How I earned mostly-passive income during an around-the-world cruise

I recently took a four-month cruise around the world visiting over 25 countries and six continents with my husband and baby.

It cost a lot – over $50,000 – and left us with incredible memories. Our adventure began in sunny Florida and took us through the Panama Canal, then to the beautiful islands of French Polynesia, the magnificent landscapes of New Zealand, the bustling cities of Asia and finally the historic sites of the Mediterranean.

During all of this, I ran my online business, Making Sense of Cents, from the ship. It started 10 years ago as a blog about my progress toward paying off my student loans. Today, I earn $40,000 per month in semi-passive income, through three different streams: affiliate marketing, sponsored partnerships and online courses.

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Part of my income also comes from investing: I put part of my income into personal investment and retirement accounts and receive quarterly dividends.

I spent about two or three hours per cruise day at work – excluding port days, so we could fully explore our destinations – for a total of 10 to 15 hours per week.

Here’s what that time was like and how I built my income streams to be almost entirely passive.

I carefully planned my work schedule around our travel plans.

During the days at sea, around sixty! — I focused on work, especially during my daughter’s naps. I responded to emails, wrote blog posts, brainstormed new ideas, handed over accounting, tackled anything urgent that needed my attention, and strategized new ways to grow Making Sense of Cents.

I’ve built many of my blog posts around affiliate marketing, a strategy that accounts for about half of my blog’s revenue. I write about products that I love and trust, and add a referral link for my readers to check out. If someone signs up through my link, I earn a commission.

These links may be in articles I wrote months or even years ago. I can write about a product once, and it can continue to make me money over time. The more traffic I drive to my website, the more revenue I get from my older posts.

On the cruise ship, I published one or two new articles on my blog every week. I also noticed a 2022 article — 31 Best Work From Home Jobs (#1 is my full-time job!) — that’s doing well, thanks to a boost from social media platforms like Pinterest and Facebook. Tens of thousands of new readers visited this post during my four months at sea.

About 20% of my income comes from advertising, such as sponsored partnerships. I team up with a company to promote their brand on my blog or social media, highlighting their products with my writing skills or sharing my experiences with their products.

This content might include reviews or educational posts about what the company offers. It’s a win-win situation: the company gains visibility and I earn money by creating content and reaching my audience.

Before I decide to work with a company, I test the product or service and do as much research as possible. If I don’t like it, I won’t form this partnership. I turn down offers every week: from companies I don’t think my readers would like, companies that don’t align with my beliefs and more.

Sponsored partnerships are more active income, so I didn’t do much of that during the cruise. Specifically, I worked on sponsored newsletters, spending maybe five hours total on them.

An additional 20% of my income comes from course sales.

When I started blogging, I didn’t really realize how much money I could make selling my expertise in the industry. It took thousands of people – literally hundreds a week – asking me to help them monetize their own blogs for me to come up with my first idea for a course, which ended up being called Making Sense of Advertising Marketing. affiliation.

I created the guide I wish I had when I was starting out in the blogging world and published it on an online course platform called Teachable. It explains how affiliate marketing works and how to use it effectively, breaking these topics down into text-based lessons and modules. I always keep it updated, sometimes even adding new lessons.

During the cruise, I updated the lessons and answered students’ questions. I also run a Facebook community group for the course and have made sure to be active there at least a few times a week.

Then I closed my laptop, sat on the balcony with my husband and baby and together we watched the sunset from our room.

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner is the founder of Making sense of cents, where she helps readers make smart decisions about how to earn, save, spend, and invest. She paid off nearly $40,000 in student debt in just seven months and now travels as much as she can. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook And Pinterest.

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