It’s now September and I’m just publishing my June income report.
June! What’s going on?!
What Happened in June?
Well, a combination of not knowing where to take things with my business and - I’ll admit it - laziness…
Like I said back in my May income report, I’ve realised that this whole “being a blogger” thing isn’t as easy as it seems. It can definitely work for some people, but I want to take things in a different direction.
I spent a big part of June and July thinking about this - realising that I need to sell a product to really be successful with my business. I realised that I need to build something that I have full control over.
So I’ve started working on a course to teach how to invest in dividend stocks.
This will be a step-by-step system to identify, analyse, buy… and earn passive income! If you want to learn how to put your money to work and build a stream of effort-free income, you do not wanna miss this!
I aim to release this in the coming months, so make sure to put your name and email address below to be updated with its progress!
As you’ll see later in this article, I’m doing pretty well when it comes to my investments and the dividends they’re paying me each month 🙂
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!
June 2017 Income: $975.31
Remember, this is gross income, so I haven’t accounted for taxes or expenses.
Escaping to Freedom Income: $0.00
Just like in May, I made no money from EtF in June.
I expected this in all honesty. I didn’t promote my posts in June - except for the automatic pins that I’ve set up using BoardBooster - so of course, I made no money!
Fewer people have visited my website, so fewer have used my affiliate links to buy stuff that I recommend. It adds up. At the moment, affiliate marketing is really the only monetisation technique that I’m using. Talk about having all my eggs in one basket haha!
I am may include some form of ads soon, just to make the site a little more profitable, but I have to weigh up the effect this will have on the user experience. We’ll see!
Marketing Income: $0.00
In June I put in zero effort to find clients for my marketing side hustle, Equinox Marketing.
Oops!
Better luck next month, I guess 😉
Either way, if you know of anybody who’s looking for help with their digital marketing, you’d be doing me a favour if you asked them to email me! Thanks!
Other Income: $1.75
Woohoo! I could probably buy a loaf of bread and some eggs with that! 😛
I wanted to check out the transcription website, Rev.com to see if I could do some transcription work and make some extra money. Sadly, I concluded that it was not for me.
While I know that there are plenty of people making a few hundred extra bucks a month from this, the pay per hour is terrible, especially when compared to my other sources of online income.
So yeah, the 1.75 was nice, but I don’t think I’ll be using Rev anymore.
Kindle Publishing: $54.50
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!
Kindle publishing has been a great little earner for me, even after months without even logging into my account. I just keep getting monthly payments from Amazon, which just rocks.
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: $919.36
Woah.
That’s almost a grand from dividends!!
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.
If you’ve been keeping track of my income reports, you’ll notice that the income this month was way higher than what I earned in previous months. That’s because one of my investments, National Grid, paid a special dividend.
What’s a special dividend, I hear you ask?
Sometimes, companies will have a particularly profitable year or they’ll feel they want to give their investors something special. They do this by paying a special dividend which is much higher than the regular dividend. This one was over $250 coming my way - not bad and pretty unexpected! 😀
Besides National Grid, I also got paid by companies like Wells-Fargo, Qualcomm and Target.
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 way to go.
If you’d like to get updates, 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.
Total Expenses: $37.49
After some seriously complex arithmetic, the net total comes to…
Net Income: $937.83
This is the first time I’ve got close to a decent amount of money: the magic 4-figures. I have to say, it feels great! 😀
A part of me wants to make more money from my business and is a little disappointed that this site isn’t doing better. The other part is super happy to have earned so much money passively.
I’m not sure which one to sway for!
That’s OK, I know I’ll eventually make enough money with my business, as I know I’m following the pillar of any successful business. It’s only a matter of time before I succeed and can make that money work and bring me even more passive income.
In the meantime, I’ll keep posting these income reports and enjoying the money I earn.
In any business Profit and Loss , these only two possibilities are possible.
Never give up while you are going through Loss.