This January 2017 Income Report is my first income report for the blog. I should note that this is all the income I earned in January, I may not have actually received payment for it in January. This also does not factor in expenses and taxes.
Total January 2017 Income = $2,262
Freelance Writing: $2,152.20
Affiliate Marketing: $27.06
Lyft Driving: $72. 24
Other: $10.50
Total: $2,262 Please reach out if you are interested in working with me or working with Less Debt More Wine.
How I Earn My Income
I primarily earn money through freelance writing, affiliate marketing, driving for Lyft, and a few other hustles here and there.
If you want to get started freelance writing, I highly recommend Gina Horkey’s 30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success. I helped me go from novice to full-time freelance writer. I’m still working to build my affiliate marketing income, but I do only share tools and resource I have used myself and find helpful.
If you want to get started with affiliate marketing, I’d recommend Michelle of Making Sense of Cent’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course. Wanting to get started on Lyft? You can read my post on becoming a Lyft driver.
Income Goal Progress
I have set an income goal for 2017 of $80,000. $2,262 of $80,000 = 2.8% to goal
Wrapping Up
I kicked off January sick as a dog, so I’m proud I still managed to earn over $2k in my first full month of self-employment and tell you about it in my January 2017 Income Report. How do you think I did? How did your January go?
Hustle tools & resources i recommend
GRAMMARLY (BE A BETTER WRITER) I use Grammarly as a second pair of eyes to help me clean up and proofread my writing/typing. The best part is that it is free to use. You can install an extension on your web browser and it will check any writing you do online. While there is a paid premium version, you can get by with the free version for a long time. I only recently upgraded. If you want to know more about Grammarly, you can read my review.
30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success (to start freelance writing) Personally, I found the course, 30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success extremely helpful to get me started with freelance writing. It breaks down everything you need to do, step by step, so that by the time you get to pitching for jobs, you are prepared and successful. For me, the course paid for itself when I got my first freelance writing job. I now earn between $2,000 – $4,000 per month (check out my income reports) with freelance writing.
Lyft (to make money driving) Driving with Lyft is a great way to earn some extra cash. I love how easy it is to just turn on an app when I feel like driving and make some money. I wrote an entire post about driving for Lyft. It includes what you can expect during the application process, what it’s like to actually drive and the many perks of driving with Lyft. Get started driving for Lyft.
BookScouter (to make money selling your books) BookScouter allows you to enter your book’s ISBN number and it compares the prices it would get from various sellers, making sure you fetch the most money possible for selling that book.
Contena (for Finding Freelance Writing Jobs) I used Contena when I was working my 9-5 and getting started freelance writing. It made it easy to find freelance writing jobs to pitch. While it’s not a cheap Contena is definitely worth it if you don’t have a ton of time to spend looking for freelance writing jobs to pitch. Contena pulls together pretty much all of the available freelance writing jobs out there into one place and will notify you via email of ones in your niche.
Rover (make money hanging with dogs) Rover is a website that connects pet sitters with pet owners. I did a video tutorial on how to use the site as pet sitter and the accompanying post goes over what makes Rover a great side hustle. Read and watch the post or get started petsitting.
Quickbooks Self-Employed (for managing Hustle Money) I use the QuickBooks Self Employed (BTW you’ll get 50% off with my link) app to calculate my quarterly taxes so I know how much to set aside. Though keep in mind it only keeps up with federal taxes and you will need to set aside an additional amount for your state taxes.