Below you’ll find all my finance details for July 2020.
Apart from a short holiday in Kazbegi, I spent the entire 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 | € 15,705 | $ 18,562 |
Total Business Expenses | € 1,117 | $ 1,320 |
Profit | € 14,588 | $ 17,242 |
🤑 Business Income
Affiliate income (see below) | € 15,429 | $ 18,236 |
Patreon 1 | € 220 | $ 260 |
eBiz Weekly coffee fund 2 | € 29 | $ 34 |
Book sales (via Amazon) | € 27 | $ 32 |
Total Income | € 15,705 |
$ 18,562 |
Previous Month | € 8,026 | $ 9,017 |
I was expecting my income to be about $15k for the month, so July turned out better than expected.
It was a big increase from the previous month, and by far the most my business has ever earned in a single month. I credit the success to a few things:
- Traffic boost since the latest Google core algorithm update
- SEO tweaks and improvements from earlier this year starting to pay off
- Newest review content starting to rank higher in Google
- More people looking for info related to making money online during the pandemic
- A lot of luck
👍 Affiliate Income
Affiliate payments in July came from…
(Btw, I don’t necessarily recommend everything I earn affiliate income from. Sometimes I’ll write a bad 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
🤝 Outsourcing
Outsourcing 3 | € 317 | $ 375 |
Total | € 317 | $ 375 |
Previous Month | € 679 | $ 763 |
📆 Monthly Subscriptions
Surfer 4 | € 50 | $ 59 |
Ahrefs 5 | € 23 | $ 27 |
Zoom 6 | € 13 | $ 15 |
YouTube Premium 7 | € 10 | $ 12 |
Adobe Photoshop | € 9 | $ 11 |
Google Drive storage (1TB) 8 | € 9 | $ 10 |
Virtual Post Mail 9 | € 9 | $ 10 |
Copycall 10 | € 5 | $ 6 |
Total | € 127 | $ 151 |
🤓 Hosting & Domains
Dreamhost 11 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Kinsta 12 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Total | € 0 | $ 0 |
Previous Month | € 834 | $ 937 |
📚 Books
How To Get Rich | € 4 | $ 5 |
Total | € 4 |
$ 5 |
- See my book ratings and everything I’m currently reading over at Goodreads
🏦 Transaction Fees
PayPal fees | € 552 | $ 652 |
Patreon fees 13 | € 28 | $ 33 |
Transferwise fees | € 28 | $ 33 |
ClickBank fees | € 9 | $ 10 |
Total | € 617 | $ 729 |
💻 Office Expenses
Phone credit | € 9 | $ 11 |
Internet | € 9 | $ 10 |
Total | € 18 | $ 21 |
🤷♂️ Miscellaneous Expenses
Brain Booster (30 day supply) | € 15 | $ 18 |
123rf image credits | € 13 | $ 15 |
Amazon Web Services (storage) 14 | € 6 | $ 7 |
Sendy 15 | € 0 | $ 0 |
SocialBee 16 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Teamwork project management software 17 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Total | € 34 | $ 40 |
💸 Expense Summary
Transaction Fees | € 617 | $ 729 |
Outsourcing | € 317 | $ 375 |
Monthly Subscriptions | € 127 | $ 151 |
Miscellaneous | € 34 | $ 40 |
Office Expenses | € 18 | $ 21 |
Books | € 4 | $ 5 |
Hosting & Domains | € 0 | $ 0 |
Total Expenses | € 1,117 |
$ 1,320 |
Previous Month | € 1,989 | $ 2,235 |
Very happy I was able to keep expenses that low while earning more than $10k.
😢 Biggest Regret?
Nothing significant.
2020 So Far
Here’s how my business is doing this year in terms of profit and loss:
January | € 84 | $ 94 |
February | € 3.424 | $ 3,776 |
March | € 3,366 | $ 3,710 |
April | € 3,240 | $ 3,542 |
May | € 4,246 | $ 4,717 |
June | € 6,037 | $ 6,782 |
July | € 14,588 | $ 17,242 |
Total | € 34,985 | $ 39,863 |
🔮 Outlook For August
I plan to buy a few things for my home office in the coming weeks, may happen in August. So that could push expenses as high as $4,000.
Income will be down a good bit but I should still clear $10,000.
📲 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,
Do you break down the affiliate income by product/service? I guess that might be sharing a bit too much but it would be interesting to see the percentages and what’s driving commissions.
It would also help to see what converts.
Anyway, congratulations. That’s fast growth.
Hey Keith,
Nope, decided not to do that. I’ve seen other affiliate marketers sharing the exact breakdown of their earnings and they all seem to stop doing it after a while. Not sure if it’s because it invites competition or because of the inevitable criticism if one program dominates their earnings. (Maybe both.) I figured it’d be better to trust their experience than learn the hard way myself.
If my earnings keep increasing I may stop sharing these reports altogether. At a certain point it’ll probably feel like I’m showing off.
How’s that Brain Booster supplement? Any noticeable effects?
Haven’t received it yet. Shipping from the USA so it takes a while. Should have it next week.
You may have noticed that I changed the format of the report this month.
The main change is that I’m now only reporting business income and expenses. In previous reports I also shared my personal income, expenses, and savings. That was interesting in the beginning when I was living the digital nomad lifestyle and transitioning from employee to self-employed. 10 years later, I’m not traveling so much and I daresay I’ve completed the transition, so my personal income/expenses aren’t so interesting anymore.
Also, regarding personal expenses, as I get older I’d rather not share every little detail of what I spend my money on. Total transparency inevitably leads to more questions and judgements from readers, and I no longer want to spend time or energy dealing with those. It can get exhausting.
Last thing: I updated the “2020 So Far” table so it now shows only profit/loss numbers related to the business. Previously it showed profit/loss numbers that included personal income and expenses. So if you’re wondering why the numbers for Jan, Feb, etc. are different for this month compared to last, there’s your answer.
I was just about to ask about the change, as I noticed you are no longer mentioning how much you own under your name
Either way, this is AMAZING! I was thinking you would definitely hit $10k a month by the end of the year but this just came so much earlier!
And I’m truly happy for you! I remember how you shared this idea with us during the EOY Sprint Call and how we went through a few ideas when we met in Chiang Mai last time.
Awesome awesome job Niall. Looking forward to see you hit your next milestone. If you’ve ever thought of making a case study video out of this result, please do lol!
Thanks so much, Hazel!