This Online World is a hub of information related to 3 core concepts:
- How to make money online and develop passive income streams.
- How to save money.
- How to integrate technology and the power of the internet into your life for the better.
Through a mixture of fun money-making experiments, informative posts, case studies, and my ramblings, I plan to explore the world of side hustling and income generation, remaining completely transparent along the way.
There is a massive amount of information out there that teaches people how to start their own side hustle or how to manage their finances, but there is also a lot of misinformation or false promises.
This Online World aims to provide realistic snapshots of what it takes to successfully make money online, start a blog, develop passive income streams, and successfully save money.
No BS or affiliate code spamming here. Just fun content and growth!
About Tom Blake
Alright, so who am I?
Well, I’m Tom, the blogger behind This Online World. I’m also a personal finance expert who’s written hundreds, if not thousands, of articles about making money online, side hustles, the gig economy, and passive income.
I’m a 25 year old Canadian originally from a town outside Toronto. I went to school and got an undergraduate degree in psychology and a minor in marketing management.
Since graduating, I’ve quit my office job, become a digital nomad (more on that below), and written for dozens of personal finance publications and blogs alongside This Online World.
Some places you might have seen my work include:
I’ve even shared my finance and side hustle tips on Forbes and been mentioned or featured in plenty of other awesome blogs.
I never thought starting a blog in college would end up quite like this. But I’m happy that This Online World has grown into a place where readers can find honest, actionable money-making tips and guides.
So, thank you for reading! 🙂 And now, for a bit of backstory for how we got here.
My Previous Experiences & Plans For This Blog
Growing up, I always dreaded school.
I would cry before being sent off to daycare every single day when I was a kid, and when I was older, I was quite fond of cutting class during elementary school and high school so I would have more time to do whatever interested me at the time.
College wasn’t much different.
Don’t get me wrong, the past 4 years have been the most enjoyable I’ve experienced so far.
I loved meeting new people, living in an absolutely revolting house with my best friends for the first time, and fully exercising my license to be an idiot with absolutely no major responsibilities or dependencies in my life.
However, school still wasn’t for me.
I was paying for tuition and attending (most) of my classes, but in all honesty, an undergraduate degree in psychology and some marketing courses every now and again didn’t really grab my attention all too much. I found the material boring, and most of the material we were taught (especially in marketing) was all talk.
We read case studies, theorized how we would approach various marketing campaigns, but we never actually put anything to practice.
I understand that this is largely the nature of schooling, but it certainly wasn’t my cup of tea…If I ever hear a marketing student utter the words ‘lifestyle brand,’ or ‘just use content marketing’ I might have an aneurysm.
Anyway, after a 4 month internship at the digital marketing agency where I used to work, everything changed.
I caught the money-making bug…and I was hooked!
In my spare time, I started to experiment with all kinds of money making ideas and projects.
I started writing on HubPages (it was awful), I attempted to make an Amazon Affiliate website about headphones (this was also awful), and I started a digital marketing consulting side hustle with a friend where we ran paid advertisements for some local businesses (this one turned out much better).
Then, after browsing Reddit one day and reading something about how people were earning passive income with phone farming, I decided to buy a few used cellphones to test it out.
After months of tinkering and being frustratingly mislead by other content creators that said I should easily be making $500+ a month with my farm, I realized there wasn’t a lot of honest money making content out there when it came to phone farming.
Starting This Online World
So, in January of 2018, I started this blog to write about my experiences.
It began as a jumble of posts about phone farming, marketing, and random thoughts on how to make money, and has slowly evolved into my own small corner of the internet that has a bit more cohesion and purpose (I’d like to think so, anyway).
Part of my goal with this blog is to now show other people (particularly college students or young adults) that it is possible to start your own blog or side hustle, increase your income, save more money, and generally improve your finances with just a bit of know-how and work.
The main way I try to accomplish this is by sharing my own journey and progress towards making more income.
Since its first year, This Online World went from receiving barely any organic traffic to reaching roughly 300,000 people per month (as of July, 2022).
In that time, This Online World gradually turned into a decent source of income as well, and from humble beginnings of $0, This Online World now makes $20,000 a month between Mediavine ads and affiliate income.
This blog has also helped me transform my own life, letting me live in places like Colombia, Dubai, and Mexico all while making a living from my laptop.
Over the past 4 years of doing this, this experiment has taught me that making a living online or starting a profitable blog is possible if you are consistent and have patience.
However, it”s important to know just how much work getting things off the ground requires (for blogging or for getting into freelancing).
I know blogging about blogging or writing about making money online has gotten a bit of a negative reputation over the past few years because people in the industry have lied, exaggerated, or mislead their readers.
However, as this blog continues to grow, I want to remain transparent with all of you wonderful readers and share the tips and tricks that have actually worked for me, as well as what is realistic to expect when it comes to making money online.
So, what can you expect to find on This Online World if you stick around?
Something along these lines:
- Various side hustle ideas and tested methods to make money online.
- Passive income ideas like phone farming, reward apps, and more!
- Blogging tips for SEO, organic growth, and income generation.
- Money saving programs, platforms, and habits.
- Honest income reports that track the progress of this blog from a starting point of $0/month earnings to however much this blog ends up making!
Hopefully, you might stumble across something that grabs your attention!
I’m always looking to learn, write, and find new ways to make/save money, so I hope you consider joining me in this journey!
I generally publish several times per month, but I am always reachable by email or on my social media channels if you want to connect and exchange some ideas. Additionally, if you want to be notified when new posts are published, I would greatly appreciate if you subscribed to This Online World with your email!
Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the internet. I hope you have enjoyed your time here and consider sticking around 🙂
Looking forward to the adventures that are yet to come!
Tom from This Online World.
Editorial Standards
Disclaimer: This Online World doesn’t accept payments for favorable reviews, and the affiliates and companies we work with don’t influence their ranking or inclusion in our articles. It’s our goal to provide unbiased, honest content to help our readers make the best decisions possible. This means testing out side hustles and money-making ideas and providing transparent, honest results to help people make the right decision for them.
The accuracy of information on this site is important to us. So, if you spot any errors or have any questions, please get in touch through our Contact Page. You can also check out our Team Page to learn more about the writers behind the site.
If you want to learn more about how This Online World makes money and what relationships I currently have with various affiliate programs, check out my Affiliate Disclosure.
You can also checkout my new YouTube channel or watch this explanation for the exact ways I monetize This Online World:
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