Hey guys! You’re here because you’ve signed up to receive our monthly income & expenses reports.
The primary goal of these income reports is to give you an idea of how we manage our online endeavours, and to give you an indication of how much it costs to live and travel in the countries that we do. We figured they will also be a great motivator for us to keep striving towards bigger numbers in terms of income at the end of every month.
If you’re new to the blog, you’ll quickly see that our main source of income is our content production business that we created from scratch back in late 2012, you can read more about how we make money online here.
Anyway, let’s get down to business…
The report below is a breakdown of our total income for the month of July as well as a rundown of our expenses and it also states the final figure that we banked for the month.
If you’d like to see our past Income reports then head on over here to check them out!
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| INCOME | EURO € |
| Content Business | 11,654.33 |
| TOTAL INCOME | 11,654.33 |
| EXPENSES | EURO € |
| BUSINESS | |
| Writers | 4,530.50 |
| Namecheap Domain renewal | 10 |
| Skype Calls | 20.50 |
| ATM Fees* | 110 |
| Tech Upkeep | 21.50 |
| TOTAL BUSINESS EXPENSES | 4,692.50 |
| MONTHLY BILLS | |
| Accommodation in hotels etc | 498.10 |
| Vodafone mobile Internet* | 111 |
| Hostgator | 11.50 |
| Freshbooks Accounting subscription | 37.20 |
| Netflix | 7.99 |
| Google apps account | 8 |
| Crowdfire App subscription | 9 |
| Hootsuite | 11.30 |
| Mailchimp | 9.10 |
| Clicky Pro subscription | 9.10 |
| Bluehost | 8.15 |
| TOTAL MONTLY BILLS | 720.44 |
| FOOD/DRINK | |
| Eating Out | 419.55 |
| Cafes | 122.71 |
| Groceries | 48.15 |
| Snacks | 45.95 |
| TOTAL FOOD&DRINK EXPENSES | 636.36 |
| EVERYDAY EXPENSES | |
| Laundry | 13.40 |
| Clothes | 110.50 |
| Batteries | 2.15 |
| New waterproof case for GoPro | 41.30 |
| Tickets to see Derren Browne in London in Jan | 164 |
| Ebooks | 16.25 |
| 2 new phone covers | 16.65 |
| TOTAL EVERYDAY EXPENSES | 364.25 |
| TRAVEL EXPENSES | |
| Bus: Hospet to Bangalore sleeper bus | 17 |
| Bus: Bangalore to Mysore | 12.20 |
| Bus: Mysore to Coimbatore | 10.25 |
| Bus: Coimbatore to Kochi | 10.70 |
| Bus: Local bus around mysore | 1.50 |
| Train: Goa to Hampi | 43 |
| Taxis | 110.40 |
| Private driver/tour in Hampi | 15.80 |
| Metro Card(Bangkok at start of the month | 8.65 |
| Flights: Knock - London return in Jan | 90 |
| Tour: 1 night Boathouse backwater tour in Kerala | 101 |
| Tour: Mysore Palace | 5.60 |
| Tour: Scooter tour in Hampi | 9 |
| Temple donations | 1.60 |
| Temple entrances | 7.15 |
| TOTAL TRAVEL EXPENSES | 443.85 |
| MISC EXPENSES | |
| Medicine | 16 |
| Hair cuts | 14.30 |
| Family gifts | 80 |
| Wisestamp Annual subscription | 54 |
| Galaxy Note 4 Smartphone* | 409 |
| TOTAL MISC EXPENSES | 573.3 |
| TOTAL INCOME | 11,654.33 |
| TOTAL EXPENSES | - 7,430.7 |
| Profit/Loss for the month of June | +€4,223.63 |
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Comments:
INCOME
Boom! €11,654.33 in revenue!
August was officially our first 5 figure month with our online business. Apart from being absolutely delighted that we’ve managed to hit that milestone, we’re also a little bewildered.
We didn’t expect to have our biggest month while travelling in what we thought was going to be one of the most difficult countries in the world – India. (Definitely not the case by the way – future post coming up about that).
When we started out on this online journey back in 2013, our goals were as follows:
1. Make €1,000
2. Make a full-time income
3. Have a 5 figure month
Number 1 and 2 were ticked off after 6 months of creating our freelance business, but number 3 had evaded us.
Until now!
Those of you who’ve been following our income reports over the past few months will have noticed that we’ve been pebble dashing the €10,000 mark for the past two or three months.
Since Feb this year we’ve managed to consistently increase the amount of money we’ve taken in each month.
This is mainly due to the 5 months that we’ve spent in Chiang Mai, Thailand working on scaling the business side of things.
However, at this moment in time, we’re literally at our full capacity in terms of how much work we can handle. This is due to not having enough writers on board.
Currently we have 33 writers but things are constantly changing with new writers coming and going. This is the main headache we face on a weekly basis with our business.
**We’re looking for more writers**
If you’re interested in getting paid to write for us, then please hit reply to this email and we can take it from there. The work is straight forward and if we think you’d be a good match for what we’re looking for then it’s solid, regular work going forwards.
EXPENSES
Again this month, our biggest expense is our awesome team of writers that are located all around the world (Ireland, UK, United States, Canada, Australia).
Like any business, in order to progress you need a good team and structure set up. Thankfully our longterm writers are still pumping out quality content that our clients continue to love.
- Project X
You’ll notice that this month there’s no expenses towards the secret side project. This is because we’ve already pumped a few thousand into it over the past four months, so now it’s time to let things settle and mature for a few months.
We’re hoping that it may open up another steady income stream for us at some stage down the line.
* ATM fees: We’ve started to track our ATM fees, which we totally forgot about up until now.
We don’t exactly know the exact amount since every bank charges different amounts here in India, but we’re giving it a worst case scenario.
* Galaxy Note 4: Florence followed suit a few days after I purchased the Note 4 in Bangkok. We got a great price which worked out at around €409 each for the unlocked version.
* Mobile Internet: We spend a lot on mobile internet this month because without it, we’d end up losing money. Luckily, the mobile internet in India is pretty decent so we’ve stock up on a few 10GB data packages in the month to make sure we’re good to work anywhere.
Profitable Month
We’ve finished off the month of August with a profit of €4,223.63 after all our expenses.
As we’ve said before, our goal is to make a profit of at least €1,000 each month. This helps to keep us on our toes and maintain focus on building up our business.
Hopefully we can someday manage to secure a 5 figure profit month, but for now, we’re more than thankful.
What are your thoughts?
Think there’s something we can improve on with these reports? We’d love to hear from you with any suggestions.
To get in touch, you can send us an email to:
info@nextstopwhoknows.com
And finally…
We wouldn’t be able to do these reports without the very cool and easy to use YNAB software. Using YNAB and incorporating it into our everyday life has literally changed the way we budget, spend and save our money. For the full lowdown on just how great it is, you can read our full review here.
