Welcome back to another income report!

I share these monthly recaps to give you a look at what it’s like to run a business and also to give myself a bit of accountability on the goals I’m setting.

In this post, I’ll cover:

• What I accomplished during the month
• My goals for March
• How much money my business made 
• What worked well this month 
• What felt hard 
• What I’m doing to grow my business and income

You can read all of my past income reports here.

How did my goals from last month go?

1. Trial a co-working space – DONE!
I’ve really been struggling with working at home the past few months. Our house is on the smaller side. Both my husband and I work from home, we have a four-month-old baby and two border collies – to say the least things feel really tight right now in our house.

This month I decided to spend a few days working at a co-working space to see if that was a better fit for getting work done.

It did help, but what I actually found to be a lot more helpful is just working at Panera, Barnes and Nobles or the library (plus it’s cheaper too!)

2. Have a fun BFF trip – DONE!

My childhood best friend came to visit and we spent the weekend having some leisurely hang out time. We went to brunch, got pedicures and walked around HomeGoods. It might not sound like anything special, but it was wonderful!

3. Prep for two upcoming client launches – DONE!

I’ve got two big client launches happening in March and this past month I spent some dedicated time prepping emails, assets and creating the launch strategy so that March doesn’t feel so heavy.

4. Get my taxes started – DONE!

I sent all of our tax paperwork to our accountant and spent a lot of time pouring over my books to make sure everything is accurate. Our taxes aren’t fully done, but they are started!

5. Create a list of possible childcare options – DONE!

I still don’t know exactly what long term childcare looks like for us, but this month I made a list of actual daycare and childcare options to start exploring. My husband and I also had some really great conversations on what each of our ideal childcare situations look like.

What worked well this month

1. Coffee Shop Working

I already shared this, but spending more time out of the house and working from coffee shops was really helpful this month. My husband and I also worked out a better childcare schedule between the two of us which has made it a lot easier to know when I’m on baby duty and when I can focus on work.

2. Weekly Marriage Check-ins

My friend Dolly Delong, inspired me to try having a weekly marriage check-in with my husband where each Sunday we spend 15 minutes sharing the following:

• What we appreciate about each other (especially things that happened that week like Hey I really appreciate that you dealt with that diaper blow out or I really appreciate that you watched the baby while I got some work done
• What’s coming up on our calendar this week?
• What’s our childcare schedule for the week? 
• What do we want to do this week that’s FUN
• What’s bothering/worrying the other person

3. Decluttering

I decided to turn some of my house frustration about not knowing exactly where we want to live longterm into something more productive than just complaining or stewing about it and I focused a lot on decluttering random things we aren’t using.

In general I’m a pretty minimalist person but it’s amazing how every single time you go through your stuff you find things that you don’t use and probably won’t use anytime soon. Also it does make our house feel bigger.

Other stuff that happened this month:

• I was on The Business First Creatives podcast (which is also one of my favorite podcasts!) 
• I got to eat dairy again!!! Since 3 weeks old my daughter has been super sensitive to dairy and since I’m breastfeeding that meant I couldn’t eat anything with dairy in it, but this month her stomach finally matured enough that I was able to add dairy back into my diet. 
• I started an informal mastermind group with a couple of really good business friends.
• I opened a bank account with Wealthfront to get a higher interest rate on my savings (currently 5.5% when you use an affiliate link like this one).

How Much Money I Made This Month:

$10,616.89

Here’s the breakdown of how I earned that money:

• $9,897 came from retainer clients where I help manage their online courses or do other tasks in their business. This looks like updating sales pages, updating lessons, creating new worksheets, getting testimonials from students, sending weekly emails and a whole lot of other things. 
• $719.89 came from affiliate income programs I’m a part of

You can read more about exactly how my business makes money and the different income streams I have here.

Podcast Episodes I Released in February:

• Episode 37: 5 Journaling Practices for People Who Hate Journaling
• Episode 38: What Your Students to See Better Results? This ONE Thing Can Make a Big Difference

My Goals for March:

1. Focus on my ThriveCart Template Shop!

I’m keeping my focus in March super simple because I’ve been working on a website shop for my business for YEARS (yup it’s honestly a little embarrassing to admit), but this month I really want to zone in on getting all of the unfinished parts ready to go

2. Continue decluttering

It feels so good to let stuff go! My main focus this month is on our master bedroom closet which currently has become a dumping zone of all kinds of different baby things that don’t have a real home.

3. Don’t take on any new clients

My business has been doing great and as part of that I get a lot of new client inquiry requests, but this month I really want to double down on my current client work and focus on my own products.

4. Morning journaling

In February, I got back into the habit of journaling as part of my morning routine and it’s so helpful. It helps clear my head for the day and keep me focused on my goals. If you want to know more about how I journal (in untraditional ways) you can listen to this podcast episode.

5. Look back at my vision for the year

This one might sound weird since it’s only March but I find it so helpful to evaluate your focus once a quarter and make sure you’re working on the things that matter and getting rid of the things that don’t really help your long term goals. I want to look back at my vision for the year and spend some time re-calibrating my goals and tasks.

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

I hope you had a great month and that great things are in store for you in March too!