Welcome to my first online income report! I decided to start sharing the income I earn online each month aside from what I earn at my full-time job to be more accountable for my goal of increasing my side hustle income this year.
I report my budget, and freelancing and blogging have become such a large part of my life so I figured I might as well share my income and my strategies to earn more from side hustling online.
I’ve definitely been inspired by income reports from bloggers like Alexa from Single Moms Income and Michelle from Making Sense of Cents to keep building my income streams and growing my income by my own means instead of waiting around for someone to give me a raise.
Hopefully, these income reports can inspire someone else to do the same.
It all started with freelance writing. I began in February of this year, and my goal was to earn at least $300/month. I quickly surpassed that and now I’m aiming to earn at least $1500/month by January 2016.
After taxes and other miscellaneous expenses, that would leave me with at least $1,000/month or $12,000 annual raise to help me meet my goal of paying off all my student loans next year.
So in August, *drumroll please*,
In August 2015 I earned: $765.65
.
This is after PayPal fees but before taxes. This is also money that I received in August so a lot of the work was done in July.
Here’s how this total breaks down:
Freelance Writing: $580.59
Virtual Assistant Work: $120
Affiliate Sales: $65
Ads (Google Adsense): $0 (haven’t reached a $100 threshold yet)
As you can see, a majority of my income comes from freelance writing. I love writing and the clients I work with, but I would also like to diversify my income and seek out more virtual assistant opportunities. June was actually a super busy month for me along with July.
In July, I ended up earning $993.81 after PayPal fees, but I’m expecting work to pick up a quite a bit during the fall.
Of course, I have to pay taxes on the income I earn online so about 30% of what I make goes in a savings account awaiting tax time so I won’t have any unpleasant surprises.
Goals For My Blog and Online Income
Since my goal is to earn at least $1500 or more each month, I still have some work to do.
I need to pitch more: This is just common sense, if I want to earn more and land more jobs, I need to apply, pitch and remind people that I am actually hiring. This is especially a goal for landing more VA jobs. Some other bloggers and online friends have even taken the time to personally send me job leads or refer me to potential clients. I truly appreciate anyone who’s taken the time out to do that.
I need to do more guest posts on popular blogs and websites: No, guest posts don’t always translate into paid jobs but I still enjoy submitting them. Who knows, the more I put my work out there and disperse it online maybe one day someone will come across my writing and have an opportunity for me.
Build my blog’s traffic: Increasing my traffic is always a goal of mine. I’ll always welcome more readers; the more the merrier. Plus, if I want to continue monetizing my blog slowly, I need a growing audience. I’ve turned to Pinterest to generate better quality photos and schedule them more often. I enlisted help from Kristin, from the blog Believe In a Budget</strong for this. So far, she’s been awesome. Hire her! She knows Pinterest well 🙂 I’ve also been considering getting a Facebook page for the blog since I’ve been doing a pretty good job managing Facebook for a current client of mine. I also want to cater to my current readers by offering a survey for feedback in the near future, plus that giveaway I keep hinting to.
Diversify my income: Like I’ve said before, I don’t want to earn all my online income from one source. The things I love about earning money online is the fact that I can work at home during my spare time and don’t have to run out to a second to a job I can’t stand for extra money. I also like having the opportunity to earn money in a variety of ways and control how much money I can make. Over these next few months I hope to diversify my income through freelance writing, VA work, ads and affiliate sales and even selling items online.
I’m excited to see where this all goes!
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Jason @ TheButlerJournal.com says
Congrats for having a great month. I think I’m about to make some time to start freelancing. I also think a FB page would be great for your brand as well.
Choncé says
Thanks Jason. At first, I didn’t want a Facebook page but I’ve completely changed my mind and I need to get on setting it up very soon.
thedailywhisk says
Amazing Chonce! Congrats!!!! 🙂
Choncé says
Thanks Kara!
Alexandra @ My Urban Family says
Thanks for sharing and congrats on the income! I really enjoy seeing these – and being inspired about what my goals should be in the future. Right now I’m just trying to keep pumping out content and building a (small) social media following. But I love seeing where everyone is at!
Choncé says
Thanks Alexandra! I was a little nervous to put myself out there, but then I figured, hey what the heck 🙂 Putting quality content out there is crucial to focus on whether you’re just starting out or if you’ve been blogging for years.
Shirria @GDTH says
I get excited reading the online income reports and would love to take on freelance writing and virtual assisting as well.
I’ve seen a lot of bloggers that have facebook pages as well. Most of my traffic comes from me posting on my personal facebook page. Once my audience grows, I think I’ll create a facebook page specifically for Goal Digging to Happiness.
I hope to get to the point where I can blog about my online income!
Choncé says
That’s great! You should definitely get started with freelance writing and let me know if you have any questions. Most of my traffic comes from Google and social media and it might be very beneficial to get a Facebook page going for your blog.
Barry @ Moneywehave says
Great job Chonce!
I had a good August myself in terms of freelancing but I was also pitching like a madman last month. I find the trickiest part of freelancing is the pitching process since it requires slightly more work than writing the articles themselves. Not sure if that makes sense, but that’s the way I feel sometimes.
Choncé says
You’re making perfect sense. I didn’t pitch much at all during August. I have a basic template but I also prepare custom pitches for each potential client just to make sure I’m sharing relevant information that they need in order to make a conscious decision about working together and sometimes I come up with topic ideas just to showcase my creativity and increase my chances of getting hired. It’s quite a bit of effort but it usually pays off.
Barry @ Moneywehave says
I approached just one new potential client last month and got no response. I prefer to just pitch my current clients as I don’t want to get overworked with my side hustle.
Tonya@Budget and the Beach says
Great job Chonce! How many articles would you say you are writing on average per month? Or how many per day? I didn’t find FB to be particularly useful until I started posting articles on my regular FB page (not the budget and the beach page). Not sure why. Pinterest was helpful though!
Choncé says
Thanks Tonya! I don’t write a ton actually, it just seems like quite a bit since I juggle it will my FT job, but I’d say I write about 4 per week for other blogs. I just got a new client so I’m doing about 5 now plus at least 2 per week for my own blog. I feel like Facebook wouldn’t hurt as long as I schedule stuff ahead and don’t spend too much time on it but Pinterest is a must!
believeinabudget says
I am so excited you are publishing these income reports! Congrats – you are doing really great considering you work full time! And I love that your income comes from doing different tasks. I don’t have a Facebook page and have debated whether I can keep up with one. I have gotten some nice traffic from other bloggers sharing a post of my mine, so I am sure it is worth having one. Thanks for the shout out 🙂
Choncé says
Thanks Kristin! Hopefully I can get a Facebook page going soon 🙂
Diane says
Great job Chonce!
I’m in a similar space with my blog: it’s time to take it to the next level. Plus I’d like to start freelancing. Carving out the time and making it count are a challenge though (I’m an Olympic level procrastinator!) so I need to get out of my own way and get it happening.
You’re doing amazingly well. It’s inspiring!
Choncé says
Thanks Diane. That’s great that you’re considering freelancing. Let me know if you ever have any questions 🙂
Diane says
Thank you Chonce. I’ll definitely take you up on that!
creativebugger1 says
Congrats on a great months! I really need to stick to my work/blog hours. If I did, I would be more successful.
Choncé says
Thanks 🙂 Time manangement is an ongoing struggle for me but it’s getting better slowly.
Michelle says
Strangely enough I’ve never pursued freelance writing…until this month. Like, literally beginning next week LOL! So I love seeing your numbers. Things that are tracked will grow over time. They just do.
Choncé says
That’s great that you got started with freelance writing. It seems like you were doing great without it but it’s always good to diversify.
Janae says
Your numbers look good. I’m still waiting on adsense too! Getting to $100 would be a huge goal for me.
Choncé says
Yes, if only I could keep boosting my traffic, then I’m sure I’d get to that $100 threshold much quicker.
Jessica @ Settle Your Finances says
You are doing so great! I think you will definitely be meeting your goal by 2016. I REALLY need to get on top of Pinterest for my own blog.
Choncé says
Thanks Jessica! Blogging is a ton of work. Pinterest is cool and all and very effective, but it just adds to that workload for me and I’m so grateful to be receiving help with it now.
Christina @ Embracing Simple says
Congrats on an awesome month, Chonce! So excited to see that you’ll be sharing income reports now too, I love reading them so much and am really pumped to follow your journey.
Choncé says
Thanks Christina!
Dear Debt says
Congrats girl! So proud of you. Things have been going well for me, so I had to scale back a bit and be picky. It’s a great/weird problem to have. Keep up the good work!
Choncé says
Thanks Melanie! And it sounds like you’re in a great place write now with your business 🙂