Hey friend,

It’s that time of the month where I write an income report – laying out all the details about how much money I made last month, how business was and if I achieved any of my monthly goals.

Why do I write income reports?

Because I LOVE reading them! Early on in my business I really enjoyed reading other people’s income reports and so I started creating my own. I also noticed sharing my income and expenses makes me a better business owner. It creates public accountability that I’m working on my goals and helps me keep a close eye on the profitability of my business.

How does my business make money?

I’m an online course designer and launch strategist. My business makes money by working with clients to help them create or manage their online courses or digital products.

Most of my income comes from working as a service provider, but I also make some money through affiliate income, coaching and selling templates

My April 2024 Income: $9,450.00

Client Work	$8,942.50
Coaching Calls	$400
Affiliate Income	$107.50

Here’s a Look at My Income So Far This Year

January	$13,338.33
February	$10,616.89
March	$10,663.22
April	$9,450.00
Total	$44,068.44

My Expenses

• Gsuite: $7.20 – This is what lets me have my email be mara@marakucirek.com instead of marakucirek@gmail.com
• Descript: $15 – Captioning software that helps me edit videos. I mostly use this for client work.
• Panera: $5.36 – Coffee purchased while working and meeting a client in person
• LLC Renewal Fee: $138.75 – This is a yearly fee I pay in order to have my business set-up as an LLC
• Virtual Assistant: $340 – My VA helps me schedule my emails, manage my bookkeeping, schedule blog posts, create new Pinterest pins and a variety of other small tasks that help clear up my bandwidth to focus on client work
• Tubebuddy: $7.50 – A tool that helps you title Youtube videos. I currently have a couple of clients where we are leveraging their Youtube channel to help with an upcoming launch
• Libsyn: $7 – This is where my podcast, Create a Better Course is hosted
• Loom: $96 – This is the annual price. I use Loom multiple times a day in my business to record client updates, train team members and create videos
• Dubsado: $20 – I use Dubsado to invoice clients and send out contracts. Since I’m not always taking on new clients I pause my subscription sometimes in-between booking seasons
• Tailwind: $119.88 – To help me schedule out my Pinterest

Total: $756.69

How Did My Goals For April Goal?

1.  Date night with my husband to talk about our long term plans – Done!

My husband and I have been trying to figure out some big picture life planning stuff around where we want to live long term, when we want to buy a house and what the vision for our family looks like. We made a lot of progress in April though the main answer for us right now is that we don’t know for sure where we want to buy a house and live long term.

If you listened to my podcast episode about my goals for this year, exploring the next step of where we want to live was a big goal of mine in 2024.

2. Work on my dog’s anxiety – Done, but she’s still anxious

To give you a brief recap – I have two border collies. One is super happy go lucky and the other has always had an extreme amount of anxiety. She’s on the older side now and I recently noticed that the anxiety was creeping in more so in April I focused on a few different things to try to help her be able to relax more. She’s better. We worked with our veterinary behaviorist to adjust her medication, have adjusted our daily routine of walks/feeding and done a few other things, but she’s still an anxious dog.

3. Create 2 new pins each week for Pinterest – Failed

I did this the first week of April and then completely fell off the wagon. Moving forward I’m going to try to work in bigger batches. I think instead of creating 2 per week, it’s easier for me to block off a 2 to 3 hour block of time to create as many pins as I can during that time.

4. Make a birthday list of things I want to do in May for my birthday – Done!

I’ve been working on asking for what I want lately and as part of that I decided to make a specific list of things I wanted for my birthday. Most of the things on the list are really simple, but it was super relaxing to think about what I really want.

Here’s what made my birthday list this year:

1. Going out for tacos on my birthday
2. Taking a walk on the beach
3. Getting a massage
4. Going through the Fair Play Card Deck with my husband and making sure both of our task lists are more balanced
5. Having a yummy dessert BUT I don’t want to pick out what it is or go get it. I just want someone else to decide for me.
6. Puzzle dog toys to keep my anxious dog busy

How was April Overall?

Honestly it was really good. I felt a huge amount of stress from January to March when I returned back to work after maternity leave. This month was SO MUCH better. Work had a better balance and we figured out some long term childcare plans of getting some additional help by our daughters first birthday which gave me a finish line to our current mashed up, pieced together childcare and work schedule that my husband and I are currently juggling.  

How many hours I worked in April:

In April I logged 86 hours in Toggl for my time tracking. That’s only 21.5 hours of work a week to make $9,450.00. That’s pretty amazing for a chronic overworker like myself.

BUT – big caveat here. I know I’m not 100% at tracking everything I do in my business. It’s something I am working on. In fact I just noticed while I was writing this post out I don’t have my timer on.

The 86 hours includes all client work and some of the time spent on bookkeeping, email marketing, Pinterest and my podcast, but I know there’s probably a few other things I did internally for my business that weren’t tracked.

My Goals for May:

1. Enjoy my birthday

2. Launch a new client’s online course website

3. Work on a new batch of podcast episodes

If you haven’t noticed I took a small spring break from Create a Better Course.  I’m excited to dive back in and start recording new episodes.

4. Batch marketing emails for the entire summer for THREE of my clients – I often write marketing emails for my one to one clients and I decided this summer to help everyone take more time off we’re going to batch the entire summer before the end of May.

Bonus points if I get my own emails batched too!

And that’s it this month! Last month having a shorter goals list was really helpful so I’m keeping up with that trend.

My Most Popular Podcast Episodes This Month

1. Mastering Sales Page Copywriting with Emily Conley
2. 2024 Online Course Trends That Wiill Make you More Money This Year (My Top 5!)
3. 5 Big Course Creation Mistakes Holding You Back From Making More Sales
4. My First 3 Months of PostPartum: The Highs, The Lows and What I Was NOT Prepared For
5. How Elizabeth McCravy Build a Six-Figure Course and Sold Out Her Beta Launch in 1 HOUR!

My Most Popular Blog Posts This Month

1.  Full Focus Planner Review
2. March 2024 Income Report
3. ThriveCart vs. Kajabi
4. ThriveCart Learn Review
5. 47 Digital Product That Sell

All of the software and tools I’m currently using to run my business

Productivity and Goal-Setting Tools:

• Asana – Project Management
• Timer Cube – To stay focused on your work
• Full Focus Planner – For planning my week and daily to-do list 
• Bullet Journaling – For planning out my long-term goals and to-do lists (I use this inexpensive notebook as my journal) 
• Dynalist – To create lists and organize my thoughts

Social Media:

• Your Template Club – Canva templates for Instagram and Facebook that you can easily customize 
• ManyChat – For sending automated messages on Instagram and Facebook
• Metricool – To schedule posts on Instagram and Facebook  
• Tailwind – For scheduling Pinterest pins 
• Canva – To create graphics
• Ring Light – The ring light and tripod I use to film content

Podcasting:

• Riverside – Recording podcast episodes and interviews 
• Libsyn – Where I host my podcast episodes 
• Microphone – For recording podcasts, events and videos 
• Calendly – To schedule guest interviews

Email Marketing:

• Convert Kit – The software I use to send emails
• Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership – $9 a month membership that gives me access to hundreds of email templates 
• Interact – For creating quizzes in my business like my Find Your Perfect Course Creation Match

Website:

• Showit – My website host
• Elizabeth McCravy’s Showit Templates – Super easy-to-use website templates for Showit

Finance and Money:

• Dubsado – Invoicing 
• Profit First System – For managing business expenses and savings
• Capital One Spark Card – This is the main business card I use 
• Wealthfront – A savings account where I keep my emergency fund, future house down payment and other savings