For September 2018 I earned $8896.27 in gross sales from my blog and online business. While I had a weeks holiday AND school holidays.

 

I just got back from a week-long holiday to my hometown Proserpine, in the Whitsunday’s (north Queensland, Australia).

As our first family holiday (ever), driving 13 hours there and back, in a 7 day period, with a kid and dog and a limited budget we had …. well, no expectations. (I don’t want to say low expectations, but we certainly didn’t have high ones! To be fair, that is more my mindset, that I can’t be disappointed if I didn’t have hope.)

And honestly, it was a 9/10 trip, for us. We like stuff simple, and quiet, and not the lavious 5-star luxury type of people. We visited all the family, swam in pool & lagoon, walked the creeks and rivers, went to the dam and found ”pinchies” (red-claw yabbies) which became her new best friend in a bucket for 2 days. We went to Cedar Creek Falls which is dry, but went climbing up to the top and walked the dry creek bed, walked in the bush.

Simple.

And the best. We just wanted to be together, see family and cousins which Hottie Boyfriend’s daughter had never met, I saw my nieces and nephew (I haven’t seen in 4 years).

I talked my ass off. I gass-bagged to anyone and everyone. I felt so at home and safe and relaxed at my hometown, with a small country feel and vibe.

Let alone family, the BIL’s, SIL’s, nieces, nephew, my brother, my dad. People we know, we like, we trust, we enjoy who are JUST SUCH GOOD PEOPLE.

Not to say people aren’t nice, down here in Brisbane. It is just not a small country town.

For example when we came home to Brisbane, we had a knock on the door and I was working in the office thinking ”who is that? why is someone at our house? no one ever comes to our house.” And they don’t. We have Hottie Boyfriend’s parents come maybe once per month. And. That. Is. It.

No one comes to our house.

While in Proserpine, it is all about ”dropping in” and honking horn at neighbours and the friendly wave driving past anyone (and everyone) because, That. Is. What. Is. Done.

We looked at a property for sale, up there. Yeah, we want to move there. We have for a long time. Of course there are details to be sorted, but the first step was taking Hottie Boyfriend and his daughter up there and that they both want to move up there. TICK.

 

WHY DO I SHARE MY INCOME REPORTS?

I follow several income reports like Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, Rose Atwater from Rose Bakes, Pinch of Yum, House of Brazen and Making Sense of Cents and there is something about numbers that is sexy, motivational, inspiring and lets me dream bigger. Is it just me?

I read Rose Bakes 2015 income report where she made nearly $37,000 USD for the year from blogging. Well, that knocked my socks off. I showed my boyfriend and talked about it and read and researched. I was hugely inspired.

Later I even had a business mentoring session with Rose and now, a year later, I am so incredibly lucky to call Rose a friend and mentor.

But that feeling of inspiration, motivation and that it is soooo hugely possible this business dream …. Well, I want to share that with others.

BLOGGING IS NOT THE WAY TO FAST MONEY.

At all. We all hear about the $100k launch and whatever else, but I gotta wonder is that real? And how much of that was spent on Facebook advertising?

For me, I’m not going to talk about those pie-high-in-the-sky numbers. Because launches make me want to vomit in my mouth a little bit. And I don’t do webinars. I’m going to talk about the hard work and real numbers that made it possible for me to quit my full-time job.

Because, yes, I worked full time while building up this blog and business.

• August 2014 – $191
• December 2014 – $415
• July 2015 – $732
• November 2015 – $1404
• February 2016 – $1593

It has been hard work. But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

And it wasn’t a smooth uphill slope. Some months I made $0 minus expenses. A couple of months I made up to $2000-$6000, but those were few and far between.

Gee, if I knew way back then what I now know!

And now? Now I have quit my FT job. Now I work less than 30 hours per week. Now I have replaced my full-time income and I retired my boyfriend from his job in April 2017. Because that is my dream and big WHY. And you are going to need to hold on for dear life while on this ride.

Imagine a rocket ship or roller coaster. Which do you think the journey or blogging is going to be? A rocket ship that is a skyrocketing success story with little to no work. Like winning the lottery.

Or a roller coaster, like everything else you have experienced in life? (Hint: it is a roller coaster of a ride, because it is life.)

This post contains affiliate links.

• Related: $11,090.94 July 2018 Income Report
• Related: How I Made $83,146.87 in last 12 months (Mid-2018 Review)
• Related: $6157.15 May 2018 Income Report
• Related: $7880.30 March 2018 Income Report
• Related: How I Made $78,926.26 in 2017

 

WHAT’S NEW

I’ve started a new (3rd) business, which I’m not (yet) sharing what it is. I’m finding feelings of ”I’m not good enough” and ”who am I to do this” and ”I’m not qualified” coming up.

 

I did my regular monthly business review on the podcast and listed all the things I ”did” (business & personal) into 2 columns. Column A was what worked for me and Column B of what didn’t work for me.

WHAT WORKED FOR ME?

1. 7 day holiday. That I had a planned time off, had the money saved, not stressed, pre-prepared and could easily (mostly) not work (see the what didn’t work for me section) and the business still runs itself, makes money daily, even while a ”launch”. That totally rocked my socks off.
2. Launch. Claire and I planned a joint venture the beginning of the month and orginally it was a mastermind but we brainstormed and pivoted to a live blogging course with a 10 day launch period, starting immediately. We got the marketing plan and sales page created that day and started promoting the next day. We hit our goal for sales and will be offering it again in November.
3. Membership audit. I hadn’t done a Cake Business School audit in 8 months (my goals was once every 6 months). Being # number of new enrollments, what % percentage drop off from 1st trial months to 2nd paying month and average time enrolled. I do a simple tally system (pen to paper) as I keep a sales report in excel spreadsheet every time I do bookkeeping. I’m looking at how I can improve + help more people grow their cake business.
4. Health. I haven’t had a panic attack in 6 weeks. Me and Hottie Boyfriend’s daughter’s relationship has gotten 10 x times better (it has been quite challenging in the last 2 months). What I’m finding help is a bit of exercise (small 10 minute walks for me 2-3 times per week), fridge full of amazing food (meat, fruit, veg), I started using essential oils for mood management (I said last month that I’ve had some shocking mood swings) and challenging behaviour and stress and seems to have a culminating effect.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK?

1. Trying to work on a holiday. During a launch. Not my best decision and I won’t necessarily being doing it again. For a live launch of a live course, I won’t be. It is for Price.Market. Sell. and I thought all the work would be pre-done but what I didn’t take into account was the turning ”on” the sales page for enrollment open and then changing price point for end of early-bird 3 days later. I took my laptop and thought I would just ”find” internet at either BIL’s or father’s house or just somewhere in town. I was wrong. BIL had no wifi. Dad didn’t have password. There is no internet (at all) in town. I had to drive 30 min to McDonalds. Their internet was down. I drove to next town, another 10 minutes to McDonalds. I used for 2 hours and then ran out of battery and there was no power point. A couple of hours later when I was about to find a power point, McDonalds wifi had a ”used your data allowance for the day”. Aarrghhhh!!! Lesson. Learned. Don’t rely on internet. Don’t expect internet.

WHAT DID I LEARN?

Do not expect internet while on holidays. Do not plan to do work, while away from wifi. Ever.

And 2 weeks is more my sweet spot for live launch to live course promotion between $100-200 price point.

…I’m always onto the next thing… I wrote this last month and it is still true. Even though I teach and recommend people always stop and reward themselves. Congratulate themselves. Celebrate. I barely ever do. Apparently, I still need to keep learning this lesson.

WHAT’S NEXT?

1. December off. I’m going to write this first to remind myself that I am having 3+ weeks off in December (most of December off.) So for the last quarter I really have October and November to smash off my goals. I had December off last year when I was bed-ridden, and I’ve noticed a pattern of that is when my work in slowest AND my energy is the lowest. So, I’m planning on having December off, forever more.
2. New membership site. Complete rebuild. From the ground up, starting with Cake Business School. I did a CBS audit last month. I had help building a report of the content and user experience and it is time. It was 2 years ago I rebuilt it and I did the best I could with what knowledge, skills and budget I had at the time. Nothing was ”wrong” with it. But it wasn’t 100% right, but you know when something isn’t broken, you don’t fix it? That. It isn’t broken, but it needs to be better. I have a timeline of 2 months (by end of November) and currently at research phase and will be going self-hosted on my own WordPress website (rather than other people hosting, like Teachable). So, the top choices currently is AccessAlly plugin and I’ve booked a demo. After decision making is the head-down-bum-up building.
3. Finish cake business launch. We launch 4 x times per year and currently Price. Market. Sell. is open until 8 October. We have just gone up in price (again) to $197 as the full price point, with a 25% early bird discount. Sales are a little bit down then previous rounds, so will be pivoting slightly and offering an additional 2 bonuses in the final 48 hours of open enrollment (and those bonuses will be for everyone who enrolls this round).
4. Goals. Always, have the goals. I set income goals every month. For September, I set a goal (originally) for $10,000. Stretch goal of $13,000 and super stretch goal of $14,000. I nearly hit $9,000.
   My goal for October is I also reminded myself of my yearly goals of 100,000 pageviews per month for Angel Foods website by 31 December 2018.
5. 3rd business. Starting that in my ‘spare’ time 🙂 I find my sweet spot of productivity is when I’m a bit under the pump. With an income goal of $10,000 per month, recurring within 18 months (12 month goal is $5,000 and 6 month goal is $3,000).

Related: Does Setting Income Goals Really Work?

 

SEPTEMBER 2018 INCOME REPORT

TOTAL INCOME – $8896.27

I’m just finishing my September income and expenses. I made just shy of $8,900 ($8896.27) with $4784.23 expenses ($2900 was 12-months of ConvertKit, which equals $241 per month).
The main Angel Foods website had 65,000 pageviews with most coming from Google and 12,000 p/v from Pinterest (which is 38% of traffic).
Biggest income earner was subscriptions (Cake Business School & Blog Business School) with digital products a close second with 2 main courses ($5K Blog Formula and Price. Market. Sell. cake course).