A year ago today, I blogged that my online revenues have hardly covered my online expenses making blogging and other Internet pursuits more of a hobby than a sideline. Well, I guess in these past 12 months, I have been quite lucky since I am already quite near the break-even point as shown in the updated chart below (contrast with the similar figure in my year-old post). I suggest you read that old post to get the proper background for the rest of this article.

One interesting finding you can see in the graph is that I’ve already recouped all of my overhead expenses with the revenues that I have already received, even when the overhead was increased with a portion of the price of the ASUS Eee PC that I bought last year. The recurring expenses have grown, and even accelerated a bit as well since my web hosting requirements have increased last year due to additional traffic.

Anyway, the bulk of my revenues come from advertising and I am actually enrolled in both international and local ad networks. I even have a small revenue stream that is not ad-based. Well, diversifying is a good thing and I’m proud to say that all of these streams are pure passive income; they all earn income even if I take a vacation from the Internet. In addition, the total revenue stream is larger than the recurring expenses and I’m actually expecting to hit the break-even point this month and enjoy finally leaving the in-the-red state behind.

The revenues figure depicted in the graph above is actually an approximation since I keep a portion of what I earn deposited in a U.S. dollar account that I opened last January. So I converted the value of the dollars I have into pesos using the sorta current average rate (which I pegged to 48:1) so that the graph can be created.

I must note, however, that my online-based income is still minuscule compared to my employment compensation. While I can safely say that my blogging and web development activities are no longer just a hobby and is now a full-fledged sideline, I’m not even close to leaving the (relative) security of the corporate world. Then again, who knows? Great opportunities come in times of hardship and the worldwide economic recession we are in now won’t last forever so the rest of 2009 and even 2010 will hopefully look bright.