September 2018 Income Report: Still At Day Job, Income Report Mistake, Why Having Many Websites in Same Niche

September was a busy month with one unpleasant discovery 🤦 I made in the end.

And no, I have not quit my day job yet! I was asked to stay for a bit longer so I plan to quit at the end of October 😺

Income report mistake 😳

The unpleasant discovery I talk about above is a mistake in my income reports I found at the end of September.

Somehow, after enabling AdSense Auto Ads, I accidentally introduced a wrong action into the income calculation methodology. I started including the auto ad revenue twice by summarizing it with the overall revenue for each website 🤦

It means that for the last two months, July and August, my actual income was lower than I thought with the difference of about $100-200 per month in total.

Not much but still unpleasant 😒

I won’t change the wrong numbers in the past income reports but I fixed the Totals chart below for the previous months.

This is already the second time I make a mistake in calculating my income reports. However, the other time I did it, it was a pleasant one. I forgot to include some amount into the final number so the actual income was higher than I thought and reported.

Obviously, this mistake hurts. I make the income reports for me first of all to see and how I go with my business and I know now I am less successful than I thought I was.

It was hard to admit it and even harder to publicly acknowledge it 😒

Oh well.

Benefits (and downsides) of having multiple websites in the same niche 👯

I usually talk a lot about Mother Elephant 🐘 Website and not much about the Baby one. Meanwhile, Baby Elephant 🐘 Website with it growing revenue has become a good example of why I suggest you have more than one website in a niche you consider being perspective.

Email downtime while migrating off HostGator 🐊

In September, I finished the migration from HostGator 🐊 to Bluehost 🔵. The websites that were affected are livingoffcloud.com (yep this one) and dushonok.com (my fashion DIY site.)

I almost managed to avoid having downtime after completing the migration.

What I totally forgot about was the email 📧 ! Turns out I need to move it as well along with the domain it is on. Who knew! (JK)

It took me a few days to realize that I started getting significantly fewer emails than I used to 🤔

If you sent me an email and it did not get delivered or I did not respond, the chances are you hit the email downtime. Please send it again!

Personal life 👩

September was mostly chilly in Montreal. The cold season has arrived prematurely and I have already succumbed to the virus a couple of times.

Montreal downtown may look warm on the picture but in the reality, it was +13C (55F) ☃️

I was planning to quit my day job in September but it did not happen. They asked me to stay longer and I agreed to hang out there till the end of October. It is always nice to feel appreciated 🤗

It also hard to quit a place that allows you to bring the company’s lunch leftovers home – even if the leftovers come in a form of huge bowls like this one! 😮 It’s edamame on the photo and it was enough of it to feed me for an entire weekend and more 😜

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

Expenses➖

In September, the expenses were a bit higher than in August because this is the time when I pay the year bill for my hosting 🔵. The rest of the expenses stayed pretty much the same except a few PBN domains renewed.

Let’s look at the expense numbers in the details.

Income➕

The income in September went down compared to August because the Elephant 🐘 Websites are in low season.

In September, I sold my two first guest posts. No, I do not plan to become a content factory 🏭 where everyone and their dog can post anything as long as they pay. The paid posts have to pass through the same criteria as unpaid ones and the bar is high ✋

Let’s look at the income numbers in the details.

Totals 💵

Here are my totals for September 2018.

Total income $689.74 minus total expenses $643.15 makes a net profit of $46.59.

The profit number looks a bit gloomy… if this is my result in September, what am I going to get in December when my revenue is historically at its lowest? 🙁 I foresee a lot of red numbers!

Here is the chart with my revenue vs expenses history for the last 13 months. I use the 13-month timeline instead of the 12-month one in order to show you how the current month performed compared to the last year.

October 2018 Plans 📅

In October 2018, my focus will be to try to not freak out since it’s the last month on my full-time employment! Haha, I feel like I’ve already said it before.

For Elephant 🐘 Website, the hard plan is to finish the 2nd Skyscraper post and do the outreach. That article is seasonal and the season is now. I cannot waste 23h I have already put in it !

Also, I have not yet written the year income report as I planned in September. I was too busy and maybe, I will do it in October.

I am also seriously thinking of finally optimizing my PBN domain network. It is very clear it does not bring much value but it sucks in money and time (sometimes). I really need to think about it.

And since I am not sure about my posting schedule… you should stay tuned by subscribing to my emails!