Below you’ll find all my finance details for June 2018.
I was in Montenegro until June 24th, and was traveling around the UK for the rest of the month (London, York, Lake District).
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 Income | € 5,727 | $ 6,695 |
| Total Expenses | € 3,841 | $ 4,491 |
| Profit/Loss | € 1,886 | $ 2,204 |
Income
| Consulting / Project Management 1 | € 4,950 | $ 5,787 |
| Freedom Business Builder 2 | € 457 | $ 534 |
| Aweber affiliate payment 3 | € 193 | $ 226 |
| Google Adsense 4 | € 75 | $ 88 |
| Patreon 5 | € 34 | $ 40 |
| Book sales (via Amazon) 6 | € 18 | $ 21 |
| Total Income | € 5,727 |
$ 6,695 |
| Last Month | € 7,588 | $ 8,859 |
I didn’t pull in as much as expected in July. Main reason for that was a big consulting gig coming to an end.
Expenses
Food & Drink
| Groceries | € 249 | $ 291 |
| Eating out | € 378 | $ 442 |
| Total | € 627 | $ 733 |
| Last Month | € 566 | $ 661 |
Housing & Utilities
| 3 nights at London Airbnb 7 | € 394 | $ 461 |
| 3 nights at another London Airbnb 8 | € 340 | $ 397 |
| Cleaner for apartment in Kotor | € 10 | $ 12 |
| Total | € 744 | $ 870 |
| Last Month | € 2,486 | $ 2,902 |
Health Care
| SafetyWing travel insurance 9 | € 63 | $ 74 |
| Fish oil supplements | € 22 | $ 26 |
| Total | € 85 | $ 99 |
| Last Month | € 0 | $ 0 |
Travel & Transport
| Fuel: Montenegro rental cars | € 57 | $ 67 |
| Taxi: Kotor to Podgorica airport (Montenegro) | € 52 | $ 61 |
| 1 day rental car in Montenegro | € 40 | $ 47 |
| Bus: Stansted Airport to London city center round trip (x2) | € 39 | $ 46 |
| Taxi: Herceg Novi to Kotor | € 30 | $ 35 |
| Taxis in Kotor | € 26 | $ 30 |
| Montenegro tourist tax | € 20 | $ 23 |
| Ubers in London 10 | € 14 | $ 16 |
| Tube in London | € 13 | $ 15 |
| Ubers in York 11 | € 12 | $ 14 |
| Total | € 303 | $ 354 |
| Last Month | € 735 | $ 858 |
Business Expenses
| Outsourcing 12 | € 1,257 | $ 1,470 |
| Facebook ads 13 | € 159 | $ 186 |
| Hard drive diagnosis 14 | € 129 | $ 151 |
| Dreamhost web hosting 15 | € 102 | $ 119 |
| Hard drive donor parts | € 67 | $ 78 |
| 4 hours in Herceg Novi apartment 16 | € 50 | $ 58 |
| UK prepaid SIM card (x2) | € 34 | $ 40 |
| SmarterQueue 17 | € 19 | $ 22 |
| PayPal fees | € 17 | $ 20 |
| TransferWise fees 18 | € 16 | $ 19 |
| Dreamhost domain registrations and renewals 19 | € 12 | $ 14 |
| Virtual Post Mail 20 | € 8 | $ 10 |
| Patreon fees 21 | € 4 | $ 4 |
| Amazon Web Services (storage) 22 | € 1 | $ 1 |
| ActiveCampaign mailing list software 23 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Elegant Themes 24 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Teamwork project management software 25 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| MemberMouse 26 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Google Drive storage (1TB) 27 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Total | € 1,876 |
$ 2,193 |
| Last Month | € 4,652 | $ 5,431 |
Gifts & Donations
| Flowers | € 33 | $ 39 |
| Monthly Love & Courage podcast donation 28 | € 5 | $ 6 |
| Waking Up podcast donation 29 | € 3 | $ 4 |
| Total | € 41 |
$ 48 |
| Last Month | € 45 | $ 52 |
Books 30
| Conspiracy **** | € 13 | $ 15 |
| Zero to One **** | € 12 | $ 14 |
| Mythology ** | € 3 | $ 4 |
| Total | € 28 |
$ 33 |
| Last Month | € 10 | $ 12 |
Clothing
| Total | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Last Month | € 33 | $ 39 |
Miscellaneous Expenses
| Rafting trip 31 | € 72 | $ 84 |
| Toiletries | € 18 | $ 21 |
| Quarterly banking fee (Irish bank) | € 12 | $ 14 |
| Netflix subscription | € 11 | $ 13 |
| Monthly banking fees (Hong Kong bank) 32 | € 8 | $ 9 |
| iPhone armband 33 | € 7 | $ 8 |
| Ear plugs | € 5 | $ 6 |
| Kitchen cleaning supplies | € 3 | $ 4 |
| Monthly banking fee (Dutch bank) | € 1 | $ 2 |
| Total | € 137 |
$ 161 |
| Last Month | € 147 | $ 171 |
Expense Summary
| Business Expenses | € 1,876 | $ 2,193 |
| Housing & Utilities | € 744 | $ 870 |
| Travel & Transport | € 303 | $ 354 |
| Food & Drink | € 627 | $ 733 |
| Miscellaneous Expenses | € 137 | $ 161 |
| Gifts & Donations | € 41 | $ 48 |
| Clothing | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Books | € 28 | $ 33 |
| Health Care | € 85 | $ 99 |
| Total Expenses | € 3,841 |
$ 4,491 |
| Last Month | € 8,673 | $ 10,125 |
I was aiming to keep everything under €4,000 for the month. Just about managed that.
Biggest Regret?
Dropping my external hard drive in Montenegro.
That’s already cost me a lot of time and money. I spent several hours visiting repair shops in Kotor, rented a car and drove to Herceg Novi to have another repair shop try fix it, but no luck. Now I’m waiting on a place in London to recover the data on the drive, and that’s already cost me $230. If they do manage to fix it, I’ll have to pay them another $500.
Which is all worth it since it will save me from having to spend ~15 hours editing together a video I’d already finished, but it could all have been avoided if I simply hadn’t been so careless and dropped the drive in the first place.
2018 So Far
Here’s how I’m doing this year in terms of profit and loss:
| January | € 2,466 | $ 3,070 |
| February | € 4,384 | $ 5,346 |
| March | € 908 | $ 1,107 |
| April | € 3,594 | $ 4,337 |
| May | € 1,085 | $ 1,266 |
| June | € 1,886 | $ 2,204 |
| Total | € 3,385 | $ 4,106 |
Where That Leaves Me
I had €14,854 / $17,340 to my name at the end of May.
Taking into account all my June income and expenditure, and the most recent exchange rates – I have accounts in EUR, HKD and USD – my total bank and cash balances now work out to €16,727 / $19,555. 34
Outlook For July
Well it’s already the 9th as I’m writing this and so far I’ve spent about €1,600. I’ll be paying another €1,800 in cash for accommodation in Amsterdam for a month, and I’ll spend a bit more on Facebook ads. If I manage to stay under €4,000 total, I’ll be pretty happy.
Income is much harder to predict. I’ve pulled in about €1,600 already, but don’t have any other consulting gigs lined up. Nor am I looking for any, as I want to focus on marketing my course and making more YouTube videos. Hopefully I can end the month with at least €2,000 in revenue from my course, which would take me close to €4,000 total income.
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.
