It’s time for another income report!

I publish these reports to stay accountable for my goal of reaching $25k-$30k in monthly income so that I can retire the hubbs (and myself) by the time we are 40 years old. It seems difficult, but so was getting out of over $120,000 in debt, but we did it!

Before I get into the numbers, I just want to apologize for getting these numbers out extra late. I switched accounting systems because I am now making so much money that I need to cut myself a paycheck. Yay!

I’ve been through more than a few accounting systems and I am back to QuickBooks. Below, I’ll explain, in more detail, the reason for my switch.

So without further ado….

The numbers!

I made a total of $5,294.50 for the month of July.

Email List (with ConvertKit) Size: 4,350

Monthly Unique Pageviews: N/A (I’m troubleshooting my Google Analytics Dashboard! Hope to have an update soon!)

Related Posts:

• June 2017 Income Report- $3,218.69
• May 2017 Income Report- $3,531.31
• April 2017 Income Report- $7,175.06
• March 2017 Income Report-$3,419.69
• February 2017 Income Report- $2,802.05
• January 2017 Income Report- $4,101.27 
• December 2016 Income Report- $2,841.82
• November 2016 Income Report- $1,410.23

My goal is to be at $30k+ per month with at least 80% of it being passive. This month again, I was heavy on freelance writing. I started this as a way to bump up my blog income and now it’s totally taking over! I was inspired by Holly Johnson, who earns $20k+ per month writing, to pick up this gig. It’s been an awesome quick, money maker and I am so thankful to have it. But, I’m realizing that I really want to get more direct-blog related income i.e. affiliate incomes or my own product sales.

I’m shooting to have 50% of my income be more passive (i.e. from the blog.) Passive income is like farming. It just takes time to plant those seeds. I am confident this process works and am seeing a harvest. I just need to take time and plant more seeds 🙂

What’s Working

Elite Blog Academy

After taking Elite Blog Academy (EBA,) I notice my income has increased greatly. Plus, I was able to promote it in February, so many of interested readers purchased the course as well! There are so many good tips on how to grow your blog and your income that I recommend it for anyone who wants to have a profitable blog.  I’m glad I invested in the course and highly recommend it!

If you want to learn more about EBA, check out my review of Elite Blog Academy here.

The only bummer is that it opens once a year (February  is when the cart usually opens.)  Click below to get your free eBook on boosting your blog traffic and  get added to the EBA wait list.

Affiliate Sales

My affiliate income is getting higher and growing due to  affiliate income strategies  I’ve learned from some other bloggers. I just finished taking a course from super blogger, Michelle of Making Sense of Cents. Michelle’s blog earns over $100K per month in affiliate marketing revenue!

Her eCourse, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, is a great way to learn about her affiliate selling strategy. If you’d like to learn more about earning affiliate income, this course is a great start.

If you can’t drop the dough on that one (it’s $199), consider the Core Affiliate Strategy guide. The Core Affiliate Strategy helped me make over $2,500 in my first affiliate launch in August 2016.)

If you are interested in the tactics I used to increase my affiliate income here is a link to Rosemarie Groner’s Core Affiliate Strategy guide.

NOTE: This guide recommends you have an email list of at 1,000 people to do an effective launch. If your list is not that big, no worries, I actually wrote a quick eBook called Grow Your Email List, Grow Your Income on the subject of how to grow an email list. If you buy the Core Affiliate Strategy guide, I’ll give you Grow Your Email List, Grow Your Income for free. Just forward your purchase receipt to aja@principlesofincrease.com to get it.

All in all, I am happy with my affiliate sales growth and look forward to seeing my numbers get higher in this area.

Freelance Writing

Though I’m not looking to trade dollars for hours anymore, I do realize that adding some freelance writing to supplement my blog income has been helpful.  When I am between big affiliate launches, freelance writing has been a life-saver!

If you are interested in learning about how to start your freelance writing career, check out this eCourse on freelance writing by my friend, Holly Johnson who makes over $220,000 per year writing! It’s called Earn More Writing. If you think Holly is unique, check out my post about other six-figure freelance writers and it might inspire you to explore the possibilities with this stream of income.

Email List

My email list continues to be my best marketing channel. It’s how I am surviving even with such low traffic. Also,  ConvertKit has been great in growing my email list and my income. I have been using that along with the SumoMe Welcome Mat and I tripled my email list in a little over 2 months when I first started using it.

If you want more tips on how to grow your email list, check out this eBook I created on strategies and tactics that will help your email list grow: Grow Your Email List, Grow Your Income. You can get it free if your purchase the Core Affiliate Strategy or the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing eCourse. Just forward your receipt to me.

What’s Not Working

Accounting

In the past, I’ve used Wave (free) and Freshbooks, which are both great, but QuickBooks is what I need to make things easy for me. accounting-wise.

The biggest convenience with QuickBooks is the fact that I can process a paycheck through this system and all the forms are filed for both Federal and State taxes. I just press a few buttons and, BAM, I’m compliant and I don’t need to involve my accountant in any of this.

Wave offered payroll services, but they were lacking: I’d get an email with amounts I owed for Federal and State taxes with a reminder of when they were due. Ummm….that’s not enough for me! I need to press a button to send all payments and file all forms and QuickBooks does that for me. Wave didn’t

Plus, QuickBooks integrates with my bank to download and categorize expenses for my checking and credit card accounts.  QuickBooks also allows me to create invoices quickly and easily. I can even receive payments on those same invoices!

Click here to start a 30 day, free trial with QuickBooks if you are interested in updating your accounting system. To me, QuickBooks is totally worth the money due to the time you save with all the features.

Traffic

My traffic had dropped considerably and I think I know why: I haven’t spent much time in increasing it. Initially, I was faithful in following the steps in this Pinterest Strategy Guide and my traffic was growing like crazy. Then it kinda petered out as I didn’t do the required maintenance the strategy suggests. It’s climbing back up, but there’s still work to do. At this point, my goal is to perform maintenance on my Pinterest strategy best I can, then spend 2017 promoting all the content I have. Since my income is at a tolerable level right now.

Final Thoughts

I’ve still got a ways to go when it comes to growing my income. As a homeschooling mom of two little ones, it can be quite hard to fit in blogging and freelance writing, but I am doing what I can to make it work. I am looking forward to hiring help in the form of a tutor for my girls as well as a VA. I will update you on that soon!

If you think you are interested in starting your own streams of online income, here are the steps I recommend:

1. Start a blog by going to BlueHost.com. If you forward your purchase receipt to me at aja@principlesofincrease.com, I’ll send a free 10 video blog tutorial on how to get everything set-up (even your email list and ad networks so you can make money ASAP.)
2. Take the blogging eCourse that totally transformed my own blog and income, Elite Blog Academy (enrollment is in February only, but you can get on the waitlist here.)
3. If you’d like to supplement your blog income with freelance writing, take Holly Johnson’s eCourse on breaking into freelance writing, Earn More Writing.

Blogging and freelance writing make a good combination because you can use your blog to create a portfolio in case you don’t yet have experience. Also, editors like to know that you have a following (with a blog) and will share your work with your audience. It’s a win-win situation.

As I’ve said many times before, my ultimate goal is to consistently make $25,000-$30,000 in income per month and invest about $15,000 per month so we can retire early by 40. In addition to that, I am hoping that by early 2017, my income can carry the household expenses while my husband just banks his check going forward. It’s a BIG goal, but I believe we can do it!

How about you? What are your money goals? Is making additional income in there as well?

If you think that you’d like to give online business a go, consider starting a blog for as little at $3.95 per month with BlueHost.com. Need help? No problem, sign up below to get the tools I used to start and grow my blog including a PDF resource guide and 5 video tutorial on setting up your blog:

Aja McClanahan

Aja “A.J.” McClanahan is a writer, speaker and entrepreneur.