Welcome to another income report!
If you were following along, in June’s report I admitted that I had been a little lazy with my blog posting, which is why I’m catching up on my income reports! If all goes well, I should be back to schedule by the start of November, when I will post October’s report.
Let’s get on with it.
What Went on in July?
I have to be honest here.
It’s now the beginning of October and I’m writing about what I did in July… naturally, I can’t really remember! Is that normal?
Is that what happens when you approach 30 years of age?? 😛
Looking back at my Google calendar though, this is what I saw:
- My new niece was born 😀
- The puppy that we’re going to bring home in a few days was born
- Had a one-week holiday in England
- Went to Belfast for a weekend to see my university mates
- Went to see War of the Planet of the Apes – brilliant movie!
Oh yeah, it’s all coming back now haha!
It was another month when I didn’t focus on my business as much as I should have. Another month when I was figuring out things in my head.
Should I focus on growing my affiliate sales? Should I create a marketing business on the side? Should I create a course?
It was in July that I took the decision to actually go for it and create a course that teaches you about dividend investing.
I’ve realised that most of my traffic goes to articles on passive income and dividend investing, so I guess that’s where I should be focusing my attention!
I’ve spent a big part of July learning about online courses: the best type of course, best platform, equipment needed, whether it should it be a video course, best pricing practices, and generally what it should be about!
At the time of writing this in early October, I’m well on my way to creating the course, so if you want to be notified about my progress, make sure to put your email address below:
What’s The Point of Income Reports?
When I was working in my last 9-5 job I used to listen to lots of podcasts about online business and marketing. That was when the idea for Escaping to Freedom started to brew – without those podcasts and great blogs, this site would never have existed.
My favourite part of any of these sites, however, were their income reports. It showed that what they were talking about really worked, as they were putting it into practice to some degree of success.
Ok, but what does this mean to you?
Income reports are helpful because they prove to aspiring bloggers and entrepreneurs that earning money from an online business is possible. It’s great to talk about the theory of things, but nothing is as effective as data. #science!
In my case, by showing you this data I’ll hopefully appear more transparent to you and to my future readers. From a selfish standpoint, it will also make me more accountable because, let’s face it, being this open is scary!
July 2017 Income:Â $449.65
Remember, this is gross income, so I haven’t accounted for taxes or expenses.
Escaping to Freedom Income: $125.00
After 2 months without any site income, I finally got some!
Seeing the little effort I’ve put into the site itself, it’s great that I still get approached several times a month regarding sponsored posts and general advertising.
Most of these talks end up falling through, but in July I managed to negotiate a sponsored post, which was a nice boost!
Other Income: $80.00
I managed to find a one-off transcription gig in July, which paid pretty well. Transcribing can be a great way to make a bit of extra money, but the ROI is definitely not the best.
But since I’m not exactly making it big yet, I’ll take what I can get haha!
Kindle Publishing: $56.70
As per usual, Kindle keeps giving me money for work I did over a year ago. Talk about passive income!
I started publishing e-books on Amazon Kindle while I still had a 9-5 job, with a plan to grow this income until I could cover all my expenses. I would then quit my job.
I ended up losing my job way before that and, soon after, I decided that I didn’t want to spend the next 35 years in engineering – so I took the leap to become an entrepreneur!
If you’d like to learn how to earn passive income by publishing on Kindle, I highly recommend the K Money Mastery course. It covers everything you need to know to start earning money in the next few days – it’s really that quick!
Dividends: $187.95
After last month’s massive dividend income, this is a big drop, isn’t it?!
But hey, can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. These $187.95 came to my account with absolutely no work on my part.
This is why I love earning dividends.
All I had to do was invest in stocks from great companies and wait to get paid each and every month for my good decisions. This is literally 100% passive income, which is the key to living a life of freedom.
I’ve been able to cover all my bills with my dividend income alone. Think about what even a bit of dividend income could cover in your life.Â
Because most of the companies I own stocks in pay quarterly, my income is cyclical. This means that I get big peaks and low troughs, with January, April, July and October.
This is what my dividends for the last few months have looked like, along with what I expect to earn over the coming ones – hover over each column to reveal how much I earned each month:
I really want to teach my readers how to earn passive income like I’m doing right now, and I really think that an online course is the best way to go.
If you’d like to get updates on the course, and be the first to know when it’s ready, pop your info below:
Expenses & Net Income
I want to be fully transparent with everything, as always. There’s no point in saying I earned $400 if I spent $399 to make it – that’s why I’m also sharing my business expenses.
Most businesses take some initial capital to start up, especially if there’s physical inventory involved. Luckily, an online business can be started with a very small amount of money, so it’s an amazing option for anyone looking to make a few extra $100 on the side.
Just take a look at my expenses this month:
- Hostgator: $17.49 – This is how much I pay for hosting, domain name and WhoIs guard. I pay this yearly, but this is the equivalent monthly cost. Check out my free guide to set up your own blog in a few minutes.
- GetResponse: $15 – This is the service I use to run my email list. It’s a really good service and a great bang for your buck. If you’re a blogger, you need an email list!
- BoardBooster: $5 – This is what I use to automate my Pinterest pinning. It’s a set-and-forget kind of program, which is awesome.
- Paypal fees: $5.80 – Every time you get paid via Paypal you have to pay a small fee. Oh well.
Total Expenses: $43.29
After some seriously complex arithmetic, the net total comes to…
Net Income: $406.37
Just like in June, I didn’t really advance my business too much, but in July I gained some much-needed direction. I now know where my business is headed and it feels great!
One of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur is the confusion, the fear, and the sometimes overwhelming feeling that you’re lost. When things click, like they did for me in July, it’s a great milestone. 🙂
If you’d like to read my other income reports, click here to get the full list.
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