June 2016 Online Income Report – $9,700.11

It’s time to review my online income report from last month. This report only includes income I received from the month of June. If I haven’t received the money, then I don’t put it in this income report. This is the best way for me to track how much money I am making on a monthly basis.

While this is the best way for me to track my income, it’s also an annoying method. While I explain everything in more detail below, a good amount of my income is paid out anywhere from 30-90 days after the work is done. So even though I am reporting my income and how much I earned for each given month, I feel like I am on a two to three month payday delay. Does that make sense?

June was my eighth month freelancing full time. It was also my best month ever! I seriously cannot believe I blog and have my own business. It feels like a lifetime ago I quit my job, moved across the country and now work for myself. It’s a great feeling! 

One of the top questions I receive each week is how I get so many pageviews. I tell everyone that it’s 90-95% traffic from Pinterest – which is true. I’ve figured out how to master Pinterest for my blog and have been helping clients for several months with my Pinterest management company. 

If you want to grow your traffic or start utilizing Pinterest, my Pinterest Presence course details EXACTLY how I’ve grown my traffic.

Here’s a recap of some of my online income reports:

• June 2015 online income report $66.10
• July 2015 online income report $515
• September 2015 online income report $1530.94
• October 2015 online income report $3634.28
• December 2015 online income report  $4238.99
• April 2016 online income report  $5920.52
• May 2016 online income report  $7,268.68

HERE IS THE BREAKDOWN OF MY ONLINE INCOME REPORT FROM JUNE

• $1510 Ad revenue

• $700 Partnerships/Sponsorships

• $1528.71 Affiliate Income

• $2981.40 Side Hustle to Success course and Pinterest Presence course

• $2,980 Freelancing

GRAND TOTAL: $9,700.11

Can you believe this? This my best month ever! Seriously, I have been waiting for this month forever. Ever since I became focused on creating my course and getting serious about affiliate income, I knew things could really progress in terms of income. 

But for real, this is a lot of money for me. I’ve now surpassed what I would have made at my day job for a month’s worth of work so this is crazy.

---

If you are thinking about starting a blog, this tutorial will help you start a blog today. You’ll also get a FREE domain name for a year! I was able to quit my job and blog full time, all within my first year of blogging. I am really glad I took a chance and started a blog! I invested around $100 to start my blog using Bluehost, and I made $13,000 in 6 months of blogging. That’s the best return of investment ever! 

---

This amount is the grand total before I deduct taxes. Right now I am putting away 30% of each paycheck I receive. If I break this down into sections of income I get this:

• 31% freelance income
• 69% passive income

If you want to keep track of your online income (which I highly recommend) check out Freshbooks! It’s what I’ve used to track business income, expenses, invoice clients, and more. Click here to learn more about Freshbooks.

My goal is to have more passive income than freelance income. Here is how my income has broken down the past few months from different sources of revenue:

I have worked really hard to grow my own brand and it’s been paying off the past couple of months. I went into this knowing I didn’t want to be a full-time freelancer who was hustling and working a ton of hours each week and having that me my only source of income.

I’ve purposely limited my growth with my Pinterest management services and have turned down a lot of work so I could focus on my own brand and create more passive income from my website.

Now that things are becoming a little more passive and I’ve hired a VA to help with some things, I am comfortable taking on a few more Pinterest clients to keep that income increasing.

Basically, it’s a lot of checks and balances for me and I move slow 🙂 

Random thoughts

I’m currently going through a self-awareness phase where I’m struggling to actually share my income report or anything personal on this blog. I know, weird right? Aside from using my first name and occasionally my last name, I’ve always liked hiding remaining anonymous.

Recently I’ve started engaging more in my town’s community and interacting with local clients, and I don’t like having my online income report available for viewing. I personally like the disconnect between real life and blogger life, so mixing the two lately has become a little more real.

I’ve even thought about taking down these posts, but I like being able to review my results, share what does and doesn’t work for me, and hopefully help a fellow newbie blogger out there (because when I was a newbie blogger, these types of posts helped me!)

Clearly this is a #FirstWorldProblem and I just need to get over myself because honestly, no one else probably cares, ha!

People change…

I’ve totally debated adding this in as it’s a bit personal. And I never see anyone write about this either, so it’s probably just me being paranoid 🙂 

Over the past year I’ve worked really hard to grow this blog and can’t believe how friendly and helpful fellow bloggers, students, and peers have been to me!

I’m shy and like to do my own thing, so it’s a struggle to even participate in Facebook groups, post Instagram pics, etc. It took me MONTHS to do my first online training session for Pinterest (thanks Allison!!) because I’m just shy.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the more driven I get to succeed for myself, sometimes others around me change. A few people that I thought I was friends with don’t really seem happy that my blog is growing and I’m starting to actually succeed at this!

It can be hard to overhear or read snarky things that pertain to me or my blog and my feelings get hurt. I’m probably too sensitive and read into things too much 🙂

Power sessions

On the plus side, I am working hard to interact with more people. I’m all about power sessions lately! I love being part of a mastermind group and working with a group of
people online.

But I’m realizing I need interaction outside of typing on a laptop, so that’s where Google Hangouts comes in.

Google Hangouts is my new BFF and I love getting online and having a face-to-face (you know what I mean) 30-minute brainstorming session with fellow bloggers to talk about things we are working on, our goals, freelancing topics, etc.

I probably harass bother Allison from AllisonLindstrom.com too much with all my questions, but the girl gets me. I can text her and say, “Hey do you have time to do a hangout for 20 minutes” and then we get down to business.

I also recently did a Google Hangout with Melissa from Sunburnt Saver because she is one of the only other girls I know that offers Pinterest services.

We bounced ideas off each other, talked strategies, client goals and our business goals. Having someone else who is in the same line of work is amazing! I like being able to send her clients if I’m on overload (and vice versa) and appreciate that we are there to help each other.

Taking it one step further, I recently got to meet a fellow blogger in person (yippee!) Kate from Cashville Skyline is the best and a local Nashville girl, so we have been meeting up in the evenings to discuss blogging, goals, etc. Having a glass of wine also helps 🙂

If you are a newbie blogger or need some social time haha, consider doing a power session with a fellow blogger. It does wonders for your confidence and totally gets you pumped up!

I spoke….in public

Jason from Phroogal is currently embarking on #TheRoad2016 tour across the country, which focuses on engaging different communities about financial wellness. Along with a few other personal finance bloggers – as well as local entrepreneurs in the Nashville community – I was invited to speak and share my story to a sold-out audience.

I spoke about my journey into side hustling, starting this blog to share how I side hustle and how I was able to start a Pinterest management company – which lead me to be able to quit my job.

Public speaking is my number one fear (tied with going to the dentist haha) and I made it through my speech without fainting or turning too red or blotchy. It was terrifying but I did it!

The best part of this event was meeting other personal finance bloggers, some #FinCon folks and chatting with Nashville locals afterwards. It was a great event that really got people talking about money. Thanks Jason! 

Ad Revenue

I switched over to AdThrive a couple of months ago. After a payment gap, I received my first paycheck for a month’s worth of ads on my site. Ugh, Google Adsense, and Media Net have nothing over AdThrive.

I think you need over 100K pageviews to get into AdThrive (that’s what I needed when I applied) and jeez, there is such a difference in pay!

I’m probably making almost double with AdThrive and I’m not even doing anything differently.

If your goal is to get to 100,000 page views a month, you should definitely sign up with AdThrive once you hit this target!

Affiliate Income

My affiliate income is FINALLY starting to work. My affiliate income really started going from nothing to something a few months ago, it just took forever to get paid on things! Seriously, waiting anywhere from 30-90 days is crazy.

The past few months have been going a thousand times better when it comes to affiliate income, but I haven’t been able to even write about it in my last couple of online income reports because I hadn’t been paid yet. Ugh! 

Side Hustle Book

At the end of January, I launched my book about side hustling. I have done very little promotion of this book and still get sales. This is truly passive income and makes me so happy! 

This side hustle book is being converted into a course later this month, and I’m really excited about this. I’m adding more features, including new and older side hustles I have done that I think others would benefit from financially.

I’m really excited because the price will remain the same for an introductory period, so everyone will have a chance to get the course for the same price as the book. Everyone who has already purchased the book will also be able to access the course for free too, creating a win-win!

EDIT ** This has been converted into a course for the same price. You can learn more about it here! 

Pinterest Presence

At the end of April, I launched my Pinterest Presence course. I share exactly how I run my Pinterest management services, but the course allows students to go at their own pace.

The main reason I created the course was that I’m not able to assist every client that wants to hire me and this is the next best thing. 

In the Pinterest Presence course, I share exactly how I went from 1,000 page views a month to 160,000 page views a month, create branded and clickable images, and how Pinterest drives in 90% of my traffic each month. Today I get over 200,000 page views, and my traffic continues to climb! 

My course is hosted on the Teachable platform. I did a ton of research when it comes to creating a course and which platform to use, and am glad about my decision to use Teachable.

The only mistake I made was selecting the basic plan, which is their in-the-middle plan, so it’s not free but it’s not expensive (to me).

I selected this method to be cheap cost-effective and it was a dumb move.

After a few weeks into launching my course, I realized that I needed to upgrade to the Professional plan, which was easy to do.

The biggest reason to upgrade to the professional plan is for 2 reasons:

• Save money in the long run

• Payout is immediate with the professional plan, while the basic plan has a holding period of 30-60 days depending on when you sell a product.

For example, at the time of writing this post at the beginning as of June 28th, I have already been paid for all my June courses. For all the courses that I sold back in May, I won’t be paid until July 1st. See how that’s crazy? 

The downside to the professional plan was initially the price. The Basic plan was $29/month (I was grandfathered into this price) but the fees hovered around 11%.

On the professional plan, I now pay $99/month plus around 3% in fees. The $99 fee totally intimidated me, but since switching I realized I am definitely saving money. Don’t worry – if you are new to creating courses or want to have a mini-course, there are FREE options on Teachable as well! 

Oh well, sometimes you have to test the waters first, right?

{Resource: 10 Ways Your Blog and Business Can Benefit from Pinterest}

Freelancing

I provide Pinterest management and image services to clients. This niche is keeping me busy and it’s been really growing the past couple of months. I recently stopped taking on new clients and had to put up a waiting list. Surprisingly, this has brought me in even more inquiries for help.

My Pinterest management company has recently shifted in clientele. I am working more with local businesses here in the Nashville area, as well as companies nationwide. 

**EDIT – I now have a course called How to Become a Pinterest VA TODAY! Today I teach other people who want to start a Pinterest virtual assistant exactly how to launch his or her own business. It’s super exciting!

“Real Life” Career Consulting

This income report does NOT include any consulting income that I make that is related to my career niche outside of this blog. Even though this income is made online, it’s not really related to the blog, so I don’t share the income.

I love being able to continue to work in my field of work outside of the blog and Pinterest management company, and it’s a great balance. I’ve been in the same field of work for around 12 years (eek!) and love it.

Monthly Expenses

These are my June expenses:

• $5.64 Google Apps 

• $285 VA work

• $38.19 PayPal fees (I’m so over this; recently I switched to FreshBooks to save money)

• $0 FreshBooks – I used the free 30 day trial and LOVED FreshBooks. I just signed up for the monthly plan and it’s seriously saving me so much money each month when I invoice clients. I don’t know why I didn’t do this several months ago? When I think about how much money I could have saved, I get so annoyed, ha! Seriously, if you are a freelancer and you use PayPal to invoice clients – STOP. Switch to FreshBooks. You will pay like 50 cents per transaction as opposed to 3-4% in fees. That’s crazy!

• $54.99 Teachable (I upgraded my plan during the month so it was prorated)

• $628.10 Affiliates (for my Pinterest Presence course – thank you everyone for promoting my course. This is the best expense ever!)

• $79 ConvertKit

• $453 Courses – This is an interesting category. When I started my blogging journey, I took Elite Blog Academy, which was great and really helped me out as a newbie. Lately I’ve been needing some kind of push, so I purchased a couple courses to help me continue to grow. I’m really excited! 

• $1091.41 MacBook Air – I sold my older Macbook Pro for $500, so this wasn’t too painful of a purchase as it could have been, but still never fun to spend this much money. 

TOTAL EXPENSES: $2135.33

Oh this hurts, lol. Mostly because everything happened at one time. Normally my expenses hover around 4-5% of my monthly income, which I think is pretty low and makes me happy.

This month my expenses were around 22% of my budget. I’ve always been a DIY blogger, and this month was just one of those months I had to invest in my business. I predicted in my May online income report that June would be pricey and it was! Luckily, July expenses should go back to normal. 

Using ConvertKit and LeadPages together has been amazing. I’ve created some really great newsletters, course sequences and sign up forms, and LeadPages has skyrocketed my email subscriber list.

*Please note, I don’t include Tailwind or Bluehost in these expenses as I have prepaid for the year. Tailwind is the scheduler I use when I do all my pinning on Pinterest.

If you are thinking about starting a blog, this tutorial will help you start a blog today. You’ll also get a FREE domain name for a year! I was able to quit my job and blog full time, all within my first year of blogging. I am really glad I took a chance and started a blog! I invested around $100 to start my blog using Bluehost, and I made $13,000 in 6 months of blogging. That’s the best return of investment ever! 

What are your thoughts about reading an income report? Do you find them useful?

Kristin, is the creator behind Believe In A Budget. She teaches others how to start a blog and how to side hustle. Her course, Pinterest Presence, helps bloggers + businesses drive traffic to increase their website’s profitability. Click here to learn more!