Earning Money Online Through Adsense

In a previous post dated 16 August, I mentioned that I wanted to increase my passive income from Adsense to $1 per day. I have been exploring ways to earn more money online.

This is a breakdown of my report for the amount that I have earned from Adsense since May 2008:

Jun 08= $0.41
Jul 08 = $0.38
Aug 08 = $4.44

I have manged to increased my passive income from Adsense by nearly 10 times within 1 month! This is part of the overall strategy to increasing my passive income through various avenues. In the coming month (Sep 08), I will be significantly busier at work. As such, I do not expect to be able to achieve the same success as I managed in Aug 08. However, I will attempt a target of $5.00 for the month of Sep 08. I will also be exploring dividend yielding stocks, high interest rate bank deposits or REITs to increase my passive income.

I have dedicated another blog that will explore my financial freedom journey on making money online. Do visit it here.

Love this post? Digg It below!

Dividends Recieved for Aug 08

Ascott REITs (28 Aug) = $497.20
First REITs (29 Aug)= $286.50

Total for the month: $783.70

This money will be reinvested into some other dividend yielding stock or REITs. Will be looking out for stocks that are giving out dividends for the months of Sep, Oct and Nov.

Update to Monthly Expediture (23 August 08)

This is an update of my current monthly expenditure:

My current monthly expenditure in (S$)

1. Housing installments = 1096.00 (wife is sharing the burden)
2. Car Monthly Installment = 518.00
3. AIA Investment Link Plan = 350.00
4. Asia Life Policy = 154.20
5. Aviva Insurance = 51.72 ( - $51.72, reimbursed by employer)
6. Conservancy Fees = 49.00
7. Telephone & Internet = 33.96
8. Cable TV= 25.68
9. Mobile Phone Bills= 30.89
10. Electric, Water, Gas= 100.00 (estimated)
11. Car Insurance = 110.00
12. Parking= 150.00
13. Road Tax= 60.00
14. Petrol= 300.00
15. Food= 300.00
16. Tithes, Parents = 600.00

Current Monthly Expenditure = $3887.73

Reducing Monthly Expenditure by $5

I managed to reduce my monthly phone bill expenditure by $5. This was done through cancelling of the international roaming which I have not been using.

It will cost me $10 to reactivate it the next time but I guess I will not be needing any international roaming at least for the rest of the year as I do not expect to be going overseas.

Current Net worth (August 08)

Monthly Expenditure - Reducing my cable bills

I have removed my high definition (HD) plus option for my cable tv. This reduces my bill by S$15 a month. Just a 5 minute call and that saves me $15 a month!

Decided that it was not worth while paying for 3 additional HD channels when I do not even watch them that regularly. Besides, the programs are roughly the same as the ones that are non-HD. And what's more, I can't really tell the difference between HD and non-HD!

So there you go, a savings of $15 a month.

Home Insurance

No financial planning is complete without insurance. I would be adding in details of the various insurance that I have.

Let me start with my home insurance.

Since I am using my Central Provident Fund (CPF) for my monthly housing installments, I have to be covered under the Home Protection Scheme (HPS). HPS gives me protection up to age 65 or to the end of the loan period, whichever is earlier. In the event of permanent incapacity or death, the Board will pay up the outstanding housing loan so that my family can keep the flat. That is if my loan is 100% covered for. So for an annual premium of $200 to $300, my outstanding mortgage loan is covered should anything untoward happen to me. Isn't that wonderful planning by the government!

If you have a private life or mortgage reducing insurance which is sufficient to cover your outstanding housing loan, you may apply for exemption from HPS. The above also applies if you are paying the housing instalments under PHS. HPS is optional only if you use cash to pay your monthly housing instalments.

Apart from HPS which covers my mortgage loan should any untoward happen to me, I am also covered by AIG American Home Assurance Company.

The coverage details are as follows:
Coverage Descriptions Limit (SGD)
Building = $150,000
Alt Accomodation Expenses = $4,500
Household contents = $30,000
Contents at Temporary Premises =$4,500
Replacement of Locks & Keys = $250
Personal Accident (<66 liability =" $500,000" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">S$81.00 per year.

In conclusion, I think my insurance coverage for my home is pretty well covered. The only way that I can improve the coverage is if I am able to find another insurance that provides the same coverage but at a lower cost (i.e. less than $81.00 per year)

Read Related Posts:
Car Insurance Money Saving Tips

Financial Freedom Journey

Rule #1: Live within your means or below your means.

My Starhub cable bill just came at a total amount of S$41.73. This is a reminder to remove my free HD setup that I have been enjoying for the past 12 months. Removing this would save me $15 a month.

Earning $1 a Day Through Adsense

This will be one of my additional goals for the year.

I will aim to earn $1 a day through Adsense. This would give me a passive income of $30 per month. This would require me to learn how to direct alot more traffic to my site. In order to do that, I guess I would have to write interesting posts that would attract people to read the blog.

(Update on 31 Oct 2009: This goal has been achieved. For Sep 09 and Oct 09, I have managed to earn more than $30 per month)

Updated Passive Income for 2008

Updated the current sources of my passive income. Maybank deposit is now giving me $13 per month instead of $12 per month which I estimated.

1. 11,000 x Ascott REITs (DPU = 4.52 per half) = $82.87 per month
2. 15,000 x First REITs (DPU = 1.91 per qtr) = $95.50 per month
3. Maybank iSavvy Deposit = $13 per month

Total passive income per month now stands at = $191.37

I will also wait for the distribution from First REITs and Ascott in end August to buy some more passive income generating stocks or REITs.

To buy Ascott REIT?

Should I buy into a 1 x lot of Ascott REIT at the current price of $1.00?

It has a DPU that is around 9%. This would help me roughly hit my desired passive income of $200 per month for this year.

Or are there better options around. Thinking of diversifying as I do not want to be too heavily invested in only 2 different REITs

Searching for that additional S$10 per month

Dear Reader,

I am looking for that additional S$10 per month passive income to hit my $200 per month goal for year 2008.

With current liquid cash of slightly over $20000, that leaves me with a roughly $1500 to $2000 (after setting aside 6 months of emergency funds) to invest to get that additional S$10 per month.

Any advice?

Current Sources of Passive Income

These are the sources of my current passive income:

1. 11,000 x Ascott REITs (DPU = 4.52 per half) = $82.87 per month
2. 15,000 x First REITs (DPU = 1.91 per qtr) = $95.50 per month
3. Maybank iSavvy Deposit = $12 per month

Total passive income per month = $190.37

It is quite amazing. I am nearly on target to achieving my $200 per month passive income for this year. $200 per month passive income however is only 4 percent of my current earned income.

My goal for the remaining months in 2008 will be to look for buying opportunities to enter into REITs or stocks with regular dividend payouts.

An additional goal would be to explore the use of Google's Adsense as an additional source of passive income.

Current Monthly Expenditure

This is a rough gauge of my current monthly expenditure. I will be including the housing installments even though they are paid by CPF as I hope that my passive income will be able to pay off the housing installments (if any) at the age of 40.

My current monthly expenditure in (S$)

1. Housing installments = 1096.00 (wife is sharing the burden)
2. Car Monthly Installment = 518.00
3. AIA Investment Link Plan = 350.00
4. Asia Life Policy = 154.20
5. Aviva Insurance = 51.72
6. Conservancy Fees = 49.00
7. Telephone & Internet = 33.96
8. Cable TV= 25.68
9. Mobile Phone Bills= 30.89
10. Electric, Water, Gas= 100.00 (estimated)
11. Car Insurance = 110.00
12. Parking= 150.00
13. Road Tax= 60.00
14. Petrol= 300.00
15. Food= 300.00
16. Tithes, Parents = 600.00

Total = $3929.45 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How on earth did my family accumulate so much monthly expenditure? And this is being optimistic.. there are months in which I spend much more on food, entertainement, miscellaneous stuff, etc....

Okay, maybe its because I included the housing installment which is actually covered by CPF now.

How can I decrease my monthly expenditure to S$2800 and below?

Sources of Passive Income

The following are sources of passive income that I have identified as being suited for my current situation:


1. Dividend paying stocks
2. Distribution from real estate investment trusts (REITS)
3. Fixed Deposit interests
4. Revenue from Adsense

Financial Freedom (Goal 2022)

My definition of financial freedom would be to simply have sufficient passive income (income that I do not need to work for) that would cover my monthly expenditure by the age of 40.

Simply put :

Financial freedom = Passive Income > Monthly Expenditure

That is a total of 14 years to achieve it. Hopefully I will achieve it by the 31 Dec 2022.

The purpose of achieving financial freedom is to give me the flexibility to pursue things that I enjoy doing and value in life. The goal of achieving financial freedom is just one of my many goals in life.

I intend to achieve this through the following steps:

1. Increase my monthly passive income to S$200 by end 2008. (S$2800 per month by 2022)
2. Reduce my monthly expenditure to below S$2800
3. Pay off all debts (HDB 4 room flat, car) or attain a debt level that combined with my monthly expenditure would not exceed S$2800

This blog serves as a journal to chronicle my journey and I hope that you would learn as much from it (be it from my failures or successes) as I would from the entire process.