Income fluctuations are pretty normal to me these days. But, when my income goes back up after a lower month (like last month), it’s always a welcome feeling!
Now that September is here, things are picking back up as they always tend to do in the fall. People are getting ready for the holidays.
When I first started freelancing, I thought the holidays would be a slow time for my business, but it’s actually the opposite. I’m usually extra busy during the holidays with my own family and friends. Plus, I usually take on extra work from clients who are traveling too.
I’m getting ready to go out of town tomorrow for a few days away with my family and I have another trip planned for the very end of this month. But, I still think September will be a good month for my business.
Now I’m getting ahead of myself a little bit. First we need to talk about August. 🙂
Why Share My Online Income?
I am asked all the time why I share so many details about my finances online. In addition to sharing my business income and expenses, I also share my personal spending, debt payoff, and savings details too.
Sharing my finances helps me stay accountable for my financial goals. It helps me stay motivated to keep working on earning more money, paying off debt, and building savings. This is the whole reason why I started blogging in the first place!
So, here’s a look at my business numbers for August.
Income
VA/Blog Management Services – $7,886.06
Freelance and Ghost Writing – $3,065.00
Coaching – $0.00
Other – $1,100.00
Advertising and Affiliate Income:
Survey Junkie – $90.50
MyFinance – $68.78
Direct Advertising – $0.00
Total– $12,208.34
Learn how to make affiliate income with Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I highly recommend it!
Expenses
A business’s report is only halfway complete if it doesn’t share expenses.
I value transparency, which is why I like to share my business expenses with you too! I think this helps create a complete picture of what it really costs to run my online business.
The expenses listed below are only what I paid out of my business account this month.
You won’t see a line for internet because that is something I would pay for even if I didn’t have an online business. (But yes, I do get to deduct most of it now that I have an online business.) So, keep that in mind.
Contract Services – $3,643.00
PayPal and Other Fees – $30.40
Facebook Ads – $533.13
Board Booster – $10.00
Tailwind Annual Subscription – $104.88
Dropbox – $9.99
GoDaddy Domain Renewal – $15.17
Amazon – $107.12
Total Expenses: $4,453.69
Income less Expenses: $7,754.65
Reflections
Expenses are back up again after last month. This is partly because I paid for some extra work from my contractors so we could get ahead before I go out of town in September.
I’ve known about my upcoming trips for a while, so I’ve been doing my best to squeeze in extra work as much as I can beforehand.
PayPal fees have been staying fairly low, which is good. I hate PayPal fees because I think it’s stupid that freelancers have to waste money on fees just to get paid!
That’s partly why I use Freshbooks for my business accounting. They have an agreement with PayPal to make the fees only $0.50 for transactions of any size, as long as the payment is from a US client. You can try Freshbooks for free for 30 days with my link.
Over a year ago, I started using Board Booster to save my time on Pinterest. I haven’t increased my plan in several months, but I plan to do that soon so I can keep growing my traffic. I also use Tailwind. Tailwind is something I pay for annually. This it makes it cheaper over the long-term.
Don’t forget, I don’t get to “take home” that entire $7,700. My online income has not been taxed. So, I always set aside a large portion of it for taxes. Plus, I have to fund my own retirement savings and I’m now paying for my own health insurance since I turned 26 a few months ago.
If income reports get you jazzed, you can see all of my online income reports on this page!
Just to see how far I’ve come, I averaged my monthly online income for the 38 months I’ve been freelancing. Even with the part-time months at the beginning, my average monthly online income (gross) is $5,790.56. My 12 month (gross) average is $10,836.22.
Did you make any income online last month?
4 Comments
Congrats, nice income! What interests me is, how you market your blog? How you drive traffic to there? Is it SEO, AdWords, banner ads, forum participation, emails or what. Can you share a little about that?
Thanks! I use SEO, social media, and an email newsletter!
Great job!! Expenses are such a bummer, but sometimes totally needed. My summer was a little slow, so I really like seeing how other blogger do in the summer months 🙂
Summer wasn’t too bad in terms of being slow this year. It was a relief!