Last month I talked about how incredibly slow and drawn out February was. March was the exact opposite. Yay for decent weather!
March Happenings
March was a pretty good month. I felt like time went by fast and was amazed at the difference good weather made in my attitude and motivation.
It’s crazy how that works!
I still had no babysitter in March which made work incredibly challenging. I managed to get done everything that needed done. March was just a super busy work month, which should show in April. It was also a good family month. And I finally got to get outside!
I went fishing once, got to go to the shooting range, and was even able to go on walks through the woods! I’m so happy to get to be back outside. We also made Easter cookies and eggs and my brother and his child doggy came over to help.
Since I work from home my outdoor time pretty much equates for all my social interaction which is why February was so depressing.
(I seriously very rarely leave the house unless I’m doing something with one of my brothers which is generally always an outdoor activity!)
March Online Income
I expected March to be around the $4,000 mark but I actually did much better. I credit this to just having some really good freelancing clients, which I’m grateful for.
March ended up being my best income month and I’m still kind of in shock with what I did. April is on track to be a very similar month as well.
I know when I set my income goal at $60,000 this year that seemed like a huge number for me. I only earned around $30,000 a year working two day jobs! But now I’m honestly feeling like I can beat that $60,000 a year mark. On the other hand I don’t want to get too confident with this as you never know what can happen.
I’m just going to keep being incredibly grateful for the progress I make each month.
Okay, enough jibber jabber. In March I made $4,965.27 (This is for payments I actually received in March.)
It broke down to:
- Freelancing $3,000 (yes, exactly $3,000 even)
- Blogging $1,965.27
BUT I think it’s super helpful for me (and for anyone who is ever thinking of becoming self-employed) to realize that even though I earned $4,965.27 I do not get to pocket all that money. My expenses were low but I also have to pay a lot in taxes.
Here’s a screenshot showing my spreadsheet where I keep track of all of this. You’ll see that after expenses and taxes I only get to keep $3,558.20 That means if I want to net $60,00 per year (which the initial goal was to just gross that) I’d actually have to bring in $6,700 per month or more.
That’s not to say I’m disappointed with what I did I’m actually in a little bit of disbelief and at the same time, motivated to try and do better each and every month!
March was also my highest traffic month which will be reflected in my April income report. I’m going to do a more in depth post of my six month progress with EBA showing some of my six month comparison screen shots to traffic and income here soon. It’s pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. (Plus for anyone wondering I want to show you how diversified my traffic is. I promise it’s not all from Pinterest. In fact, Pinterest isn’t even my main traffic source! However, I believe that social media is what caused an incredible jump in my main traffic source.
In the meantime Ruth is offering a completely free EBA mini course starting April 7th. You can sign up here. EBA enrollment opens up April 14th and it won’t open back up until 2016 after that. If you’ve thought about signing up this will be your only chance in 2015 🙁
P.S. If you’re interested in starting a blog too, check out How to Start a Blog for Only $12 per Year. This post walks you through setting up your own WordPress blog through GoDaddy, my favorite hosting company.
Other Random Life Stuff
I need to do some life update posts soon because I have so much to tell you. One thing being that I’m having some problems with my littlest one.
Kindergarten registration is next Thursday and I’m incredibly nervous to take Ava. We’ve been having some major attachment issues. I found a babysitter who started Monday but by Wednesday Ava refused to go. There was jut nothing I could do to get her to go. (Babysitter has been picking her up.) And she’s freaking out about starting Kindergarten.
At this point I’m almost wondering if it would be better to hold her back another year but then I think the attachment issues might get worse if I did that. Kailyn couldn’t wait to start school. Ava is having major anxiety over it. It’s breaking my heart and I know that I will cry my eyes out when I have to drop her off for her first day of Kindergarten.
Deep breaths.
Okay, I better end this post before I start writing a book on my life. I’ll give you some more updates over the next few weeks!
How was your March?
Congratulations on another awesome month! A lot of bloggers have mentioned the EBA, so I’m wondering whether at some point I should take the plunge and enrol. It definitely seems as if it’s worth the month! I hope April is just as good to you 🙂
For me it has been sooo worth it. I’ll have to calculate but I’ve probably made 10-20 times the money back over the last six months from blog income (if not more) I’ve taken a ton of course and I absolutely love EBA!
Everytime I read about your blogging and freelancing success it always motivates me. I signed up for EBA but have not started the course. This week I took off work because of course its spring break and being a single mom I have to take care of my child. So I’m gonna take the time out and do the course. Thank you for the motivation as usual.
I remember my daughter starting kindergarten and when I look back I think it was way more stressful for me then her. When my daughter saw all those other kids she didn’t even look back. Hopefully it’ll be the same for you.
Thanks Petrish 🙂 Congrats to you too though on scoring the GRS writing job!
My oldest daughter started Kindergarten this current school year and it wasn’t so bad. We both had tears in our eyes on the first day. (I managed to make it to the hallway before I went into full fledged crying mode.) And then after that first day everything was great. She loves school but she was ready to in the first place. My youngest is attached to my hip. She cries when she has to go to do her Dad’s for a weekend. She won’t go to Sunday school, won’t do gymnastics class without her sister, etc. I’d say I’m going to have a pretty rough first month of her being in Kindergarten. Time will tell! (We have sign ups on Thursday!) I’m honestly not ready for her to either though. 🙁 It’s going to be hard.
Congratulations Alexa! I can’t wait to read about your little one attachment issues because I am going through some major one with my little one. Including lack of sleep. Anyway, I am really happy for you and your success. You are an inspiration.
I feel your pain on the attachment issues. It’s really hard. And I honestly don’t know what do. I’m afraid I’ll be sitting in a Kindergarten classroom for a couple weeks come September!
Alexa, I absolutely love reading these posts and am so excited for you! I also socialize more when it warms up: hiking, biking, and walking around. I am so excited that I basically get to skip Winter 2015 and enjoy spring instead.
Thanks you 🙂 Yes I am so, so happy to be outside again. It is absolutely insane the way the weather effects my mood!
Congrats! You’re kicking butt! So awesome you’ve almost hit your goal in the first quarter.
Thank you!
Congrats on the income! you deserve it! I wish there was a clear road of you work this hard and do this much and you can make 5,000 a month. It’s not like that though it’s a lot more foggy of a road. 🙁
Hope it works out for your daughter. It will definitely be stressful for a while i think. 🙂
Thank you 🙂 Yeah there’s definitely no clear cut path. I think it takes a lot of experimenting and patience. I think building up my confidence has been a big part of the income jump too. (which will probably always be a work in progress!)
That’s why it’s a good idea to start on the side and build up from there 🙂
Congrats on such a great month! I hope things go well with Ava….my youngest is still a while off from that big day, but even now I have a feeling we’re going to have similar issues. Clicked through to the EBA link…where is the mini course?
Let me recheck the link. Was there a sign up box there? The free course starts on April 7th. It’s three sections of the actual EBA course which includes part of the Pinterest section 🙂
So I doubled check that appears to be the link for the course. I think once you sign up you’ll start getting the mini course emailed to you on the 7th.
I love these kinds of posts, thanks for sharing! I have thought about signing up for the EBA, but want to make sure I have the time. I struggle with the winter months and socializing as well. Spring seems to make everything better!
Thank you for being so transparent about your life and your finances. It is so refreshing and encouraging to see you being so open. You are also letting us know how we can be successful with the same things that you are doing to become self sufficient. I do not work from home but I am a single mommy who from time to time becomes discouraged with finances. I have been learning a lot about how to increase my income and I hope that I can implement some of the ideas that you provide. Thank you for your honesty.
Thanks for shareing your progress with all of us! Very inspiring. Good luck with Kindergarten!
Thank you!
Hi Alexa! Thanks for these behind-the-scenes peeks– it’s really helpful to see what’s possible! I’m so happy to see this blog is making a healthy profit for you these days– you’re proving that it can be done! I wanted to ask, if you don’t mind: at this point, what percentage of your freelance income comes from business writing (i.e. writing for blogs of companies that offer physical products or services) and what percentage comes from writing posts for other bloggers?