than you projected when choosing your 2025 ACA plan? If so, will it affect your ACA subsidies? Do you think you will need to pay anything back after truing-up your 2025 income?
No – it’ll be fine. I’ll just convert less to my Roth to make up for it.