November 2016 Online Income Report

Big new you guys. Huge. November was my best month to date in terms of making money. This is amazing, simply because I worked under 50 hours combined in September and October and didn’t do as well as I wanted to. Being able to rebound back in November was great! I have been doing a horrible job tracking my income, so I was totally surprised about the total once I added things up.

Going back to my normal schedule in mid November was great. I missed blogging and my business!

While I don’t report my online income on money earned, I sure wish I did. Are you sitting down? I earned over $13,000 in the month of November, but sadly don’t get paid on all of it at the same time. While I was actually paid some of this income in November, I won’t see all of it until December and January. I’m not complaining though – total confidence booster! Holla!

As I stated above, I only report on income that goes into my bank account. So while I would love to report that I made over $13,000 in online income, it doesn’t mean anything to me until it’s in my bank account.

This couldn’t come at a better time as I just hit my thirteenth month of blogging full time! Yup, I quit my job in October 2015 and haven’t looked back. It’s been a crazy ride and I am loving every minute of it. Everyday, I wake up and feel like I have the best life ever!

Here are some previous online income reports:

Breakdown of my November online income report:

I am over the one year mark for blogging full time! November was my thirteenth month freelancing full time. Starting this blog has changed my life and I can’t imagine doing anything else!

• $0 Partnerships/Sponsorships

• $5,095.75 Affiliate Income

• $4,012.20 Courses + products

GRAND TOTAL: $10,736.55

I totally had to check my math a couple times because it didn’t feel like I made that much. But once I started going through my card statements, I realized, yup, I did it. I broke the $10K barrier.

Last September I took the $10,000 blogger challenge issued by Sarah from the Frugal Millionaire Blog and made it my goal to hit this. It took me over a year, but I did it! 

Online income breakdown

This income amount is the grand total before I deduct taxes. Right now I am putting away 30% of each paycheck I receive. If I break this down into sections of income, it looks like this:

• 3% freelance income
• 97% in ad income, products, affiliate income

This is awesome, because a year ago, my income was 95% freelance income. In order for me to quit my day job, I had to rely on freelance income for me to make the leap because I didn’t have any substantial income from my blog that I could rely on. Over the past several months, I’ve worked hard to switch this around and my efforts have paid off! 

If you want to keep track of your online income (which I highly recommend) check out Freshbooks! It’s what I’ve used to track business income, expenses, invoice clients, and more. Click here to learn more about Freshbooks.

Courses and products

November was a great month. I did a surprise 4 day flash sale from Black Friday to Cyber Monday with Gina from HorkeyHandbook.com on Become a Pinterest VA TODAY! It’s a mastermind course designed to teach people how to start a Pinterest VA business.

This was the perfect course to design as it was modeled after my Pinterest management business. Partnering with Gina made total sense as not only do I manager her Pinterest account, but she has one of the best VA courses available.

The course was a success and had a lot of interest after the flash sale ended. I’m excited that it did well, and I can’t wait to bring it back in 2017.

If you want to learn more about Be a Pinterest VA TODAY!, you can do so here.

These are my other courses and products that are available:

• In my Pinterest Presence course, I share exactly how I went from 1K page views to 160K+ page views a month in less than a year, as well as how Pinterest drives in 90% of my traffic each month. If you have yet to utilize Pinterest and also need to get more traffic to your website to make more money, you can check out the course here.

• My Pinterest Pin templates have been such a fun and unexpected product that I created! I receive a lot of emails from readers who struggle with making pins for Pinterest. So I created a dozen Pinterest pin templates that are fully customizable that everyone can use! You can learn more about the Pinterest pin templates here.

Monthly Expenses

These are my November expenses:

• $79 ConvertKit. This is my last month using ConvertKit. I decided to shop around and found that I liked a different provider better. ConvertKit is a great company, but I decided my needs were different. 

• $35 MailerLite. I switched from ConvertKit to MailerLite for my newsletter and subscribers. I am thrilled with this switch. Not only am I saving around $70 a month, but MailerLite is a breeze to use. I totally recommend it for bloggers and businesses.

• $0 Tailwind. I pay for this annually. Tailwind is the scheduler I use when I do all my pinning on Pinterest. It’s my favorite scheduler I use for my clients and myself.

TOTAL EXPENSES: $271

This month my expenses were about 3% of my budget. I try to take care of a lot of things on my own so I don’t have to outsource. I’ve also really streamlined my business, so I feel like I can pretty much do everything myself. Some people might think this is crazy, but I’m really intentional with my time which allows me to save a lot of money!

Thoughts

Here’s a few takeaways:

• While obvious, when I work, I make money. Even though I had to handle some personal stuff the past couple months and stepped away from my blog, my blog still made money. I made over $6,000 per month while averaging 20-30 hours of work per month, but it was a significant step back from my upward trend.

• Having my own courses and products is vital for my brand to grow. I love that I have created products that help other people and help me as well. It’s a win-win!

• Speaking of products, it pays to have a product, even if it’s only $10. My Pinterest pin templates have been a huge success! This extra income really adds up each month.

• Affiliate income is essential, especially using different sources of affiliate income. I highly recommend Michelle’s course called Making Sense of Affiliate Income.

• I’ve made over $75,000 in 2016 from my blog. It’s my first year blogging full time and I’m so excited by how well things are going. If you want to join me and start your own blog, this post will help you get started.

Do you have a blog? Do you write income reports?