Hey friends!

Welcome back to another income report!

 In this post I’ll cover:

• How my business makes money
• How I did on the goals I set for last month
• My exact income and expenses 
• What’s working well and what’s felt challenging
• My goals for the upcoming month 
• All of the tools and resources I use to run my business 

You can read my previous income reports below:

• January: $13,338.33
• February: $10,616.89
• March: $10,663.22
• April: $9,450.00
• May: $14,410.47

Total for the year so far: $58,478.91

How does my business make money?

Most of the money I earn is through one-on-one client work helping clients launch and set up online courses and digital products.

I also make money through affiliate income, speaking, coaching and selling my own digital products.

How Did My June Goals Go?

AMAZING – because I didn’t set any so there was no way I could fail.

Here’s a list of stuff I did accomplish in June:

• My first plane ride with my daughter – we flew to go see my parents and get a week of free childcare. It was AMAZING! 
• I reviewed my 2024 annual goals, revised them and narrowed down my priorities for the rest of the year. 
• I finished our taxes! We ended up filing for an extension on our taxes due to some poor communication with our accountant and being in the middle of creating an S-corp. Our taxes are finally done, finalized and completely paid! 
• We made a big decision about resigning our current rental house lease instead of pursuing buying a home this year (that’s still a future goal, but our rental house is the right price and works well for us). 
• I finished up an 8 month journey of breastfeeding, which I’m bittersweet about but it’s been really nice to have more of my time back and not worry about pumping.

My June 2024 Income: $11,802.66

Client Work: $11,345
Affiliate Income: $457.66

My Expenses: $17,085.10

Yup! You read that right. Most of this number is from paying our 2023 taxes and then estimated taxes for 2024.

We filed for an extension on this year’s taxes for a variety of reasons and finally wrapped everything up this month.

Usually in business you pay estimated quarterly taxes but with an over 5% interest rate on our savings account our accountant recommended for 2023 saving the tax money and paying at the end. The penalty for paying late was significantly less than what we earned in interest.

That is not the strategy we are using this year. The IRS raised the penalty for not paying estimated taxes so I’m back to paying quarterly.

Here’s my exact expense breakdown:

• Taxes: $14,800
• Account fees for filing our taxes: $1,200
• Credit Card Processing Fees: $331.86
• Virtual Assistant: $663 – this is quite a bit higher than normal but I had a lot of personal business projects that my VA was able to help out on! 
• Descript: $15
• Dubsado: $14
• Gsuite: $7.20
• Libsyn for podcast hosting: $7
• Extra Google Storage: $19.99
• Office Supplies: $27.05 – a new cube timer and some spiral notebooks.

What Worked Well Last Month

1. Booking a trip back home to get some extra childcare help

As I mentioned above, I flew back to my childhood hometown where my parents live and stayed for a full week. This was incredible. I was able to get lots of extra baby help, my husband stayed home and had a full week to work and I was able to work more in my own business!

This worked so well that I’m planning on doing this more often. Plane tickets are way cheaper than daycare and having extra help is pretty much the best thing I can imagine right now.

2. Making a reminders list of the annoying things my husband and I do to each other

Ok this one is weird, but hear me out. In June my husband and I made a list on a whiteboard we have hanging in our kitchen of all of the annoying things we both do that makes the other person’s life harder.

For example my husband has asked me multiple times to always leave one side of our double sink free of dishes, but I continue to pile dirty dishes into both sides because if our dog sees anything up on the counter she’ll steal it. So now I have a whiteboard in the kitchen that reminds me not to do that.

All of the things we put on the list are super simple and just small things that we both constantly forget about. Having a visual reminder has made it a lot easier for both of us to actually do the things the other person wanted. It’s also helped both of us feel listened to, respected and supported.

3. Using my morning walks to learn new business things

Every single morning I go on a walk with my dog and daughter. I’ve always listened to something – books, podcasts, etc… but in the last month I’ve been way more intentional about using that time to learn something that will help my business.

It’s been great and I’ve been able to finish multiple courses I’ve purchased in the past but never fully finished.

What Was Challenging

1. Childcare

If you read last month’s report, you saw this was on there too. My husband and I are both still working and juggling childcare on our own. We’re trying to figure out what our long term plan is whether that’s finding consistent daycare, getting creative about outsourcing other things like laundry and housekeeping or something else entirely. I don’t know what the right answer is. I’m so grateful to have a business that has allowed us to be so flexible this first year, but having some more support would be life changing.

2. Being far from family

As my parents get older it weighs on me more and more not being close by to help out more. It’s something that’s been on my mind a lot in the last six months. Going back home and seeing just how amazing it is to have babysitters who are enthusiastic about helping out didn’t help my feelings either. I’m also feeling really nostalgic about my own midwestern childhood and bummed that my daughter won’t have a similar experience.

My Goals For Next Month

1. Declutter something every day

One of my daily habits for this month is taking at least 10 minutes to declutter something in my life. Even if it’s something small like just cleaning out the screenshots folder on my phone. Clutter and disorganization makes me extra stressed and often wastes my time because it takes me longer to find the things I need so this month I’m focusing on simplifying!

2. Negotiate our internet bill

Our internet company does that annoying thing where you get a certain rate for a year and then they jack up the price so this month I need to call and say I am canceling until they give us a discount. I hate this process, but doing this every year has saved us thousands of dollars.

3. Map out all of our childcare thoughts

I want to create a list of all of the childcare possibilities and the pros/cons of every situation so that we have some idea of what our plan is going forward. Even if we decide to continue doing what we’re currently doing it would feel good to know we discussed it.

4. Redo my email template

I’ve used the same email template for my weekly newsletters for awhile now and I want to update it to make it easy to customize how many emails you want to receive so that way if your inbox is crowded you can opt in to receive just a monthly digest from me.

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

A quick note – Some of the links below are affiliate links which means I may get a small kickback if you use them. There’s no additional cost to you and all of these products are things I actually use in my own business. 

Business Money Tools:

• Relay For Business Banking 
• Dolly DeLong’s Bookkeeping Spreadsheet 
• Capital One Spark Card  – Business Credit Card
• Dubsado – For invoicing and contracts 
• Profit First System – For managing business expenses and savings

Personal Money Tools:

• Ally Bank – For my everyday checking and savings account
• Wealthfront – Long term savings like my emergency fund and future house down payment fund.  
• Alliant Visa Signature – My personal credit card that receives 2.5 cashback. We use these for most of our everyday expenses.

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 

Other disclosures:

Relay Bank: Relay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and FDIC insurance are provided through Thread Bank, Member FDIC. The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa® debit cards are accepted.