We’re over half-way through 2018 now and it’s time to see how I got on with my income and profit in July - the first month of the second half of the year.
First things first, July is my birthday month - so Happy Birthday to me! I went out for cocktails followed by a lovely birthday dinner with family. I took the opportunity to get dolled up, even doing my hair in my favourite 1940’s style…
This is a recurring monthly post to track my goal of earning at least £4,000 profit from my Income Hustle ventures this year.
My goal breaks down across the months and weeks of the year as follows:
£4,000 per year or
£333.33 per month or
£76.92 per week
This means that my target profit for each month would ideally be in the region of £333.33.
Last month in June I had my highest profit month so far with £253.06 made. Could I beat this in July? Read more of my July income and profit report to find out…
INCOME REPORT
Here’s how my income is doing:
| Month | Income | Running Total |
|---|---|---|
| January | £377.45 | £377.45 |
| February | £156.62 | £534.07 |
| March | £120.29 | £654.36 |
| April | £305.67 | £960.03 |
| May | £217.61 | £1,099.51 |
| June | £281.89 | £1,381.40 |
| July | £311.20 | £1,770.73 |
| August | ||
| September | ||
| October | ||
| November | ||
| December |
Well I’ve made a good start toward having a strong month by making my second highest income (£311.20) this year. That’s an increase of £29.31 from June’s £281.89. It feels good to be above the £300 point, but once again it’s not enough to allow me to hit my profit target of £333. I have high hopes for later in the year though…
Here’s a break-down of where my income came from in July:
I doubled my income streams compared to June where I only made income from Kindle and paperback book sales. I finally hit the payment threshold for my audiobook sales, the £18.09 you see in this chart was actually my combined royalties for May, June and July.
I made £35.20 through TopCashback (affiliate link). Most of this (£34) was cashback for a new casino website I signed up for when I was doing matched betting using tutorials from OddsMonkey (affiliate link). I also had small payouts from online purchases I’d made using JustPark (£0.96) and MoonPig (£0.24).
If you’re not already using cashback sites then you absolutely should be! I have received over £500 in cashback across the two different sites Quidco (affiliate link) and TopCashback (affiliate link). This is essentially free money, just for making the purchases that you would normally buy. It’s so simple to do…
- Start on one of these 2 cashback sites.
- Both sites have a search window near the top of the page which you use to look up the name of the website you want to make a purchase from.
- Select your shopping website from the dropdown list and the cashback site will give you a link to use.
- Click the link and a new tab or window will open with the website you want to shop at.
- Then you just shop as normal!
- The cashback site tracks your spending and sometime later you will get a payout into your cashback account.
- You can withdraw your earnings to your bank account, PayPal, or receive a bonus amount if you opt to take your payment in shop vouchers.
When you’re ready to start making money from cashback, sign-up using my my referral link with Quidco (affiliate link) and as a thank-you they’ll give you £10 (I will receive £10 too, so thanks!) - what a nice sign-up bonus.
Since publishing this post, the sign-up bonus for TopCashback (affiliate link) is no longer available, however it’s still worth signing up with them because they offer some different cashback deals to Quidco.
EDIT: At the time of first writing this post there was no sign-up bonus for TopCashback, then when I checked on 23rd Aug 2018 there was a Zeek voucher sign-up bonus. In 2019 there is no longer a sign-up bonus. However, the sign-up deals are changing all the time, so please check for the latest offer on the site you’re signing up with.
EXPENSE REPORT
Here’s how my Side Hustle expenses panned out for July:
| Month | Expenses | Running Total Expenses |
|---|---|---|
| January | £145.20 | £145.20 |
| February | £18.62 | £163.82 |
| March | £17.84 | £181.66 |
| April | £93.05 | £274.71 |
| May | £54.86 | £329.57 |
| June | £28.83 | £358.40 |
| July | £121.26 | £479.66 |
| August | ||
| September | ||
| October | ||
| November | ||
| December |
What a difference between this month’s expenses (£121.26) and June’s (£28.82)! To be fair, last month’s expenses were pretty low compared to the 2 previous months (where I’d started running more frequent book promotions). I knew this month that I needed to run more book promotions to give me a chance of increasing my income and profit, so I’m pretty happy with July’s expense amount.
During this sales period I ran two book promotions at just under £50 each. I also had some pay per click expenses from my use of Amazon’s Marketing services, which allows me to advertise my books for certain keywords.
There’s a new entrant to the expenses chart this month called “Blogging”. Having previously purchased Emma Drew’s fabulous blogging course Turn Your Dreams Into Money (affiliate link), I decided to sign-up for her subscription program #MyBlogMyBusiness. There was an introductory offer to get the first month for half-price, which is what July’s £25 blogging expense was for. My goal is to learn how I can start to make money online using my website. I think there’s a lot I can learn from Emma so I’m excited to see how things go.
PROFIT PROGRESS
Here’s how my profit is looking at the end of July:
| Month | Target Profit | Actual Profit | Difference | Running Total Profit | Running Total Over / Under Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | £333.33 | £232.25 | -£101.08 | £232.25 | -£101.08 |
| February | £333.33 | £138.00 | -£195.33 | £370.25 | -£296.41 |
| March | £333.33 | £102.45 | -£230.88 | £472.70 | -£527.29 |
| April | £333.33 | £212.62 | -£120.71 | £685.32 | -£648.00 |
| May | £333.33 | £162.75 | -£170.58 | £848.07 | -£818.58 |
| June | £333.33 | £253.06 | -£80.27 | £1,101.13 | -£898.85 |
| July | £333.33 | £189.94 | -£143.39 | £1,291.07 | -£1,042.24 |
| August | £333.33 | ||||
| September | £333.33 | ||||
| October | £333.33 | ||||
| November | £333.33 | ||||
| December | £333.33 |
I’m a bit disappointed with my profit of £189.94 for July. I track my progress throughout every month, and during July I thought that I’d made over £200 again, but I forgot about the expense for #MyBlogMyBusiness. During July I didn’t have time to put into action the things I was learning in order to make money from my blog, which means there was no blogging income to offset against the £25 expense.
Lowering my profit is frustrating for me, but I don’t regret my decision. If I’m to grow my online businesses and start making enough money to sustain me, I need to learn new techniques and strategies. As Tony Robbins (affiliate link) often says during his events, “the learning never ends”. He also says that finding a mentor who is already winning at what you want to achieve, will give you the best chance of success. I believe that the knowledge and mentoring I will receive through #MyBlogMyBusiness will help me crack the challenge of making money from my website. Learning will be the key to my success! I’m looking forward to seeing how I progress over the coming months.
So this means that yet again I’ve not hit my target of £333.33 profit in a month. This month I was £143.39 under that goal.
My overall profit for the year is now £1,291.07 which leaves me with £2,708.93 profit still to make this year and just 5 months to go. A quick tap on the calculator tells me that I need to make £541.79 profit each of the remaining months this year if I’m to hit my goal of £4,000. That feels like an impossibly big ask given the amount of profit I’ve been making month on month so far. I’d like to stay it’s still achievable, but I feel it’s slipping away from me slightly.
I’m not giving up though, I will be keeping up the pressure to publish more books, write more blog posts that add value to my readers, and find new ways to make money online. Wish me luck!
What Actions Worked/Didn’t Work From Last Month’s Plan
In last month’s income and profit report I listed things I would try this month in order to improve my profit.
Here’s a run down of how I got on with them:
- Launch my two book bundle on KDP and Createspace. With a launch plan to push downloads as much as possible in the first week
- DONE I successfully launched this bundle book in July
- Continue to work with my ghost writer on my latest book - getting images will be the next job
- PARTLY DONE I did continue working with the ghost writer, however due to time out for my holiday, and a few more edits than anticipated, I didn’t conclude the work. I also didn’t get the images yet because I’ve decided to pay an illustrator to create some images which means I need to recruit someone for that job first!
- Learn as much as possible from Emma Drew during my #MyBlogMyBusiness membership, including working through all the resources. I would like to find out ways I can begin to earn money from my website
- DONE I had my first coaching session with Emma during July, as well as starting to take a look at the resources on offer and staying in touch with all the other participants in the Facebook Group on a daily basis. I will continue to make use of these resources during August
- Grow Instagram following from 1,212 to 1,400
- NOT DONE My following had increased to 1,369 by the end of July, not quite the 1,400 target I’d hoped for
- Grow Twitter following from 522 to 600
- NOT DONE I was actually tempated to mark this one as “DONE” because my final figure for July was 598 - so close!
- Grow my Facebook followers from 14 to 15 (I find it hard to grow my Facebook Page followers so I’m purposely setting a low target here)
- DONE By the end of July I had 18 Facebook Page likes, so I exceeded this target!
- Grow my YouTube subscribers from 3 to 4 (since I’m not posting much/any content on YouTube at the moment it’s difficult to grow, hence the small goal)
- DONE Again I hit this target easily! My subscriber count at the end of July was 7
Things I Will Try This Month To Help Improve Future Months’ Income And Profit
Book Publishing
- Purchase book promotions to run during August
- Conclude the contract with my ghost writer for my latest book
- Recruit an illustrator to create the images for my latest book
- Complete the editing of my latest book (or at least as much of the editing I can do before I have the final images from the illustrator)
Blogging
- Carry out any sponsored blog post opportunities which I receive during August
- Update inspiringlifedesign.com so that it finally has a navigation, and sort out the menu options so that it’s easy for readers to find what they’re looking for
- Create a Learn With Me page, so that I can offer one-to-one mentoring and training for any prospective clients
- Create a Media Kit and add this to the website, so that it’s easy for companies looking to work with me to find out more information
- Create a Rate Card which will form part of my Media Kit, but which will only be sent out in response to enquiries (rather than being available online)
- Grow my Life Designers email list from 8 to 9 subscribers
- Increase the domain authority for inspiringlifedesign.com from 12 to 13
Courses
- Prepare for and launch the first week of my PublishIn8 program. This is a trial run so I can test that the program is feasible for people to work through in the timescale (8 weeks). The program is not open to purchase yet, but you can register your interest by joining the waitlist if you’d like the opportunity to do a hands-on, real-time training course (delivered via live video sessions with me) which will see you publish your first online book in just 8 weeks!
Social Media
- Grow Instagram following from 1,369 to 1,500
- Grow Twitter following from 598 to 700
- Grow my Facebook Page likes from 18 to 21
- Grow my Facebook Group (only for #lifedesigners) from 7 to 8 members
- Grow my YouTube Channel subscribers from 7 to 9
- Grow my Pinterest followers from 9 to 24
- Grow my Pinterest monthly unique views from 50 to 175
That’s all for this month. If you have any thoughts on my progress, sugggestions for new things I can try to make money, or questions on anything in this post, then please leave a comment below. There’s certainly a lot of actions for me to get my teeth stuck into during August. Tune in next month to see how I got on…
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