Income Report: February

So my quest for financial freedom continues....

We're only into the second month of the year and I'm starting to see signs of progress.

The money is most definitely not flowing and yet, and there's still too much of a default back to my tried and trusted income streams. But I have put down the seeds for future income. This is slow and steady and hopefully I'll see the first elements of income in March.

I've been reviewing some of my previous areas of interest - Zazzle and Fiverr - and I'm going to reinvigorate them over the next month.

It's not worth beating myself up. Slow and steady, and I'll have these blog entries to continue to show how I've progressed (or not).

As for February, it was a relatively straightforward month for income - up on December and January's figures but effectively down to one income stream.

Monthly income:-

Resume Writing: $1,525 (vs. $1,094 the previous month)
Other: $0

Total: $ 1,525

Slow and steady...

March will certainly have a different story to tell!

Income Report: January

New year, new dawn...blah, blah, blah

It's been a good start to the year. Not in terms of money made, as that's still a slow and steady thing, but in terms of investment for the future.

As much as I'm hoping to show an obvious improvement in income month on month, as important is to make sure I invest in skills and products that will pay off in the future.

Had I shown the discipline a year ago, who knows what may have happened.

Anyway, this month has seen me invest in two spaces:

• Financial modelling
• An ebook on resume writing

Yes, they are very different areas but I figured that I could use the modelling across a range of opportunities: business consulting, investment analysis, project management and so on.

The ebook is more naturally aligned with my passive income goal. Hopefully, by the end of February, I'll have it listed on Amazon and I'll be counting the pennies roll in...

As for January, it was a relatively unspectacular month for income and a slight dip on December's number.

Monthly income:-

Resume Writing: $1,094
Prolific Academic: $3

Total: $ 1,097

Slow and steady...

Hopefully, next month I'll be able to provide more input on my projects and more progress overall.

Income Report: December

Ok, it's time to get real.

Or at the very least it's time to stop pretending.

One of the reasons why I started blogging about income was in order to make myself more accountable. And that's great. Pretty much month on month I've increased my income based on the parameters that I have in place.

But the problem is that the parameters just aren't aligned with my bigger story. I keep telling myself that I want a decent passive income stream but month to month it's simply not showing up. It's not to say that the active income that I have been earning is wrong. Quite the opposite.

It too is part of the bigger story. But I keep telling myself that 50% of my income is going to be passive. That's my big dirty goal. I'm removing rental income from the equation for the moment but if I truly, really want financial freedom then I need to really get going on the world of passive income.

So this time next year when I read through my report on income I'm going to be very disappointed if I'm not able to have a made a real passive income impact here.

As for December, I didn't do a whole heap of new stuff. It was a shortened month and I didn't add any additional income streams. So I'll keep it simple:

Monthly income:-

Resume Writing: $1,269
Prolific Academic: $6.50

Total: $ 1,275.50

Not spectacular but workable. What I really intend on building upon is more income streams. Lots of income streams. Maybe five. Maybe ten. But not two. Not three.

I also don't want to grade myself at the moment. I'm simply spinning the same wheels just now. Once I create something bigger than my consistent income stream I'll really be able to push on.

2016 was the starting point. And I'm grateful that I made inroads over the year that I never would have expected. But 2017 is going to see my online business really gather pace. It has to.

So, to a successful experiment so far and so to the next stage where I will seriously move onto the next level. It's none of the big time promises that a lot of other bloggers indicate. It's the real thing.

Time to own my shit.

Merry Christmas.

Income Report: November

I'm glad I'm doing this process as it gives me transparency.

Unfortunately, what this process hasn't been able to do is to shake up the mix of my incomes. I need other tools and levers for that.

My grand goal of lining up Christmas promotions and the like on Zazzle has fallen flat - at least, so far.

But I can definitely see 2017 offering up a few new opportunities online and offline. I'm planting the seeds now...

So time to review things:

Writing
Resume Writing: This remains my most consistent provider. Actually, it's virtually my only provider at the moment, but let's not split hairs.... Each month seems to be an improvement on the previous one. That probably won't happen with a quiet December, but November has been my best month, even with my hit to the UK pound.

Translated into dollars I made $2,190, that's 14% better than October's figure. I've worked quite a lot on the resume writing and the coaching, and I've made sure that I've kept better records as well. I may have lost out on certain monies coming to me in the past because of my slackness.

It's working out okay at the moment.

Article Writing: $0. I've been weighing up the return on my time here and for the moment at least it doesn't pay me to spend too much time in this space. I've used some of my articles in the past to leverage different opportunities, but I've traded a bit too much time for money here in the past.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $13. Pennies but, hey, it's easy.

Other
Mmmm....My focus on diversification is falling short....

Outcome
So there you have it: $2,203 for November. No bad and I've finally broken through the $2,000 barrier.

I'll give myself a score of B+ this time. That's partly down to hitting new heights, but it's also a reflection of what I've been doing in the background.

I've been re-working some sites, which will properly go live in the new year. I spent quite a while looking at Google Adsense, listening to passive income webinars and researching different income ideas.

I've also almost completed my first proper Kindle book, again with the intention of launching it fairly soon. That's really the first step into the passive world. Everything I do now is too active for my long-term business model goal.

And there's the small matter of a possible offline job that would completely shake a lot of this up. Job or not, I'm still going to work towards the financial freedom principle and passive income.

I'm quite excited by what the next few months might bring.

Income Report: October

Another day, another dollar...

I may not be diversifying as fast as I would like but I'm certainly being more consistent with my main income driver. But more on that later.

The difficult bit with the way I approach all of this is that I have so many incredible ideas. But I have no time to put in place any of my end of year ideas. Again, step by step.

My offline income still sucks. But that's another story.

So let's take another look at things.

Writing
Resume Writing: This figures continues to increase month by month. Last month my revised figure was $1,852 (vs. my initial $1,700 estimate). For October it came to $1,925. That's about 4% up and heading in the right direction.

Again, it was a nice combination of resume writing plus coaching.

It's still taking up more time than I had planned but it's working out okay at the moment.

Article Writing: $0. Must do better. As things stand, there's not anything on the horizon for this month so I'm slacking here.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $8.50. A bit rubbish really....

Other
Postloop: $0. Death to Postloop and the fact that it took $12.50 of my earnings. Yep, it closed and didn't give me a chance to cash out. Boo, hiss!


Outcome
So there you have it: $1,860 for October. Not great about either of the last couple of months but it's pretty consistent enough.

I'll give myself a score of B this time. I didn't increase my income (again) but I have been working on my website.

I'm still working on a few different initiatives. One of them is to support finance people in their job hunting goals. It's taking a little time to gain traction but I'm confident that I can use what I've earned elsewhere to build my own busiess.

It's about the long game, isn't it?

Income Report: September

I see a bit of a pattern with these reports.

I am very good at defaulting to the same old, same old online income drivers but haven't yet been able to break free into this new and exciting world that I'm targeting.

I know that it may take time but it's definitely important that I stretch myself in a few new areas. I've had one (albeit very minor) income stream start to wind down this month.

That's reason enough for me to look long and hard about building momentum elsewhere. Step by step.

My offline income is also still in transition so it's important that I keep rolling up the sleeves and get stuck in.

So let's take another look at things.

Writing
Resume Writing: I'm writing this based on estimates again but my reckoning my income was slightly shy of last month's but still better than earlier months. My initial estimate is $1,700. I'll be correcting it if it's wrong again but that compares with $1,815 last time. It was also a better combination of writing and coaching over the month, which is something I like.

So still some decent momentum here but fundamentally it's taking up more time than I would like. That is, I'm not momentising elsewhere as much as I would like.

It's going to remain my income anchor for a little while longer.

I've put a proposal in for resume writing and career coaching at a local university, so I'll wait to see how that pans out.

Article Writing: $100. Mmm... Well, I had assumed big numbers in the writing space but I haven't written for my old default for a few months now and it's really time I got back to working there. I've had a few PeoplePerHour gigs and that's about it.

As things stand, there's not anything on the horizon for this month but you never know.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $13. Well, better than the previous month's $1. I don't really expect it to add up to much as it's purely "downtime" money so I'm happy to pick up a dollar here or there if it's available. In fact, I'm now targeting it as my Christmas gift fund.

Other
Postloop: $2 (estimate). I quote myself from last month: "But it's always there in the background if I need it." Well, it's closing down at the beginning of November! In many ways that's good because I was defaulting to it when I really should have been doing other more constructive things.

But it was one of the first sites I used to earn money online so there's a slight sadness about its demise. But onwards and upwards.

Outcome
So there you have it: $1,815 for the month compared with $1,871 for August - subject to final resume income numbers coming out

I'll give myself a score of B+ again. I didn't increase my income but I did diversify it slightly with more article writing.

Looking ahead, I've got some potentially exciting things happening in coming months. For one thing, I found myself doing a webinar last week with a lady that's putting together her own online summit.

I'm currently prepping my website so when she does launch her product, people will be directed to my site and I'll be able to capture email addresses and offer up services.

I'm also thinking about what good's and services I can put together for the holiday season.

I don't expect any major earnings excitement in October but I'm hopeful of some momentum going into 2017. 

Income Report: August

Well, it's all very piecemeal at the moment. I've talked in the past about passive income streams and they haven't quite gathered pace.

I've talked about diversification and I'm yet to get the balance here. But this was never going to be an overnight story and by writing it down (hopefully) I'll be able to look back in a year's time and laugh at how far I've progressed. That's the goal anyway.

So let's get this party started:

Writing
Resume Writing: So having wrote this article a few days ago, I've had to re-write much of it after properly calculating my resume writing income.

My original estimate was $1,050. The figure actually came to $1,815... Clearly mathematics isn't my strong point and the early part of the month was more active than I had remembered.

It's still my income anchor, though I'm very aware that I need to build out other areas to this level.

The local resume business hasn't gained traction, though that's more down to my low level marketing. I tried to sign up some students to earn commission as introducers, but they all seem to be too busy chasing down Pokemons

Article Writing: $50. I didn't write at all for my regular gig but I've another regular one starting now. I think September could be a good earnings figure for article writing. Famous last words.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $1. Yeah, this one's not doing a lot to build out the retirement fund. To be fair, I haven't really thought much about it lately but it is easy money.

Other
Postloop: $5. It's still a comfort blanket of a site for me. You while away a bit of time on, connect with a few people on it, earn a few dollars on it and move on. I don't default onto the site as much as I used to and it's not going to make me a king's ransom.But it's always there in the background if I need it.

So there you go it: $1,871 compared with $1,587. That's about 17% up on the previous month so I do know I'm moving in the right direction.

I'll give myself a score of B+. The $1,000 is my very least level these day for a 'pass' and I'm easily beating that at the moment. But I do need a lot more diversification and a lot of work on the passive income world.

I know that I've got a few writing gigs already sorted out for September, have already beaten the combined Prolific Academic / Postloop return in one survey this month (though that was never going to be hard) and I've signed up for an online writing course as well. All pointing in the right direction.

September will be awesome.  

Income Report: July

So the quest to develop more stable earnings streams continues. One of the big issues (still) for me is that I haven't yet shifted to the passive income approach that I've been gunning for long term. It's still not balanced and as a result it's aways active income - i.e. I need to be trading time for money. The long-term goal is to shift away from this. But for now it's all about stabilizing the income.

So for now, let's see how this month went.

Writing
Resume Writing: $1,450. This was a pretty busy month for me and about +90% higher than May. Despite people heading to the beaches for the summer, there's always someone job hunting and in need of a resume.

The fact that I haven't gone away this summer means that I've been overloaded a bit because others have gone away.

I still haven't sorted out a resume business locally, which would allow me to charge more for the same service. But I've been too busy...And I don't want to be purely a full-time resume writer for someone else.

Article Writing: $130. I had one of my usual articles to write and also managed to get a new contract elsewhere, which should be a consistent gig as well.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $7. Not a big month at all for me here. Not many surveys, simply because I've been too busy elsewhere.

Other
Zero - not great for me and my goals to improve the mix of income...

So that's it: $1,587 compared with $873 the previous month and $1,127.50 for May. So it's heading in the right direction! It just needs to be more balanced in terms of trading time for money.

I'll give myself a score of B-. It's good in terms of an improvement on the last two months but I still need a lot more diversification and a lot more impact in ths passive income world. My goal is to to make time to diverfy more.

The journey continues.