These are my online business finances for May 2022.
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 | € 13,195 | $ 14,160 |
| Total Business Expenses | € 1,512 | $ 1,623 |
| Profit | € 11,682 | $ 12,537 |
🤑 Business Income
| Affiliate income (see below) | € 12,993 | $ 13,944 |
| Patreon 1 | € 192 | $ 206 |
| Tip Jar 2 | € 5 | $ 5 |
| Book sales (via Amazon) | € 4 | $ 5 |
| Total Income | € 13,195 |
$ 14,160 |
| Previous Month | € 10,904 | $ 11,496 |
I was expecting my income to be around $13k for the month. Did a bit better than that.
👍 Affiliate Income
Affiliate payments in May 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 | € 639 | $ 686 |
| Previous Month | € 1,786 | $ 1,883 |
📆 Subscriptions
| Teamwork (annual) 4 | € 81 | $ 87 |
| Cloudflare Pro Plan (monthly) 5 | € 19 | $ 20 |
| Secret outreach tool 😉 | € 18 | $ 19 |
| Adobe Photoshop (monthly) | € 11 | $ 12 |
| EasyCron (annual) | € 11 | $ 12 |
| YouTube Premium (monthly) 6 | € 11 | $ 12 |
| Virtual Post Mail (monthly) 7 | € 9 | $ 10 |
| Copycall (monthly) 8 | € 7 | $ 8 |
| AAWP (annual) 9 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Ahrefs (annual) 10 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| BerryCast 11 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Candidate Checker (lifetime) | € 0 | $ 0 |
| ClickUp (annual) 12 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| ConvertBox 13 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| ExpressVPN (annual) | € 0 | $ 0 |
| GeneratePress Premium (annual) 14 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Google Drive storage (annual) 15 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Income School’s Project 24 (annual) 16 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| JotForm (annual) 17 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| LastPass (annual) 18 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Readwise (annual) 19 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| SocialBee 20 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| SOUNDRAW 21 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Surfer (annual) 22 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Trends (annual) 23 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Zoom (annual) 24 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Total | € 167 | $ 180 |
| Previous Month | € 472 | $ 498 |
🤓 Hosting & Domains
| Dreamhost 25 | € 30 | $ 33 |
| Kinsta (annual) 26 | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Total | € 30 | $ 33 |
| Previous Month | € 156 | $ 165 |
📚 Books
| Work Less, Make More | € 3 | $ 3 |
| Total | € 3 | $ 3 |
| Previous Month | € 0 | $ 0 |
- See my book ratings and everything I’m currently reading over at Goodreads
🏦 Transaction Fees
| Transaction fees 27 | € 503 | $ 540 |
| Previous Month | € 423 | $ 446 |
💻 Office Expenses
| Phone credit | € 17 | $ 19 |
| Skype credit | € 9 | $ 10 |
| Internet | € 7 | $ 8 |
| Total | € 34 | $ 36 |
| Previous Month | € 26 | $ 28 |
📋 Admin Expenses
| USA LLC renewal | € 116 | $ 125 |
| Total | € 116 | $ 125 |
| Previous Month | € 95 | $ 100 |
🎁 Gifts & Donations
| Total | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Previous Month | € 753 | $ 794 |
🤷♂️ Miscellaneous Expenses
| Amazon Web Services (storage) 28 | € 19 | $ 20 |
| Total | € 19 | $ 20 |
| Previous Month | € 18 | $ 19 |
💸 Expense Summary
| Hired Help | € 639 | $ 686 |
| Transaction Fees | € 503 | $ 540 |
| Subscriptions | € 167 | $ 180 |
| Admin Expenses | € 116 | $ 125 |
| Office Expenses | € 34 | $ 36 |
| Hosting & Domains | € 30 | $ 33 |
| Miscellaneous | € 19 | $ 20 |
| Books | € 3 | $ 3 |
| Gifts & Donations | € 0 | $ 0 |
| Total Expenses | € 1,512 |
$ 1,623 |
| Previous Month | € 3,730 | $ 3,932 |
I was expecting to spend about $3,000 overall. Came in way under that.
😢 Biggest Regret?
Nothing significant.
2022 So Far
Here’s how I’m doing this year in terms of profit and loss:
| January | € 8,842 | $ 9,911 |
| February | € 5,246 | $ 5,888 |
| March | € 11,214 | $ 12,443 |
| April | € 7,174 | $ 7,564 |
| May | € 11,682 | $ 12,537 |
| Total | € 44,158 | $ 48,343 |
🔮 Outlook For June
I expect expenses to be around $2000.
Income should be about $14,000.
📲 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, I’m always fascinated about the breakdowns. What I’m interested in is the time is money concept. So what do you estimate your time spent to earn this? That includes doing all the research, writing updating etc etc. It would be really interesting to compare that with time spent on say doing ebay selling or something like that.
Thank you for sharing and look forward to your updates.
Hey Carla. I’ve started calculating my Effective Hourly Rate (EHR) each month. That’s my business profit divided by the working hours I tracked for the month. Last month it worked out to $153 per hour. I’m aiming to double that by the end of the year, mainly by hiring more help. It can be a bit of a misleading statistic for my business though, as much of the day-to-day work I do may not pay off for several months. So I could work a lot more hours next month and end up with a much lower EHR, but that could result in big profits later in the year when I might be working much less.