As I mentioned last week, May was crazy busy for me and I’ve been playing catch-up with my side hustles and blogging ever since! I’m pleased to say here is my income and profit report for May.
This is a recurring monthly post to track my goal of earning at least £4,000 profit from my Side 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.
The highest profit month I’ve had so far this year was January with £232.25 made. Will May beat this? Read on 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 | ||
| July | ||
| August | ||
| September | ||
| October | ||
| November | ||
| December |
At £217.61 May’s income was down compared to April (£305.67). However I’m pleased to see my total income for the year finally hit 4 figures at £1,099.51.
Once again I’ve not achieved enough income to give me my ideal profit (£333) per month. I’m starting to wonder whether this will ever happen once this year! I’m staying positive though, because I’m spending more and more time working on my online publishing business, which will start to see some better results soon.
Here’s a break-down of where the income came from in May:
Income was split across various different streams including a nice £26 from survey site Prolific (affiliate link), £16.35 eBay income and £9.14 matched betting earnings using Odds Monkey (affiliate link). If you’re interested in hearing about another Matched Betting success story, head over to see how much money wannabedebtfree.com has made (SPOILER ALERT: it’s a lot more than I’ve made).
EXPENSE REPORT
Here’s how my Side Hustle expenses panned out for May:
| 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 | ||
| July | ||
| August | ||
| September | ||
| October | ||
| November | ||
| December |
I had less book promotions running during May which explains why at £54.86 my expenses were less than April’s (£93.05). It’s nice to have lower expenses but if this is at the cost of generating proportionately more income I’d rather have higher expenses. I am now working hard to be consistent at running promotions for my books, to keep my book ranking and income levels up.
PROFIT PROGRESS
Here’s how my profit is looking now that May is taken into account.
| 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 | ||||
| July | £333.33 | ||||
| August | £333.33 | ||||
| September | £333.33 | ||||
| October | £333.33 | ||||
| November | £333.33 | ||||
| December | £333.33 |
So my profit for May was £162.75. This is my 3rd highest profit month of the year, but still nowhere near my target of £333.33. In fact it’s not even 50% of that target. I am going to have to really ramp up my online book publishing efforts in the second half of the year if I have any hope of achieving the £4,000 profit goal I set for myself.
What Actions Worked/Didn’t Work From Last Month’s Plan
I didn’t actually set specific actions for May due to being so busy in April and May. I only published my April income and profit report last week!
Things I Will Try This Month To Help Improve Future Months’ Income And Profit
- Create a bundle of two of my existing books which are in the same niche and by the same pen name. This will provide another sales stream for very little effort as the books are already written
- Engage with a new ghost writer and commission a new book to be written
- Work on research and plans for future new books
- Update my pen name websites so that they contain all the latest books (which will encourage more people to sign-up to my email list)
- Create a sign-up page for an advance review group. This will be a list of people who would like to receive free copies of my books before they are published, so that they can leave honest reviews for the books as they launch
- Ensure that I am running book promotions every month to keep my books ranking highly and therefore making sales
- Decide whether to create audiobooks for any of my existing books that don’t yet have an audio version (assess viability based on the book content)
- Grow Instagram following from 977 to 1,080
- Grow Twitter following from 463 to 485
- Continue to monitor followers on Facebook (14 followers) and YouTube (3 followers)
And that’s May’s income and profit report.
Five months through the year and a long way to go to achieve my 2018 goal, but it’s still achievable. If you have any comments on my progress, or updates on your own side income ventures I’d love to hear from you in the comments below…
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