Seems like many TH-camrs do not want to share what they make, thanks for sharing! When first started watching ST whom I don’t watch anymore, he wouldn’t even respond when asked, he sure turned out to be a phony! Have a great day Howard!
dennis: When I first started YT, I was curious as to how much people really made. I was grateful for those content providers who provided that same information so, I thought it only right I help others.
Congrats on a year. I've been subscribed longer than that. I don't always agree, but you've got a very good channel for getting exposed to thoughtful opinions that I'm not always agreeing with. It's a disappointment that TH-cam viewership doesn't reward thoughtful and thought provoking channels more. You deserve more eyeballs.
By a stroke of sheer luck I was at game 7. Being a Cleveland fan is was a slow silent walk to the car. I think politics is the kiss of death. I pout for hours if I get three thumbs down that's why I'll never touch it. You do provide great content and although I don't normally comment I do watch many. Thank you! Upward and onward. Buzz
Buzz: I would normally say, "sorry" for you having to endure a crushing loss like that but, given my overwhelming glee whenever I think of that game, I can't. Thanks for watching.
Nice overview. My channel is similar to yours and I was thinking about doing an overview like this so people know my experience so far. I kid with my wife about the $2 a day I make from the channel. Regardless, like you said it is not about the money. I enjoy the creative process, having this as a hobby and most importantly we hopefully are giving back to the world by helping people. Keep up the good work
Congratulations on making money with this. I think you are doing really well and you are amazing. It would be my dream to have people like or be interested in me and this includes my work.
Go Cubs - at least I lived long enough to see the WS win!! -9 with -26 windchill here in Chicago 'burbs the other day. I personally could care less about TH-cam money. Way too much work for the buck if you ask me, but I truly appreciate the efforts you put in. I just am not sure why people do so unless they just enjoy doing so. Because it take a lot of effort to monetize to any level worth caring about. Thanks for your efforts. Enjoy watching you.
You are doing very well Howard. Take your TH-cam money (after subtracting income and FICA taxes) and take your wife out to dinner. My experience as to how much money a video makes is that there are several really important factors. First is obviously total views. Second is video length and if you allowed mid-roll ads in videos longer than 8 minutes. Third is average watch time, particularly on videos with mid roll ads. Longer is better. Time of the year also seems to be a factor coupled with video topic. Holiday themed videos do well in November and December and tax themed videos do well from February through April 15. All of those factors affect RPM, but exactly how is likely based on a complex multivariable algorithm, likely including rather non-linear variable weighting. If someone felt inclined it wouldn't be that hard to identify some particular factors and then do some regression analysis while varying the algorithm form to get the best fit. Of course, I am sure TH-cam has some parameters that are not at all obvious that would invalidate whatever you came up with. I used to do that sort of stuff all the time, but I had thermodynamics to fall back on. I suspect that the "laws" of TH-cam are not as well defined as the laws of thermodynamics. At any rate, My highest view video (~130,000 views) has an RPM around $10 and so far this month is generating an RPM of $10.86. Overall my RPM last year was $7.35 and so far in 2025 is running at $6.22. The channel wide RPM for my channel is generally lowest in January and increases as the year goes on with a peak around the middle of November. I suspect that peak reflects my topic spread. My biggest puzzle is "Why do some videos do so much better than similar videos (in terms of style, presentation etc.) on the same topic?". I have no idea what drives TH-cam views. Like you I am not in it for the money. The additional complexity of my taxes due to TH-cam comes pretty close to negating the money aspect. I do find it fun to try to optimize videos for RPM. I am not very good at that. Keep it up.
To my understanding payouts are based on which country viewed the ad on your content. If your viewers are only watching 4 minutes of videos, it means they feel the video is dragging out too long and not enough audio visual information. Maybe try to be more concise and make a couple of videos that are 4 minutes long and see what happens. Ideally you'll want them too see a higher % of completed viewers. Keep up the good work. I had 23k followers on TikTok, but decided to primarily focus on YT recently. Hope your 2k grows to 2M
I’ve often wondered about how TH-cam content creators get paid - interesting! If you are interested in growing your channel, I know that LFR Family offers coaching - you just comment COACH on any of his videos and they send out information. Be warned - he’s a conservative 😂 Some ideas for future videos - how about showing or discussing your city and why you decided it was the place to retire? Or show Otter … I mean, he should get some credit too 😊
I enjoy you answering everyone's question. I learned about IRMAA for Medicare payment .. and never knew high income folks pay more for Medicare payments at age 65. My question to you would be if someone's birthday is Nov when they turn 63 .. do they look at the entire of income for that year or any income the person earned at age 63 ? So if the person made $10,000 per month for 11 months when they were 62 , retired at 63 and their income drops to $3,000 per month .. their total earnings will be - $113,000 above the limit of $105,000 for a single , however when the person was age 63 they only earned $3,000 for one month .. under the limit. If the Medicare office goes back 2 years when someone turns 62, that will include income when someone is still 62 at least part of the year. I'm not 62 yet but just trying to plan on a month to retire when I turn 62 or 63.
Jimmy: They look at the most recently filed tax return from two year prior. So, if it is November of 2024 when you file, they would look at your 2022 tax return.
Everything is based on calender years and tax years(which can be different). IRMAA penalties based mostly on earned income are easily appealed if your current income is lower based on job loss or retirement. We were able to get 3 years of IRMAA penalties reversed, based on decreased earnings from retirement(ours was staggered). This would not be true if you are showing penalties due to taxable retirement fund withdrawals. There is a special form to appeal IRMAA. It takes several months to get a refund, and it just shows up in our experience, with a note afterwards, which didn’t always happen either. For IRMAA the month something happens doesn’t matter, unlike for Medicare or Social Security when the month does. As Howard said this is because they use your tax filing to decide on IRMAA penalties, and these are not available till after the event of filing and processing. It typically takes SS 1-2 years to add your income to your SS calculation also.
@ I currently earn appx $10,000 per month from my full time job and my birthday is at the very end of year when I will turn 62 ...In 2026 when working when I am 62 but turn 63 at the end of the year ... but since they go back 2 years when you turn 65 , they will look at my 2026 and 2027 wages... so next year if was going to retire .. I can't do the entire year as my income will =$120,000 which is above the limit of $105,000 for a single. So it will be to my advantage to retire after working 10 months - earning $100,000 for 10 months and this will be my salary next year (not counting any other income in which I do any withdraws from my retirement accounts or take SS until 2027 if this makes sense.
@@jimmywalters3071 you can appeal the surcharge from 2 years ago and if you have way less income showing in the current year due to retirement they can refund the penalty. This happened to us 3 years in a row. We had large income when both working, then less and less. The first year’s penalty was stepped down to a lower bracket and the next 2 years were eliminated. Obviously no guarantee, but worked fine for us and the last happened in the past few months
u mentioned likes vs dislikes… I find it interesting as a viewer they show u the number of likes for a video but not the unlikes number ? why is that the thumbs up has a number next to it but the thumbs down does not ???? curious why that is
lee: "TH-cam no longer publicly displays the number of dislikes on videos because they wanted to reduce targeted dislike campaigns and promote a more respectful interaction environment on the platform, meaning creators are less likely to face harassment from users mass-disliking their videos; while users can still dislike videos, only the video creator can see the total dislike count." "The easiest way to quickly view a video's like to dislike video is using the TH-cam Dislike Viewer website. Simply grab the URL of the TH-cam video you want to check, paste it into the search box, and click the "View Dislikes" button."
@@RetirementTalk43 wow… i dont dislike any videos since they dont display the dislikes.. maybe I’ll start… i think thats censorship not showing the likes and dislikes… i will start doing dislikes again… i dont dislike most of ur videos.. just dont agree with them alot.. :) I’ll try ur suggestion now and see what happens..
@@RetirementTalk43 uhg.. there is no URL when wathing utube.. they make it to hard.. have to watch in browser to enter URL.. i dont watch.. why would google make it so HARD to see dislikes.. they use to show them right in utube.. again I think censorship….. what is ur opinion on this subject ?
2k for a whole year is pretty low… 2 questions.. do u know how much google made compared to your 2k ? other one is can you determine the number of hours u spent and what it relates to an hourly wage ? I’m sure its pretty low. and yeah you have to just like doing videos as opposed to making real money for the most part of utubers...
@@RetirementTalk43 OMG…. that is depressing and i’m sure google is making much more then that on ur videos.. i actually enjoy ur videos but I dont agree with much of them.. buy in enjoy hearing an opposing view…keep them up.. but yeah guess u only will if u enjoy them.. i’ve retired for 3 months and am so much having fun enjoying day to day life.. spend an hour or so before I sleep wachthing utube...
Mr Howard, see your Donald Trump provided your highest earning! Now all you need is to bring Otter back! Oh, it's now 16 degrees up here in the Mitten...on our way to a heat wave.
Seems like way too much work for the couple thousand for a year. Unless you actually enjoy doing the videos for fun or a hobby...I don't understand why anyone would do it. Maybe someone that puts up a shocking video that goes super viral...that may be worth it, but otherwise...nah.
@@RetirementTalk43TH-cams algorithm dropped my views after a while. I had multiple YT channels and channels in China which eventually got me over 10 Billion views! In China the CPM was only 10 cents. I grossed over $1.3 M.
Seems like many TH-camrs do not want to share what they make, thanks for sharing! When first started watching ST whom I don’t watch anymore, he wouldn’t even respond when asked, he sure turned out to be a phony! Have a great day Howard!
dennis: When I first started YT, I was curious as to how much people really made. I was grateful for those content providers who provided that same information so, I thought it only right I help others.
You have good content and good presentation. Congrats on a good first year!
Thanks, Prairie.
Congrats on a year. I've been subscribed longer than that. I don't always agree, but you've got a very good channel for getting exposed to thoughtful opinions that I'm not always agreeing with. It's a disappointment that TH-cam viewership doesn't reward thoughtful and thought provoking channels more. You deserve more eyeballs.
Thank you, Bada.
By a stroke of sheer luck I was at game 7. Being a Cleveland fan is was a slow silent walk to the car. I think politics is the kiss of death. I pout for hours if I get three thumbs down that's why I'll never touch it. You do provide great content and although I don't normally comment I do watch many. Thank you! Upward and onward. Buzz
Buzz: I would normally say, "sorry" for you having to endure a crushing loss like that but, given my overwhelming glee whenever I think of that game, I can't. Thanks for watching.
Congratulations on one year anniversary!! I really enjoy your knowledge on retirement 🎉
Thank you, Daryl.
Congratulations on your one year TH-cam anniversary.
Thank you.
You’re doing an amazing job…the social security and financial advisor videos are getting big numbers👏…..Nancy
Thank you, Nancy.
frozen in at Savannah GA, keep at it, you do a good job. Just need one big Video Like Sarasota Tim had that blows up.
Csharp: Should I do a video about taking SS at 62?
@@RetirementTalk43Too funny Lol
@@RetirementTalk43or do one about NOT taking it at 62! 😂
awesome. I just subbed. thanks
Thank you.
Enjoy your videos keep up the great videos
Thank you, Mike.
Love your videos!
Thank you, Yoga.
Howard, the top earning video was about retirement. That keyword is worth more than the other two.
Robert: not sure of that.
Nice overview. My channel is similar to yours and I was thinking about doing an overview like this so people know my experience so far. I kid with my wife about the $2 a day I make from the channel. Regardless, like you said it is not about the money. I enjoy the creative process, having this as a hobby and most importantly we hopefully are giving back to the world by helping people. Keep up the good work
Thank you, David.
Congratulations on making money with this. I think you are doing really well and you are amazing. It would be my dream to have people like or be interested in me and this includes my work.
Bill: I sense you are more valued than you realize.
If it was based on value of content you would have millions of view on every video.
Thank you very much, Central.
Hey Howard, good summation of where you’re at after the first year. Congratulations. It’s all downhill from here.😅
Thanks, Kevin.
Go Cubs - at least I lived long enough to see the WS win!! -9 with -26 windchill here in Chicago 'burbs the other day. I personally could care less about TH-cam money. Way too much work for the buck if you ask me, but I truly appreciate the efforts you put in. I just am not sure why people do so unless they just enjoy doing so. Because it take a lot of effort to monetize to any level worth caring about. Thanks for your efforts. Enjoy watching you.
Thank you, Linda.
Yeah, I retired and came down to Ft Meyers for the month of January, but better weather coming next week
kenny: Good, I was thinking I would have to move to Hawaii.
Well done straightforward videos. politics less so...
billy: Thank you, billy.
You are doing very well Howard. Take your TH-cam money (after subtracting income and FICA taxes) and take your wife out to dinner.
My experience as to how much money a video makes is that there are several really important factors. First is obviously total views. Second is video length and if you allowed mid-roll ads in videos longer than 8 minutes. Third is average watch time, particularly on videos with mid roll ads. Longer is better. Time of the year also seems to be a factor coupled with video topic. Holiday themed videos do well in November and December and tax themed videos do well from February through April 15. All of those factors affect RPM, but exactly how is likely based on a complex multivariable algorithm, likely including rather non-linear variable weighting. If someone felt inclined it wouldn't be that hard to identify some particular factors and then do some regression analysis while varying the algorithm form to get the best fit. Of course, I am sure TH-cam has some parameters that are not at all obvious that would invalidate whatever you came up with. I used to do that sort of stuff all the time, but I had thermodynamics to fall back on. I suspect that the "laws" of TH-cam are not as well defined as the laws of thermodynamics.
At any rate, My highest view video (~130,000 views) has an RPM around $10 and so far this month is generating an RPM of $10.86. Overall my RPM last year was $7.35 and so far in 2025 is running at $6.22. The channel wide RPM for my channel is generally lowest in January and increases as the year goes on with a peak around the middle of November. I suspect that peak reflects my topic spread. My biggest puzzle is "Why do some videos do so much better than similar videos (in terms of style, presentation etc.) on the same topic?". I have no idea what drives TH-cam views.
Like you I am not in it for the money. The additional complexity of my taxes due to TH-cam comes pretty close to negating the money aspect. I do find it fun to try to optimize videos for RPM. I am not very good at that.
Keep it up.
Todd: What baffles me is why TH-cam doesn't reveal the algorithm to its providers. The more ad revenue we get, the more they get.
@@RetirementTalk43 I suspect they think that would benefit competitors, plus just good old corporate secrecy.
To my understanding payouts are based on which country viewed the ad on your content.
If your viewers are only watching 4 minutes of videos, it means they feel the video is dragging out too long and not enough audio visual information. Maybe try to be more concise and make a couple of videos that are 4 minutes long and see what happens. Ideally you'll want them too see a higher % of completed viewers.
Keep up the good work. I had 23k followers on TikTok, but decided to primarily focus on YT recently.
Hope your 2k grows to 2M
Thanks for the insight, MPE.
People want to hear stuff they believe and not the truth.
Some, yes.
I’ve often wondered about how TH-cam content creators get paid - interesting!
If you are interested in growing your channel, I know that LFR Family offers coaching - you just comment COACH on any of his videos and they send out information. Be warned - he’s a conservative 😂
Some ideas for future videos - how about showing or discussing your city and why you decided it was the place to retire? Or show Otter … I mean, he should get some credit too 😊
debbie: Otter is still renegotiating his contract.
Dec and Jan can be cold in FL, happens every winter. Feb is the perfect month in FL IMO
We've set records this week.
I enjoy you answering everyone's question. I learned about IRMAA for Medicare payment .. and never knew high income folks pay more for Medicare payments at age 65. My question to you would be if someone's birthday is Nov when they turn 63 .. do they look at the entire of income for that year or any income the person earned at age 63 ? So if the person made $10,000 per month for 11 months when they were 62 , retired at 63 and their income drops to $3,000 per month .. their total earnings will be - $113,000 above the limit of $105,000 for a single , however when the person was age 63 they only earned $3,000 for one month .. under the limit. If the Medicare office goes back 2 years when someone turns 62, that will include income when someone is still 62 at least part of the year. I'm not 62 yet but just trying to plan on a month to retire when I turn 62 or 63.
Jimmy: They look at the most recently filed tax return from two year prior. So, if it is November of 2024 when you file, they would look at your 2022 tax return.
Everything is based on calender years and tax years(which can be different). IRMAA penalties based mostly on earned income are easily appealed if your current income is lower based on job loss or retirement. We were able to get 3 years of IRMAA penalties reversed, based on decreased earnings from retirement(ours was staggered). This would not be true if you are showing penalties due to taxable retirement fund withdrawals. There is a special form to appeal IRMAA. It takes several months to get a refund, and it just shows up in our experience, with a note afterwards, which didn’t always happen either.
For IRMAA the month something happens doesn’t matter, unlike for Medicare or Social Security when the month does. As Howard said this is because they use your tax filing to decide on IRMAA penalties, and these are not available till after the event of filing and processing. It typically takes SS 1-2 years to add your income to your SS calculation also.
@ I currently earn appx $10,000 per month from my full time job and my birthday is at the very end of year when I will turn 62 ...In 2026 when working when I am 62 but turn 63 at the end of the year ... but since they go back 2 years when you turn 65 , they will look at my 2026 and 2027 wages... so next year if was going to retire .. I can't do the entire year as my income will =$120,000 which is above the limit of $105,000 for a single. So it will be to my advantage to retire after working 10 months - earning $100,000 for 10 months and this will be my salary next year (not counting any other income in which I do any withdraws from my retirement accounts or take SS until 2027 if this makes sense.
@@jimmywalters3071 you can appeal the surcharge from 2 years ago and if you have way less income showing in the current year due to retirement they can refund the penalty. This happened to us 3 years in a row. We had large income when both working, then less and less. The first year’s penalty was stepped down to a lower bracket and the next 2 years were eliminated.
Obviously no guarantee, but worked fine for us and the last happened in the past few months
@@jimmywalters3071 As Randolph said, you can appeal an IRMAA determination with "job loss" as a reason.
u mentioned likes vs dislikes… I find it interesting as a viewer they show u the number of likes for a video but not the unlikes number ? why is that the thumbs up has a number next to it but the thumbs down does not ???? curious why that is
lee: "TH-cam no longer publicly displays the number of dislikes on videos because they wanted to reduce targeted dislike campaigns and promote a more respectful interaction environment on the platform, meaning creators are less likely to face harassment from users mass-disliking their videos; while users can still dislike videos, only the video creator can see the total dislike count."
"The easiest way to quickly view a video's like to dislike video is using the TH-cam Dislike Viewer website. Simply grab the URL of the TH-cam video you want to check, paste it into the search box, and click the "View Dislikes" button."
@@RetirementTalk43 wow… i dont dislike any videos since they dont display the dislikes.. maybe I’ll start… i think thats censorship not showing the likes and dislikes… i will start doing dislikes again… i dont dislike most of ur videos.. just dont agree with them alot.. :) I’ll try ur suggestion now and see what happens..
@@RetirementTalk43 uhg.. there is no URL when wathing utube.. they make it to hard.. have to watch in browser to enter URL.. i dont watch.. why would google make it so HARD to see dislikes.. they use to show them right in utube.. again I think censorship….. what is ur opinion on this subject ?
2k for a whole year is pretty low… 2 questions.. do u know how much google made compared to your 2k ? other one is can you determine the number of hours u spent and what it relates to an hourly wage ? I’m sure its pretty low. and yeah you have to just like doing videos as opposed to making real money for the most part of utubers...
lee: The advertising split is 55% for me and 45% for YT. Yes. I make well less than minimum wage. Probably less than $1/hour.
@@RetirementTalk43 OMG…. that is depressing and i’m sure google is making much more then that on ur videos.. i actually enjoy ur videos but I dont agree with much of them.. buy in enjoy hearing an opposing view…keep them up.. but yeah guess u only will if u enjoy them.. i’ve retired for 3 months and am so much having fun enjoying day to day life.. spend an hour or so before I sleep wachthing utube...
Mr Howard, see your Donald Trump provided your highest earning! Now all you need is to bring Otter back! Oh, it's now 16 degrees up here in the Mitten...on our way to a heat wave.
M: It also cost me about 30 subscribers.
@@RetirementTalk43 Mr Howard, they should get over it, nobody can have it both ways. Keep up your good work.
Seems like way too much work for the couple thousand for a year. Unless you actually enjoy doing the videos for fun or a hobby...I don't understand why anyone would do it. Maybe someone that puts up a shocking video that goes super viral...that may be worth it, but otherwise...nah.
hey: Yep, a hobby.
I have millions of views on my channel but they are from over 5 years ago when we got paid only $1.00 per thousand.
Money: why did you stop doing videos? Burnout?
@@RetirementTalk43TH-cams algorithm dropped my views after a while. I had multiple YT channels and channels in China which eventually got me over 10 Billion views! In China the CPM was only 10 cents. I grossed over $1.3 M.
@@MoneySavingVideos Wow.