Now that January has drawn to a close, it’s time to take stock of income, expenses and profit for the month.
This year one of my 4 goals is to earn at least £4,000 profit this year from my Side Hustle ventures. It’s not a ground-breaking amount of money but everyone has to start somewhere, and £4,000 extra in my pocket on top of my day job is nothing to be sniffed at. So I’ve put my stake in the ground and declared £4K to be my 2018 target.
The first thing that I do when I set myself an annual goal is to see how that breaks down across the months and weeks of the year. So I’m looking at needing to make:
£4,000 per year or
£333.33 per month or
£76.92 per week
This means that my target profit for January would ideally be in the region of £333.33. So how did I do?
INCOME REPORT
First let’s take a look at my Income for January.
| Month | Income |
|---|---|
| January | £377.45 |
| February | |
| March | |
| April | |
| May | |
| June | |
| July | |
| August | |
| September | |
| October | |
| November | |
| December |
That’s not a bad start to the year! Although, with expenses still to be deducted there’s not much buffer to hit my profit goal. Before we take a look at January’s expenses, let’s see where this income came from:
The front runner for January was my Kindle book sales. Due to the way that Amazon KDP pay, this money was actually earned from book sales in November 2017 and the paperback income was actually earned in December 2017.
EXPENSE REPORT
Now for a look at what expenses I incurred for Side Hustles in January:
| Month | Expenses |
|---|---|
| January | £145.20 |
| February | |
| March | |
| April | |
| May | |
| June | |
| July | |
| August | |
| September | |
| October | |
| November | |
| December |
Well the good news is that my expenses were less than my income - always a good start! The break down of these expenses are as follows:
The main expenses of course being on Kindle which is because I paid for book promotions.
PROFIT PROGRESS
So all that’s left to do is calculate the profit for January and weigh this up alongside my target.
| Month | Target Profit | Actual Profit | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | £333.33 | £232.25 | -£101.08 |
| February | £333.33 | ||
| March | £333.33 | ||
| April | £333.33 | ||
| May | £333.33 | ||
| June | £333.33 | ||
| July | £333.33 | ||
| August | £333.33 | ||
| September | £333.33 | ||
| October | £333.33 | ||
| November | £333.33 | ||
| December | £333.33 |
As you can see, I haven’t hit my profit target for January. I managed about 70% of my target amount. It’s not a bad start, but given that most of this income came from the proceeds of book sales made in November and December (the best months for sales due to Black Friday and Christmas) I have a LOT of work to do to hit my targets in future months as well as catch up for January.
During February I plan to focus my efforts on the following money generating activities:
TO ACHIEVE MY FEBRUARY TARGET
- Sign-up with a site to help me make money from Matched Betting. I’ve used Odds Monkey (affiliate link) in the past, and this is who I plan to sign up with again. I anticipate that Matched Betting will need to be my main money generator this month
- Research more affiliate and/or advertising opportunities that complement my content on Inspiring Life Design, and implement these
- Carry out as many surveys and free draws as I can
- Add a Coaching area to Inspiring Life Design so that I have a sales page to be able to offer coaching
- Have a look for ad hoc paid work that I can do using a freelancer website
TO INCREASE INCOME FOR FUTURE MONTHS
- Promoting existing kindle books (won’t have an impact on February’s income but should hopefully start to boost income for March and April)
- Work on a new book to launch on Kindle and paperback
How has your income and profit been for January? Have you started any Side Hustles yet? If there are any Side Hustles you’re particularly interested in finding out about please let me know. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below…
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Previous & Next Posts
In my PREVIOUS post I gave an update on our progress with the #Challenge2018 savings challenge.
In my NEXT post you can read about why I’m seeking financial independence.
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