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July 2017 Income Report: Diving Into Learning 👩‍🎓, Buying Tools, Changes At Day Job 💪👩‍🚀

In this blog, I write about what I am doing to create various income streams that come from online endeavors. The monthly income reports detail my results.

Why am I sharing my income publicly? I hope to gain trustworthiness with you and to keep some degree of accountability for myself.

The reports motivate me. I tend to forget my small achievements… and reports like this one won’t let me do it 🙂 Apart from that, they help me to remember how much I have already invested. It’s a motivation to push even harder!

Read on July 2017 Income Report, which is also my income report #23.

What Happened In July

Learning, Learning, a Lot of Learning 👩‍🎓

As you remember from my previous income report, I got one of the most expensive and extensive niche website courses available and was planning to dive into it in July.

And I did. And I did pretty much nothing but that. There is so much material that needs to be learned and understood… sometimes I feel I am drowning in it. I am still going through the first chapter about the content and still not done with the very first post I am writing based on the lessons…

On the plus side, I think I am creating a really epic content. It’s for Elephant 🐘 Website and it will be the longest and probably the prettiest content I ever created for this website. In August, I even bought Thrive Content Builder plugin that allows me to add all sorts of boxes/lists/etc. It is supposed to make the reading experience nice. Not sure I like it so far… but I will write more about the plugin in the August income report.

The post does look nice but I am worrying slightly about the conversion. Cannot wait to finish it and release it into the wild to see how it will perform.

Buying Some Tools

A while ago, I have become a Sumo-ling, a member of AppSumo. Now my inbox is flooded with offers to buy various tools for close to nothing.

In most cases, I ignore the emails. But in July, I finally gave in and bought two tools: Amplifr and Stencil.

Amplifr is a neat social media publication and analytics app. I bought it, played with it… and asked for a refund. It’s a good tool for marketers who are working heavily with social media.. and I am not one of them. Maybe not yet but I really do not want to spend my money on something I won’t use right away.

Stencil is yet another online photo editing app. The difference is that they want to make making images for social media fast and quick. Literally, with a few clicks. The app also has a Google Chrome extension. I used in the “motivational” image below, in my Offline Life chapter.
This deal, I am keeping it for now 🙂 I still have about 3-4 weeks left to claim the refund (it’s 60-day money back with AppSumo) in the case I change my mind.

Kickfurther

In July, I did not back up any purchase order.

One of the open orders paid back in full in July (finally.) It was Merchmakr Roll Out with DIY Screen Printing Supplies. The contract had been dragging since April 2016 and finally, it got finished!

On top of that, a few contracts paid a bit.

If you do not know what Kickfurther is, you can read about it here.

Personal Bits

In the previous report, I mentioned I almost bought a Saas business – and it was a good thing I did not do it. I promised to explain more in the July report.

Well, in July, I finally got a promotion at my day job. Now I am officially Development Team Lead. I have been doing the job since the last year but without the title. It was a “probation” period and finally, I proved I can do it 💪💪💪 👩‍🚀👩‍🔧👩‍✈️

This is a pretty important milestone in my life… but how would it prevent me from owning a Saas business?

Well, a Saas business would require an extra commitment from me and I am not sure I would have time for it without giving up my day job. At the same time, my very original plan was actually quitting work this year after buying one more online business to bump up my income level 📈

However, I feel it would be unethical and plain bad to leave the job after getting this deeply discussed and anticipated promotion. My manager, my team, they are all counting on me now. Quitting would mean they need to find a replacement and doing so now would disturb the team and processes that have finally settled down. I am way too responsible to cause such troubles after they showed their support for me.

So yeah, no job quitting this year 🚫 Next year I guess.

In July, I took a mini vacation of three days. I prefer to take shorter vacations than longer ones, it is easier on my work schedule and on my mind (everybody hates the first few days at work after a long vacation). The weather was very nice during these three days and I did a lot of jogging, cycling, swimming, and playing with Stencil.

I do not own a bike 🚲; instead, I use a bike sharing service called Bixi. A year subscription costs about $75CAD – and two years of it would easily pay for a decent bike. However, it is more convenient for me to rent than to bother with the maintenance. Montreal is infamous for bike stealing and I would need to constantly think about locks, storage, etc. I cycle very often everywhere and using the service gives me the peace of mind.

Recently, Bixi has started customizing bikes by adding cool images to the back wheel. I scored this pretty one with bagels. Mnyam 😋😋😋

Some flowers next to a pond, a quintessential picture of my summer.

Another motivational photo 😜😜😜

 

Ok, now let’s go back to the business!

Expenses

In July, the expenses were low due to the fact I was too busy going through the course and did not work with freelancers at all. I did spend some money on buying tools, though.

Income

The high season for Elephant 🐘 Website and its family is finishing so the income level is dropping. At the same time, Horse 🐎 Website produced strong results and Honeybee 🐝 Website brought in some revenue again 🍯🍯🍯. Rat 🐀 Website is doing not bad. Once I sort out the things with Elephant 🐘 Website, I decided to double down on this one, it has a great potential of becoming an authority site.

July 2017 was the best month of the year 2017 so far in terms of the income. It beat May, the 2nd best month of the year, by a dollar or so 🤣🤣🤣

Totals

Here are my totals for July 2017.

Total income $1,661.87 minus total expenses $165.08 makes a net profit of $1,496.79.

Here is the chart with my revenue vs expenses history for the last 12 months.

August 2017 Plans

The main leitmotiv of August will be learning again 👩‍🎓. I plan to continue going with the course. Hopefully, I will learn enough to write some tasks for writers and start hiring again.

I will continue applying the learning to Elephant 🐘 Website. My long term goal here is to make its revenue less seasonal. I am dreading winter months when there will be no money…

August will be the last month before the 2-year anniversary of my blog and business. The last month to make an impact before looking at the totals! Let’s not f*ck it up 😀 😀 😀

And of course, in August, I will try to write about my experience in the blog! Since I am not sure when I will post the next post… stay tuned by subscribing to my emails!

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Disclaimer

Some of the links in this income report are affiliate links. I will receive a small fee if you choose to buy after clicking on any of these links. Thank you if you do!