Smutlancer Monthly Income Report: June 2020
For proof that time has no meaning, I am genuinely surprised at my income for June because I expected it to fall drastically. Why? Because I parted ways with a client and thought that impacted my June income. In fact, the difference will be felt in the July income. It was a mutual parting, but it served to remind me that sometimes I think leaving a client will be a bigger deal to the client than it really is. (They didn’t really care, and we moved on with our lives very quickly.) In other time-is-irrelevant news, I also forgot that June was the month when I had a few additional expenses, some one-time, some recurring.
June 2020 income was better than June 2019 and yet, my net income has fallen several hundred dollars since the beginning of the year. Not sure if that means anything. We shall see if it’s an indication of anything significant or just a typical blip in the life of a freelancer. This is one reason why I like to track the numbers. Yes, I want to see the growth, but I also need to see how, when, and where the totals decrease, too.
June 2020 Income
June income is primarily based on work completed in May. 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.
Note: For those who are curious, I am linking “Sex/Adult Content” to a post I wrote that outlines what kind of work that means for this year. If it changes drastically in 2021 or even later in the year, I may update it. But if you’re curious about what “Sex/Adult Content” means, click the link.
- Freelance Writing
- Vanilla Content: $830.00
- Sex/Adult Content: $5825.00
- Affiliate Sales: $222.61
- Podcast Sponsorship: —
- Sponsored Blog Posts: —
- Website Sponsorship: —
- Banner Ads: —
- Book Sales: $39.38
- Patreon: $982.00
- Consulting: —
- Donations: —
- Bonus (from client): —
- Product Sales: —
Total Income: $7,898.99 (up $62.38 from May)
June 2020 Expenses
Some expenses are monthly, some quarterly, and some annual. Taxes are something I save monthly to be paid quarterly.
- Web Hosting: $67.67
- Domain Renewals: $30.94
- Podcast Hosting: $32.00
- Canva: —
- Buffer: $10.00
- InLinkz: $2.99
- Blog Contributors: $65.00
- Taxes: $1000.00
- Payment Fees (PayPal, Stripe): $301.25
- Shipping/Postage: —
- Tech Support: $169.84
- DepositPhotos (stock photo): $29.00
- MailerLite (email newsletter): $15.00
- Adobe Premiere Pro: $21.00
- Closed Captions (YouTube Videos): $31.25
- Business Internet: $215.68
Total Expenses: $1,991.61 (up $255.29 from May)
June 2020 Net Income: $5907.37 (↓ $192.91 from May)
I have a few business-related purchases not included in the “expenses” section. But only because the money to buy these items didn’t come from our monthly income. It came from our savings and a business loan we applied for. (This is something I thought John Brownstone and I would never do — but the interest rate and payback options were too good to pass up.) These were all items we intended to purchase, but we didn’t know when — until the money landed in our laps. As they don’t fit neatly, I didn’t list them above, but in the interest of transparency, it seems wrong not to mention them.
What did we buy? So far two computers and a camera — all equipment upgrades. I’m finally using a full-size computer (iMac) instead of a 13″ laptop. We also now have a dedicated recording set-up for podcasts, videos, and live streams. And the final (Smutlancer) purchase is a new camera for video and for product pictures.
The scary part about investing in your business and your work is that you have to make the expense worth it (or at least earn back some of what you spent). I genuinely believe these purchases will do that — by improving the quality of our content and by making our content creation more efficient. But only time will tell if it was a good investment or not.