Hey, there! If this is your first time stumbling across my income reports, please start with January 2015 to see why I’m doing this and how I plan to break each month down.

Each month I would like to share:

• How much I earned
• How many payments I received (Ex: 10 payments for 5 projects instead of 47 flyer design payments)
• How much I spent/invested
• What I spent it on (resources)
• What I learned
• How many hours I worked
• YTD Earnings

Please let me know if there’s anything you want me to include in the income reports. If it’s a general question about my finances, I’ll be happy to write a blog post on it.

The number in parenthesis will indicate the difference from the previous month

Red = Lower Than Previous Month
Green = Higher Than Previous Month
Black = Stayed the Same as Previous Month

Here’s Month 2.

February 2015: $6222.33
Last Month: $6,913.50
Year-to-date (YTD): $13,860.83

February 2015 Earnings (19 Payments Received):

Consulting: $0.00 ($275)
Contributing: $75 ($75)
Blogademics: $420.00 ($35)
Design/Branding Projects: $5,727.33 ($456.17)

Total Gross Revenue: $6,222.33 (691.17)

February 2015 Expenses:

Design Intern: $150 ($240)
DropBox: $9.99
CoSchedule (Social media automation): $10.00
Domain/Hosting: $4.99 (55.50)
Domain/Hosting transfer to BlueHost: $99.99 ($29.40)
Office Depot Printing: $18.88 ($47.72)
SD Card for Camera: $0 ($64.34)
MailChimp: $15.00
MacBook (down payment): $0 ($436.68)
Twitter (Advertising): $2.16 ($.54)
Microsoft Office: $10.71
Envato (premium themes & plugins): $60 ($63)
JotForm: $0 ($45)
Adobe Systems: $32.16
Wistia: $25
LeadPages: $0 ($297)
Brand Clarity Consulting: $65 ($65)
Photoshoot: $150 ($150)
Stock Images: $79 ($79)
Educational Workshops: $139 ($139)
New business cards: $35.45 ($35.45)

Total Expenses: $907.33 ($808.73)
—-

Total Net Profit: $5,315 ($117.56)

What I learned:

The main thing I learned as I wrote this blog post was that basic math is harder than it looks.  I realized I miscalculated my expenses from last month and had to redo it.  I spent $200 more than I calculated.  All my income goes to two separate accounts specific to my business so the calculation of my income is generated for me, but calculating my expenses is annoying and hard.  I’m trying to spend from my business account more so calculating expenses doesn’t take me hours.

If February was a regular 30 days, my net income would’ve been $6947.33 which would’ve been $33.83 more than last month.  I really want to break $7,000, but I didn’t expect to bring in as much as I brought last month. While my gross income decreased by $691.17, my net profit increased by $117.56 because I decreased February expenses by $808.73.

I feel like February was a really weird month for everyone.  Specifically for me, I felt extremely overwhelmed and unorganized.  Trying to manage my blog, my business and my online course with one intern was extremely hard.  I hired a brand clarity consultant who basically helped me declutter the chaos in my my head, create a schedule and outline the work that I should delegate to my intern and to an assistant.  In my last income report, I shared that I didn’t want to be stuck at my computer for 15 hours a day just for money.  I’d rather have less money and more freedom instead of vice versa.  I didn’t have a chance to fully calculate how much I worked in February, but I know it was significantly less hours than January.  Some days are relaxing, some days are hectic, and finding the balance seems to be the hardest part.

Things I need to improve on:

• I’m working on getting proposals back to potential clients quicker.  I lost out on a couple thousand dollars worth of projects because I didn’t create and send off proposals fast enough.
• I need to revamp the Blogademics landing page and finish the course so I can sell it for one price rather than a monthly rate. So far my students seem to like the course so I’m happy with that.
• I wanted to work on getting more consulting gigs, but it was a bad month for meet ups.  When I complete the Blogademics course, I will work on more consulting and speaking opportunities.
• I need to improve on the consistency of my expenses.  I’m glad I was able to decrease expenses, but it’s clear that a lot of my expenses aren’t consistent.

Things I did well:

• My intern has been a huge help with my social media, SEO and scheduling my blog posts.
• I decreased my expenses by $800+ (although I rarely regret a cent I invest into my business).
• I finally had the rest of my websites and domains switched to BlueHost which helped to speed them up. Having a website that runs faster saves me more time which means more money.
• I learned to say no (or charge more) to projects that were taking up a lot of my time.
• Created systems to have a more streamlined process for projects in March
• I think my new photos will actually make a difference in getting booked for consulting

YTD Earnings: 13,860.83