Ever since I had to start saving up the The World’s Most Expensive Fence (and decided I wanted a new TV and a kitchen that isn’t falling apart), I’ve been doing pretty well money-wise. In a pretty flukey turn of events, coupled with one of my March goals to actually make the effort to reply to all emails and PMs, I have actually managed to earn more from advertising and side projects than my actual ‘day job’ salary for the month (after tax). This is the first time it’s ever happened, and to be honest I didn’t have that as a goal in any way…it just ended up that way.

The best part is that, other than replying to emails, it’s taken me maybe nine hours to earn that, compared to 160 hours(ish) at work. I don’t expect it to happen every month, and I’m certainly not seeing it as a replacement for what I do, but it goes to show that putting groundwork in, taking advantage of opportunities and building assets can lead to some pretty nice – mostly passive – income.

To put the cherry on top, I got an email from an advertiser yesterday which said: ‘I’d like to thank you a fifth time for being so helpful and knowledgeable…You’re awesome, Jenni!’

You want to give me several hundred dollars, pay promptly, AND then send me great compliments? Where do I sign up for more? ;) But why stick with one cherry when you can have two?! I posted a tweet about the email and got this reply from one of my domainer contacts. Brilliant.

My first domain sale

One of the big contributing factors to my extra income this month has been my first ever domain name sale. I don’t buy domain names with the intention of selling them; they’re earmarked for SEO experiments, projects, advertising, Adsense and general development. I did buy a couple ‘because I liked the sound of them’, and one of these domains had a ‘For Sale’ page stuck on it. I randomly got an email yesterday offering £200 ($304) for it.

Needless to say, I was pretty surprised, and immediately posted it up for appraisal on a domaining forum. I honestly expected everyone to say it was only worth reg fee 1) because I’ve seen how many people end up in the appraisals section and have their domain valued at that and 2) because I bought the domain there in the first place and figured I overpaid for it, if anything. As it turns out, it was valued by most people at around £300-500, so I got back to the guy and advised that I was looking for £500 ($760). He replied within an hour saying that he could stretch to that (another surprise), so yeah. The sale isn’t 100% complete yet, so I’m not going to reveal the domain name on my blog right now, but I’ll do a follow-up post.

Some domainers thought that it might be a rather large national company with deep pockets and I could probably get quite a lot more, but I’m happy with the price. It’ll be a long time before I can afford a whole new kitchen, but the fence and the TV should be reasonably achievable now. Our current TV is almost seven years old now so it’ll be great to have a brand new one. My rule is generally ‘Buy the best you can afford’ when it comes to tech, and usually I have to wait a bit until it becomes a little more affordable for me, but that’s fine. I prefer to know I have more than enough money to buy something rather than overspend and then struggle.

All this stuff has also had a huge impact on my outlook as well. I beat myself up a lot that my website is nowhere near as popular as I was when I was a teenager, that I should have achieved more with my life so far, that I need to be more successful…but I need to stop doing it. I’m incredibly lucky, I have a lot to be grateful for, and I get to do some amazing stuff and work with some fantastic people.

This weekend

I know there’s a chance that I’ll end up going crazy about web stuff and burn out, so to counteract that I’m spending the weekend down south with some friends. I’m so excited about seeing them and being crazy-in-a-good-way. The friends I’m staying with barely have internet, so I won’t be tempted to be online much (or even if I am, I probably won’t be able to get online anyway ;)). Hopefully I’ll get a chance to relax a bit too, because next week is pretty busy and involves quite a lot more travelling.

Your turn

What have been the biggest milestones/achievements for you this March? :D