June 2018 Unconventional Income Report

Okay, so this was a pretty standard month for me in online business. 

In 2018 I tended to land in the $4k/mo profit range and that was a-okay with me!

I spent June just chugging along with freelance writing and working SUPER hard behind the scenes to revamp my Functional Nutrition Library membership site and move it to its own URL.

So, let’s dig into my income sources and expenses for the month.

Disclosure: Please note that this post contains affiliate links. This means that I will earn a percentage of any sales made through those links, at no extra cost to you. Affiliate links are identified with an asterisk (*).

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June 2018 Income Sources

1. Virtual Services ($5,400)

• Freelance writing ($5,400)

2. Recurring Revenue ($837.50)

• Functional Nutrition Library ($837.5)

3. Products ($27.25)

• Fullscript* ($27.25)

4. Advertising ($15.65)

• Google Adsense ($15.65)

5. Affiliate Income ($8.34)

• Food Blogger Pro* ($5.80)
• Amazon Associates ($2.54)

Total Income: $6,288.74

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June 2018 EXPENSES

1. Payments to Research Assistants: $1,350
2. LearnDash*: $189
3. ConvertKit*: $78.63
4. CDR: $60
5. Thinkific*: $49
6. FNL Affiliate Payouts: $48
7. Business Banking Fees: $37
8. Hiscox Professional Liability Insurance: $33.33
9. Business Email with G-Suite*: $20
10. Website Hosting with WPopt*: $19.99
11. Domain Registration with GoDaddy: $15.17
12. Tailwind*: $14.99
13. Website Hosting with Cloudways*: $12.80
14. Updraft Plus: $10
15. Adobe Creative Cloud: $9.99
16. Dropbox*: $9.99

Total Expenses: $1,946.37

Net income: $4,342.37

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Income Overview

So, while I still managed to earn a decent income this month from freelance writing, I had my first bump in the road as a freelancer.

What happened?

Well, the website I was writing for (i.e. my MAIN source of income) decided to reduce their pay by 30% with very little warning.

And yes, just to remind you, this was conveniently RIGHT after I completely shut down my private practice to go all in on freelancing.

SIGH.

I guess this is a reality that all freelancers face… but it really threw me for a loop. Especially since I had just hired assistants to help me and now I had to reduce their payments too. *Insert sad face.*

Thankfully, my assistants totally understood and decided to stay on board, but it was a swift kick to the bum bum and a reminder to not let myself get too comfortable with my side gigs.

After all, I had to keep my eye on the prize – running a profitable and sustainable online business!

So, with that in mind, I continued to double-down on the revamp of the Functional Nutrition Library website. 

I seriously worked SO hard on this project.

It involved:

• Creating an entirely new website from scratch (I used Cloudways* for hosting).
• Designing the whole thing with Divi*.
• Setting up a membership plugin (I use MemberPress*).
• Transferring over all of the subscribers & payments plans from my old website (without messing anything up!).
• Installing an e-course plugin (I chose LearnDash*).
• Moving all of my e-courses from Thinkific* to my own website.
• Setting up a new business email address in GSuite*.
• Setting up transactional email (I used SendGrid).
• Copy-pasting ALL of the library content from the old website to the new one.
• Reformatting all of the notes to look better.
• Testing everything to make sure it worked!

PHEW!

It was a behemoth of a project. But I freaking GOT IT DONE.

Stay tuned for next month’s income report to see how the relaunch went. (Hint: very well!)

But anyways, this month I still made most of my income from freelance writing and earned just over $800 from the FNL.

I know $837 doesn’t seem like a TON of money, but hey, I was pretty damn happy with going from $0 in recurring passive income to just under $1k/month in 11 months (all while still seeing clients, freelance writing, and blogging).

I hope this inspires YOU to start thinking about ways you can build passive income into your life.

It’s really quite amazing how the SAME amount of work starts to bring you more and more and more income over time.

It has the potential to be life-changing.

And yes, in the beginning, you will put in A LOT of time for very little return, but if you stick with it and take consistent, intentional, and strategic action, it will continue to grow. <3

And eventually you will hit a tipping point where you no longer need to freelance or see clients 1:1 or do anything but focus on your online business! Yee-haw!

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Expenses Overview

My biggest expense this month was paying my research assistants, but that was 100% expected and built into my budget.

I pay my assistants to help me do research for my freelance articles. That way, I can write more articles in a shorter amount of time and earn more money overall (even though I pay out 25% of my earnings to my assistants).

Overall, it;s a win-win scenario, although it started to get tougher when pay rates dropped.

I also took on a few new recurring expenses this month:

I purchased a Learning Management System (LMS) plugin called LearnDash* in order to self-host all of my e-courses on my site ($189/yr).

I signed up for another ConvertKit* account because I planned to launch a blog on the new site and wanted to collect email addresses ($29/mo).

I signed up for a new business email address with G-Suite* to use with the new website ($5/mo).

I purchased a new domain name and also updated my UpDraft Plus account so that I could back up my website files to DropBox.

(In case you’re not familiar, UpDraft Plus is a free WordPress plugin that creates automatic backups of your website. A MUST HAVE for any website owner!)

So those were my main expenses for the month… nothing too crazy!

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Other Things That Happened in June

1) I was featured in an article on WhatRDsDo.com!

Check it out if you want to learn more about how I spend my time as a freelancer and small business owner 🙂

2) I got my first piece of hate email. 

Yep, I guess that means I’ve made it!

Towards the end of June, I sent out a promotional email for a webinar and received a nasty email about how the language and emojis I used were too “flowery” and unprofessional and that I was being too salesly.

Womp Womp.

I was actually quite taken aback by this email but responded in a genuine and non-confrontational way.

After a few back and forths, I was able to understand that my initial email triggered feelings of lack for this person, and we actually ended things on nice terms. And for once, I was able to move on from the incident without too much rumination!

Long story short – don’t let negative comments, emails, or PMs discourage you from spreading your important message!

The larger your tribe gets, the more likely it is that a handful of people won’t jive with you or appreciate your content, but that’s a-okay!

You are not for everyone. And nor should you be.

Keep shining bright and showing up for the people who resonate with you.

The great thing about the internet (and FREE content on social media or websites) is that anyone who doesn’t like your stuff doesn’t have to follow you 🙂 They are welcome to leave at any time.

And if you ever have a day where you just can’t get a mean comment out of your head, lean on your online peers for support. Trust me, we’ve ALL been there!

You matter. You are needed. Your message is important. Please keep going! <3

All the best,
Erica

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