Online Income Report (An Average Month)

Welcome to my monthly online income report! That’s right, income reports are back… sort of! I wanted to share an average month of online income so I took the average of the last three months.

This hopefully will give an idea of what I’m earning each month during slower months (my best season is December/January when people are resetting their lives for the new year).

I realized I would never have started my own side hustle without income reports. I never would have been inspired to quit my job. Income reports can be super inspiring to beginners building an online business.

In these income reports I share how much I make from my online businesses, including:

I will go into more detail about what I earned from all of the things including personal finance blog, my YouTube channel, and my Etsy shop.

These things I started as a hobby continue to make me a full time income, even if I barely work on them. (Bless you, passive income!)

Why Share Income Reports?

I like sharing real numbers to inspire myself and others who want to earn money online. Income reports from others helped me learn

I also value transparency which this report allows me to give my audience when they consume my content.

Growing my online income has helped me achieve financial goals like:

It’s been a lot of work to grow all my income streams but they’ve given me more freedom than I ever expected. I’m writing this from a coffee shop after spending a leisurely morning with my kiddos!

Online Income Report

Here are the main income sources broken down by what I earned for the month.

I’ve included referral links to each if you want to join and make money too! If you’re a blogger/YouTuber/TikToker wanting to earn money these programs can really help you!

In the last income report on this blog I earned $3,783 in October 2020. I shared income reports after that on YouTube and shared October 2021 where I earned $7,809.

In January 2022 I had my best month ever at just over $11,000.

Now let’s look at the numbers for the last few months, a few months after having that best month ever!

Advertising Income – $3,885

Affiliate Marketing Income – $3,300

Product Sales Income – $840

Etsy Sales
Website Sales

Other Sources – $10.00

BuyMeACoffee

Total Online Income: $8,035

This is the amount earned for the month before any fees, expenses, or taxes.

I also won’t be paid all of it in the month it is earned since each source pays out at different times. I do these reports based on what I earned in a month versus what was received because it inspires me most to grow the income created. Usually the amounts are very similar but this allows me to be consistent in my tracking.

Expenses List

As I mentioned, I don’t keep all of the money earned each month. Besides paying taxes on that income I also have expenses to run this online business. There are multiple expenses I’m now paying for each month:

Hosting (website hosting)
Canva (for designing printables)
Adobe (for designing printables)
Cricut (for designing stickers and crafts)
Etsy fees (for listing items)
Shopify (for selling on my own website)
Quickbooks (for bookkeeping & taxes)

All of these are minimal but they do add up so I still keep an eye on reducing expenses so that my income will keep growing.

You can see my full business tech stack here to see which programs I use to run my online business.

Online Income Report Thoughts

After hitting my highest months ever I’ve dropped back down to the $7,500 – $8,500 per month range. After looking at the last few months my average is right at $8,000 per month in online income.

This could be disappointing because I’m not continually going up up and up in my income. It’s definitely stalled in this range. But in reality? This is still amazing! I earned more than my old job for 1-2 hours of work a week in the past month.

I want to share the ups and downs of income reports. Sometimes you earn more money one month and less the next. It’s not always continually upwards!

While much of my income is passive, I’m starting to see a need to increase my efforts. I’ve worked very little for the last couple of months due to health, burnout, and childcare issues. This lack of creation is starting to show in my income results.

Am I amazed that I can earn $8,000 for minimal amounts of work each week? YES!

Am I wanting to work more and double that income? ALSO YES!

My Future Online Income Goals

I previously used my online income to pay off debt faster and the increased income made that happen.

I now want to use my online income for two goals:

buying our next home
pursuing financial freedom (not needing to work for money)

With this in mind, more income will always be better.

The plan is to save and invest 50% of my online income. This means we will have to live on the remainder so the more I make the faster and better we will be in both areas.

With that in mind, I’ve set my next income goal:

$15,000 per month

I personally know many online business owners making $20,000 to $30,000 to even $100,000 per month. I know these numbers are possible.

Even with minimal amounts of work I’ve still built a business that is halfway to that income goal!

I recently wrote $15,000 per month on my whiteboard so I now see it daily.

I’m inspired to work harder toward this goal.

To do this I’ll be increasing income in a few different ways:

more YouTube content to increase ad revenue to $5,000 per month
increase sales of products and add new products
grow ad and affiliate revenue on this website
grow ad and affiliate revenue on my niche websites

That’s it!

NEW Content

Obviously YouTube video content is performing the best right now and since I like to look at what worked in terms of content each month, here are my NEW too!

The new content I published included:

Obviously I wrote a lot about YouTube this past month! Since YouTube is the bulk of my income I am technically a professional YouTuber.

Personally I like to diversify online income with multiple income streams, but I can’t deny how much I love making money on YouTube!

I do hope to increase the amount of content I’m producing in coming months by bringing on additional writers!

Recommended Online Biz Resources

As my income continues to grow I want to share some of the resources and products I use to make it happen. These will include affiliate links where applicable but I love recommending them because I personally use them all myself!

TubeBuddy – Before using this tool I manually did so much work but now I’m able to bulk edit videos, research keywords for SEO and set up all my videos for long term success. TubeBuddy has been the best tool I’ve used for managing and growing my YouTube account. It’s got multiple price level plans so you can grow as your channel grows. Try out TubeBuddy for free.

TubeBuddy: YouTube Channel Growth Toolkit

Easily manage, optimize, edit, and GROW your YouTube channel with TubeBuddy's tools. Want to grow on YouTube? You need TubeBuddy. Try now for FREE.

Try It Free

I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Canva – Canva is one of the best free editing programs where you can create a digital products and the paid version is even better with bonus features that help take your work to the next level. I use it for creating all my Youtube thumbnails, my social media posts and my digital products! Try creating with Canva.

Canva - An Online Graphic Design Tool

Canva makes it easy to create professional designs quickly. They include tons of free templates, photos and fonts to make your design perfect.

Try It FREE

Canva Tutorials

I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Lasso – Lasso is the affiliate marketing plugin I’m using on this website to increase my affiliate income. I use a lot of different products that I like to recommend and Lasso makes it very easy. In fact, I created the product displays you see here using Lasso!

Lasso: The All-In-One Affiliate Marketing Plugin

Increase affiliate revenue by 30% with Lasso. Fix broken links, find new affiliate opportunities, and create product displays that convert to commissions.

Try Now

I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Why Share An Online Income Report

I’m sharing my online income reports as a YouTuber, digital product creator, and blogger to show people that it is possible to make money online in a non-sleazy way that helps people.

Lots of people want to know how much small YouTube creators make with videos and if you can make money from a small audience online. Fellow YouTubers want to know how I make money with affiliate marketing and digital products not just ad revenue because they know it is hard to survive on YouTube ad income.

Income reports allow me to share what I’m doing with Etsy and YouTube while building my online income so other creators can benefit and it lets me be fully transparent with my audience about how much I am making.

It’s amazing that we can earn money creating and sharing content online!

Past Online Income Reports

Looking for my old income reports where I was in a major growth phase? Check those out below:

Mary

Mary is the founder of Pennies Not Perfection where she shares her journey to build wealth through online income. She quit her day job in 2021 after she paid off her debt and doubled her 9-5 salary.

Mary's favorite free financial tool is Personal Capital. She uses their free tools to track net worth and work toward to financial freedom.

Her favorite investment platform is M1 Finance, where she built a custom portfolio for free with no fees. She shares her portfolio growth and savings progress every month on YouTube.