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I'm Mara — I help creatives create and launch digital courses and profitable products. I love chatting about online marketing, design and goal setting!

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November 2023 Income Report + Monthly Recap

Mara Kucirek holding her daughter

Income reports are back! You may have noticed I took a brief hiatus from these monthly income reports during maternity leave, but I’m back in full swing and recapping how the last month has been.

In case you haven’t read one of my monthly income reports this is a post where I share all the behind-the-scenes details about how the last month went for me in business.

In this post I’ll cover:

  • What I accomplished during the month
  • My goals for December
  • 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 my previous monthly income reports here:

How did my goals from last month go?

You can see in my last income report that I didn’t set any traditional goals since I knew I was on maternity leave and would be focusing on figuring out life with a baby.

…and that’s exactly what I did in October and November. These two months were really just about surviving and figuring out a new routine. I took all of October off from my business and then in November I slowly started diving back into client work. I’ve been adding back on 1 to 2 things a week. You can hear more about how I planned my maternity leave and took time off in this blog post. 

Working with a baby is HARD. I was expecting that my daily schedule would change, but it’s been totally turned upside down. I’ve had to get better at working in much shorter stints and embracing interruptions.

Having a baby has also been a masterclass in learning to prioritize and making sure you’re focusing on the most important tasks when you do have time to work.

What worked well this month

  1. Buying pre-made meals and frozen dinners to help cut down on cooking and dishes – Cooking when you have a 2-month-old baby feels impossible. We’ve been relying on Hello Fresh meals and the premade dinners from Sprouts. Both are way cheaper than going out to eat or relying on DoorDash. 
  2.  Daily long walks – Going on a long morning walk each day has been a lifesaver for me. It helps me get out of the house and not go stir-crazy while I’m in the newborn phase. Every morning I pack up the dog, and the baby and we walk 3 to 4 miles while listening to audiobooks or a podcast. I also sometimes use this time to brainstorm new podcast episodes, blog posts or products for my business!
  3. Being specific about the help I need – I’m not great at asking for help and other people aren’t always great at knowing how they can help you. In this season of life, I’ve really been working on getting specific about how people can help me. Often it’s just something super small like asking my husband to watch the baby while I do some focused work or asking my sister to figure out Christmas gifts this year for our parents and I’ll pay her back.
  4. Hoopla for books and audiobooks  – I love reading. I used to love physical books, but holding an actual book AND a baby is pretty hard so this month I transitioned to digital books and audiobooks so I can read on my phone. Hoopla (which you can probably access for free through your library) has tons of books you can check out and it’s super easy to use!

What felt hard this month

  1. Sleep – My sleep is all over the place. I have an 8-week-old baby so it kind of just comes with the territory but it’s still hard. My husband and I developed a split shift system so that we’re both able to get a 4 to 6-hour stretch of solid sleep each night, but we still both have nights where we don’t get much sleep at all.
  2. Default Parenting – I know other moms can relate to this one. I have a wonderful and loving husband, but when we had a baby I became the default parent. It’s just something that sort of naturally happened since I’m breastfeeding and at this stage our baby is often way more into Mom than Dad, but it’s hard. My husband has way more freedom than I do right now and I’ve struggled with some major feelings of resentment this month.
  3. Mom guilt – It was bound to happen right? I feel guilty when I’m working that I’m not with our daughter and when I’m full-on in mom mode I’m often thinking about all the things I want to and need to do in my business. Finding a balance is hard and probably something I will be working on for the rest of my life.

How Much Money I Made This Month:

$5,892 – November was my lowest month of the year…which is due to working a lot less during maternity leave and the newborn phase.

I was expecting a big income dip during this time and set aside savings in my business to prepare for slower months like this. My strategy for maternity leave was to make as much money as possible early in the year so that I could slow down in October, November and December.

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

Podcast Episodes I Released This Month:

Subscribe to my podcast, Create a Better Course on Apple or Spotify.

My Goals for December:

  1. Create a Christmas Bucket List – I want to embrace the Christmas season this month and make a list of all the Christmas activities we want to do (especially as a brand new family of three!)
  2. SEO Research and podcast planning for 2024 – I’m going to spend some time this month strategically doing some SEO research for next year and planning out podcast episodes and blog content.
  3.  Create a new free resource: 50 Ways to Improve Your Online Course – I haven’t made a new freebie in a while and this is one that has been brewing at the back of my mind for a while now. It’ll be a list of at least 50 simple things you can do to improve your online course and have a better student experience.
  4. Try out a new childcare system – Last week my husband and I tested out a new childcare idea where he hangs out at his parent’s house one full day a week to give me some completely child-free time to work. This worked AMAZING so we’re going to continue in December and try to have one consistent day of the week where I have an entire day to work without any baby interruptions. As she gets older we will probably add on some sort of more official childcare where she is out of the house a couple of days a week, but right now we’re hoping to balance our schedules for at least six months so that she is home with us.
  5. Start booking 2024 podcast guests – I’ve got a list of potential podcast guests I want to pitch and since we’re getting close to the start of the year now is the time!
  6. Find a new budgeting software – My tried and true simple budgeting software Mint is closing down at the end of this month so I need to find something else to manage our finances.
  7. Create a newborn favorites blog post – While it’s all still fresh in my mind I want to create a list of our favorite newborn products.

All of the software and tools I use to run my business:

Productivity and Goal-Setting Tools:

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: 

Website:

Finance and Money:

That’s a wrap on this month’s recap. I’ll see you next month!

*This post may contain affiliate links. 

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