These are my online business finances for January 2021.
I spent the whole month in Tbilisi, Georgia.
I’ve been tracking everything I earn and spend since January 2011, just a few weeks after quitting my day job. Every month since, I’ve published one of these finance reports.
Sharing this info publicly keeps me accountable and hopefully gives you some insight into how I earn a living online.
Patrons get to see each new report before anyone else.
💵 Summary
| Total Business Income | € 14,539 | $ 17,647 |
| Total Business Expenses | € 4,315 | $ 5,237 |
| Profit | € 10,224 | $ 12,410 |
🤑 Business Income
| Affiliate income (see below) | € 14,270 | $ 17,320 |
| Patreon 1 | € 250 | $ 304 |
| Book sales (via Amazon) | € 15 | $ 18 |
| Tip Jar 2 | € 4 | $ 5 |
| Total Income | € 14,539 |
$ 17,647 |
| Previous Month | € 17,974 | $ 21,979 |
I was expecting my income to be at least $12k. Brought in a good bit more than that. I could probably do a better job of predicting affiliate income but not sure there’s much advantage to that.
👍 Affiliate Income
Affiliate payments in January came from…
(Btw, I don’t necessarily recommend everything I earn affiliate income from. Sometimes I’ll write a negative review of something and people will still sign up to it via my link. Humans are weird like that.)
Here’s a progress chart for affiliate income since starting eBiz Facts…
Note that, to keep things simple for myself on a day-to-day basis, I practice cash accounting rather than accrual accounting.
“Under the cash method of accounting, sales are recorded when cash is received, and expenses are recorded when cash is sent out. It’s straightforward and intuitive. The problem with the cash method, however, is that it doesn’t always reflect the economic reality of a situation.” – Accounting Made Simple
The economic reality of affiliate marketing is that some companies pay their affiliates every month, while others have irregular payment schedules. As a result, my affiliate income can look more inconsistent month-to-month than it actually is.
💸 Business Expenses
🤝 Hired Help
| Hired Help 3 | € 1,708 | $ 2,073 |
| Previous Month | € 1,777 | $ 2,173 |
📆 Subscriptions
| Teamwork project management software (annual) 4 | € 217 | $ 264 |
| Trends (annual) 5 | € 166 | $ 202 |
| Zoom (annual) 6 | € 116 | $ 141 |
| Google Drive storage (annual) 7 | € 82 | $ 100 |
| Readwise (annual) 8 | € 44 | $ 54 |
| AAWP (annual) 9 | € 20 | $ 24 |
| YouTube Premium (monthly) 10 | € 10 | $ 12 |
| Adobe Photoshop (monthly) | € 9 | $ 11 |
| Virtual Post Mail (monthly) 11 | € 8 | $ 10 |
| Copycall (monthly) 12 | € 5 | $ 6 |
| Ahrefs (annual) 13 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Elementor Pro (annual) 14 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Hexowatch 15 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| SocialBee 16 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Surfer (annual) 17 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Total | € 678 | $ 823 |
| Previous Month | € 1,298 | $ 1,588 |
🤓 Hosting & Domains
| Kinsta hosting 18 | € 1,321 | $ 1,604 |
| Previous Month | € 72 | $ 88 |
📚 Books
| The Psychology of Money | € 9 | $ 11 |
| The Mom Test | € 8 | $ 10 |
| Sons of Wichita | € 2 | $ 3 |
| Total | € 19 | $ 24 |
| Previous Month | € 11 | $ 13 |
- See my book ratings and everything I’m currently reading over at Goodreads
🏦 Transaction Fees
| Transaction fees 19 | € 541 | $ 656 |
| Previous Month | € 501 | $ 613 |
💻 Home Office Expenses
| Phone credit | € 12 | $ 15 |
| Previous Month | € 264 | $ 323 |
📋 Admin Expenses
| Total | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Previous Month | € 0 | $ 0 |
🤷♂️ Miscellaneous Expenses
| Awario 20 | € 24 | $ 29 |
| Amazon Web Services (storage) 21 | € 7 | $ 9 |
| MoneyWiz 3 22 | € 4 | $ 5 |
| Total | € 35 | $ 43 |
| Previous Month | € 72 | $ 88 |
💸 Expense Summary
| Hired Help | € 1,708 | $ 2,073 |
| Hosting & Domains | € 1,321 | $ 1,604 |
| Subscriptions | € 678 | $ 823 |
| Transaction Fees | € 541 | $ 656 |
| Miscellaneous | € 35 | $ 43 |
| Books | € 19 | $ 24 |
| Home Office Expenses | € 12 | $ 15 |
| Admin Expenses | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Total Expenses | € 4,315 |
$ 5,237 |
| Previous Month | € 3,996 | $ 4,887 |
I was expecting to spend under $4k overall. Went over mainly because I decided to upgrade my hosting and switch to annual plans on a few subscriptions.
😢 Biggest Regret?
Nothing significant.
🔮 Outlook For February
Expenses should be less than $4,000.
Income should be at least $15,000.
📲 How I Track All This
Curious as to how I track everything I earn and spend? Check this video…
💬 Feedback Welcome
Thoughts? Questions? Speak up in the comments below.
🗂 Archived Finance Reports
I’ve been posting these monthly finance reports since January, 2011. You can view all my old reports via this page.
Hi Niall,
Here a huge follower of what you have done so far. I want to congratulate you for your last year, for reinventing yourself from a remote worker to a more “passive” income entrepreneur.
I just want to ask about 2 subjects:
Taxes:
How do you declare taxes? Where is your company registered? Are you registered in the same place as your company? Do you have any tips on this?
I think there is not much honest and concise people like you out on internet telling this kind of things.
Profit investments:
Do you reinvest all your profits or do you invest them on stocks, crypto, real estate?
Thank you for all the information that you have provided us!!
Wish you the best,
Santiago
Hey Santiago, thanks for the comment.
My company is registered in the United States and I pay taxes in Georgia (the country). But my situation is quite unique so I would advise consulting with a tax professional to figure out the best setup for you. In my experience, there are no easy answers for tax stuff, unfortunately. There are lots of variables to take into consideration, especially if you’re a digital nomad type.
As for investments, I’m not very sophisticated with this. I do reinvest some profits into the business and I also use a robo-advisor. But I’m no expert on this topic either!
Hey
I just cancelled my subscription to wealthy affiliate after just paying today as I read your review of it and all it’s comments. I had initially felt I’d done plenty of extensive research beforehand and it all appeared legit. Then I all of a sudden see your review and it’s comments and I think wow he must know what he’s talking about so I look at the affiliate sites you’re earning from and see that the outlay is so very much more and such a huge loss if your reviews are no better than any others I’ve seen. How on earth are people supposed to earn money without laying out such big amounts to even try these sites?? I’m stuck. I want to be aiming to become my own boss and working from home earning a decent living but it’s virtually impossible to get 100% truthful free information and even then you have to pay hundreds before earning a penny. If I could afford that I would stick to my mundane day job! Why do you have to pay out money to earn it back? Why can you just not get free help and do it yourself ? Please help? I’ve searched and searched. I just want to change my life so that I am one day able to spend hundreds on something if that makes any sense !!!
Hi Kim,
It sounds like you’re trying to achieve too much right from the start. As per this framework, I consider a basic affiliate website to be a Level 3 online business (Referral), and a more advanced affiliate website to be a Level 4 online business (Authority).
You should start with a Level 2 online business, like Freelancing or a Remote Job. With those, you don’t need to spend much (or sometimes anything) before you start earning. Whereas higher level businesses usually require you to invest more time and money up front to eventually get a good return.
Imagine you wanted to become a professional athlete. The fastest way would be to buy all the best equipment and hire the best coaches. That would save you time but it would cost you quite a lot of money. If you’re on a budget, you have to take it slower and figure more things out yourself via trial and error.
It’s the same with building a business, especially a higher-level business.