It’s time for my first Income and Profit report of the new year. Here’s how my side hustles fared in January.
But first! Let me tell you what I got up to in January!
As for many people, January is traditionally a quiet month for me. I like to get my head down with goal setting and getting on with my work.
I did manage to fit in a few social events though. We invited my parents over for a nice Sunday roast followed by a few games. I went to one of my friend’s houses for our regular ladies film night evenings (we rotate hosting between 5 of us ladies). My Aunty turned 80 so we went to visit her with other members of the family, and my niece performed at the Birmingham NEC in a huge choir collaboration from many different schools called Young Voices.
My cousin’s wife turned 50 and we joined her to celebrate with a lovely dinner at our local, and near the end of January we returned to our local to enjoy Burns Night.
This is a recurring monthly post as I pursue my 2019 goal of making £7,000 in one month from my side hustles, before the end of the year.
Last year I made a total profit of £3,166.15 from my side hustles, with my best month’s profit being £597.95.
So as you can see there’s a long way to go to achieve £7,000 in one month. How did I get on in January?
INCOME REPORT
Here’s my income position at the end of January:
| Month | Last Year's Income | 2019 Income | 2019 Running Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | £377.45 | £428.54 | £428.54 |
| February | £156.62 | ||
| March | £120.29 | ||
| April | £305.67 | ||
| May | £217.61 | ||
| June | £281.89 | ||
| July | £311.20 | ||
| August | £496.84 | ||
| September | £762.16 | ||
| October | £732.34 | ||
| November | £529.77 | ||
| December | £297.16 |
So I started the year with income of £428.54 from my side hustles, beating the income I made last year by £51.09.
Here’s a break-down of where my income came from in January:
The income split was pretty typical compared to previous months in 2018. The majority of my income comes from kindle book sales, followed by blogging income and paperback sales, which both provided similar income levels. My audiobook income for January was £24.74 - my 4th biggest earner - this is an income stream which I plan to increase dramatically throughout 2019. Bringing up the rear is income from completing surveys, and cashback from sites such as TopCashback (affiliate link) and Quidco (affiliate link) where I make money back on my regular spending.
EXPENSE REPORT
Here’s how my Side Hustle expenses looked in January:
| Month | Last Year's Expenses | 2019 Expenses | 2019 Running Total Expenses |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | £145.20 | £178.09 | £178.09 |
| February | £18.62 | ||
| March | £17.84 | ||
| April | £93.05 | ||
| May | £54.86 | ||
| June | £28.83 | ||
| July | £121.26 | ||
| August | £156.39 | ||
| September | £296.98 | ||
| October | £134.39 | ||
| November | £162.58 | ||
| December | £192.85 |
I ran several book promotions during January totalling £178.09 in expenses.
Incidentally, the expenses in this table do not include the costs of creating new books. The expenses in this table are purely for marketing/advertising and costs for running my side hustles.
I use the profits from my side hustle businesses to reinvest when I’m paying for new products to be created.
PROFIT PROGRESS
So here is my first profit reveal for 2019!
| Month | 2018 Profit | 2019 Profit | 2019 Running Total Profit | No. of Kindle books | No. of Paperback books | No. of Audiobooks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | £232.25 | £250.45 | £250.45 | 4 | 5 | 1 |
| February | £138.00 | |||||
| March | £102.45 | |||||
| April | £212.62 | |||||
| May | £162.75 | |||||
| June | £253.06 | |||||
| July | £189.94 | |||||
| August | £340.45 | |||||
| September | £465.18 | |||||
| October | £597.95 | |||||
| November | £367.19 | |||||
| December | £104.31 |
My January profit was £250.45. It’s not the highest profit month I’ve had, but it’s not the lowest either. It’s a start!
Since book publishing is my main side hustle, I thought it might be interesting to keep a tally of how many books I had available for sale each month. In theory the number of books I have available for sale should correspond with how much profit I make each month. In other words, the more books I have for sale the more profit I make. Noting down the number of books I’ve created should be motivation for me to keep pressing on with getting more books made. I do have a tendency to procrastinate from time to time, so this will help me to maintain momentum.
Here’s a pretty bar chart that I’ll use to track how my profit is faring month on month compared to previous years:
Last year in my Income and Profit posts I would list the things which did/didn’t work for me from the past month’s efforts, as well as setting myself actions for the next month. However, this year I am updating my progress toward my annual goals in a separate monthly post. If you’d like to read about how I got on with my goals in January take a look here.
That’s it for my first income and profit report of the year. How did you get on in January? Leave me a comment to let me know, I love hearing from you.
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Previous & Next Posts
In my last post I shared the progress I made toward my 2019 goals in January.
In my next post I give an update on my progress toward becoming financially free.
You can find all my previous income and profit reports here.
I sometimes use affiliate links in my posts. This means that if you buy a service or product using my link I receive a small commission at no extra expense to you. You can navigate independently to the sites mentioned if you prefer not to use my affiliate links. I only link to products or services which I personally use & recommend.