Smutlancer Monthly Income Report: January 2019
Spoiler alert — January’s income is down from December (which was a personal best) and even down from November. I’m okay with it because I know why. Fewer sales after Christmas and fewer projects in December/January because I took time off. It’s still a great month, and you’ll hear no complaints from me.
This is also the first month I’m tracking blog income for myself. While it’s still calculated in with all my income, I look forward to seeing what (if any) growth I have over the next several months. If I manage to make that happen, I’ll share that information separately, and we can discuss why it’s growing and how that relates to your own goals.
January 2019 Income
My January income is primarily based on work completed in December. I bill clients on the last day of every month, and they have 10 days to pay. Affiliate sales tend to pay quarterly, but some pay monthly. I break down my freelance writing between vanilla and sex content because I want to show what’s possible in either category.
It’s a new year, and although it’s a time to start fresh, old invoices and recurring bills still have to be paid. So I don’t look at this income as a new count — it’s a continuation of what was started in 2018.
- Freelance Writing
- Vanilla Content: $2180.00
- Sex/Adult Content: $5550.00
- Affiliate Sales: $17.10
- Podcast Sponsorship: —
- Sponsored Blog Posts: —
- Website Sponsorship: —
- Banner Ads: —
- Book Sales: $11.93
- Patreon: $153.00
- Consulting: —
- Donations: $20.00
- Bonus (from client): $100.00
- Product Sales: $196.76
Total Income: $8,228.79 (down $1,376.91 from December)
January 2019 Expenses
Some expenses are monthly, some quarterly, and some annual. Taxes are something I save for monthly to be paid quarterly. When income does down, so do some expenses (thankfully).
- Web Hosting: $42.98
- Domain Renewals: —
- Podcast Hosting: $32.00
- Canva —
- Buffer: $10.00
- InLinkz: $2.99 (linky tool for Masturbation Monday)
- Blog Contributors: $20.75
- Taxes: $1000.00
- Payment Fees (PayPal, Stripe): $255.52
- Shipping/Postage: $35.80
- Tech Support: —
- Patreon: $25.00 (creators I support)
- Copyscape (playgerism checker): —
- TinyPNG (image compression): —
- DepositPhotos (stock photo): — $29.00
- Wavve (a podcast promo tool): $10.00
Total Expenses: $1,464.04 (down $177.90 over December)
I removed two annual expenses, because I don’t want those to become recurring annual expenses.
January 2019 Net Income: $6,764.75 (↓ $1,199.01 from December)
Right now, I’m slowly getting all my information together for my taxes. Because John Brownstone and I have a goal of buying a new house in 2020, our income taxes are a big deal. We need to show we made enough money that a mortgage company will approve us. When we buy, they’re going to look at an average of two years worth of income based on our tax returns because we’re self-employed. So 2018 and 2019 are very important years.
But I’m also feeling burned out and wonder if I can pull back on some of my workload — especially since the real goal is to make a steady income from my websites, podcasts, and other content. Getting our taxes done by April will tell us what we made (after taxes and deductions) and if we need to increase our income for 2019, hold steady, or if I can pull back a little. It’s completely up in the air, and if you think it would be stressful — you’re right.
What I do know is, based on my gross income, I exceeded both my “this is doable” goal and my stretch goal. So I gave myself a new financial goal this year.
If there’s any interest in knowing my income goals, plus my actual total annual income, let me know. Once I’ve done my taxes, I can do a special breakdown of gross income, net income, taxes, deductions, etc. I’m not going to offer tax advice, but if anyone’s curious about what it looks like after a year, I’m happy to share.
