April 2018 Online Income Report – $109,878.70

Here is my April online income report. I am sharing how I make money online from my blog and businesses for April 2018. I’m really excited to share my results with you!

April was one of those months that involved a lot of work and included a lot of emotion, ha! While many income reports tend to stick to the facts, I like to include the personal aspect of what it’s like to work and report online income reports.

It was a hard but rewarding month. I worked full time hours during the work week and put in some overtime since it was the launch of Become a Pinterest VA TODAY!.

It was also the BEST month of earning income online since I started writing blog income reports back in 2015, mostly due to the course launch.

However you found this blog post, I am glad you are here. It’s a milestone income report for me to write, as you’ll see below.

So let’s get down to business!

If you are new to reading my income reports…

If you are new to reading my blog income reports, here’s a quick refresher!

I started my blog in January 2015. My most popular income report is still my very first one! In April 2015, I published my first income report proudly stating how I made $60.

My first income report is still incredibly relevant! If you are a new blogger, you can read my first income report to learn how I can make money online. I have now been publishing income reports for almost three years. Time is flying by and I still think it’s crazy that I am doing this!

---

If you haven’t started blogging, this blog post will provide you with a list of blogging ideas, tips and teach you how to set up your blog in 15 minutes. 

Read the post here.

---

It took me about four months to earn any income from my blog. That was the hardest four months ever because I was so new to blogging and wasn’t sure what I was doing.

Earning that first paycheck was the best feeling ever and confirmed that my hard work was starting to slowly pay off!

Since I started blogging and reporting my income reports, my income has overall steadily grown from the very beginning. I’m at an exciting point with my income reports because I can look back at 2015, 2016 and 2017 and compare how much my income and expenses have changed.

By going through all of my online income reports to see what worked, what stressed me out and what big decisions I was making at the time has been HUGE for me. This blog is like an online data diary for me, so I’m really glad I have been documenting everything for so long!

I also love the shift my blog and business has made. As things have changed online or with blogging, I’ve focused on being able to change as well.

For example, most of my income in the early days came from Pinterest VA freelancing and Pinterest management. I have always used ads on my site and done sponsored posts when I felt it was a good fit for my blog.

Today my income primarily comes from affiliate income and my own products and courses. It wasn’t an easy shift; it took almost an entire year to shift my focus and accomplish this. I’m really glad I documented my journey though, because readers ask me about this all the time.

Here are some of my previous online income reports:

• April 2015 online income report (my very first online income report) $61.83
• May 2015 online income report  $61.40
• July 2015 online income report  $515
• September 2015 online income report  $1,530.94
• October 2015 online income report  $3,634.28
• November 2015 online income report  $2,007.31
• December 2015 online income report  $4,238.99
• February 2016 online income report $3,787.91
• March 2016 online income report  $5,041.85
• April 2016 online income report  $5,920.52
• June 2016 online income report   $9,700.11
• September 2016 online income report  $6,682.24
• November 2016 online income report  $10,736.55
• January 2017 online income report $26,288.57
• February 2017 online income report  $15,170.31
• March 2017 online income report  $19,752.67
• April 2017 online income report  $47,442.32
• June 2017 online income report  $29,268.78
• September 2017 online income report  $68,856.02
• October 2017 online income report  $29,954.89
• December 2017 online income report  $18,336.00
• January 2018 online income report  $41,502.90
• February 2018 online income report  $21,285.00

Here’s the breakdown of my April online income report:

• $957.84 Ads
• $8,638.86 Affiliate Income
• $100,282 Courses + Products (Pinterest Presence, Become a Pinterest VA TODAY!, Pinterest Pin Templates, Side Hustle to Success)

Total Income: $109,878.70

If you want to keep track of your online income (which I highly recommend) check out Freshbooks! It’s what I’ve used to track business income, expenses, invoice clients, and more. Click here to learn more about Freshbooks.

Even though we had our first six figure launch in April, this does not include any income from the payment plan for Become a Pinterest VA TODAY!. I’m also not sharing the exact amount we made from the course – my partner doesn’t share income reports, so out of privacy, I keep some numbers private.

Like all income reports, I lump all my courses and products into one number anyways!

I could have listed the income amount much higher, but since we won’t receive the other payment until May, I’m not including this in the total online income report. It’s also important to remember that 50% of the income from the course is split with my course partner 😉

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed with my online income report is how much my income varies with affiliate income and course launch income when there is a launch.

When we are not in launch mode, I tend to focus on affiliate income, which can be a large part of my monthly income.

I would love to be able to do well in both areas at the same time!

2015 – 2018 April online income reports

I started my blog in 2015. I thought it would be fun to look back at how much I made in April from previous years. This growth is just crazy!

• In 2015, I made $61.83
• In 2016, I made $5,920.52
• In 2017, I made $47,442.32
• In 2018, I made $109,878.70

What’s really amazing about watching my increase over the past few years is that I would not have have been able to do this at my day job. Don’t get me wrong – I loved my line of work and had a great job.

Unfortunately, I was also at the point where I had pretty much peaked in regards to my position and salary, and I was still pretty young.

The thought of making the same amount of income each year working for someone else started bugging me, which is part of the reason this whole blogging thing began 

One of the best perks of blogging and having an online business that I run and operate, is that I control my income.

Can you imagine where you could be in 1 year, 2 years or 3 years from now? I had NO IDEA what to expect from blogging and my online biz, so looking at the chart above makes me feel really good.

[convertkit form=5202421]

April online income report expenses

Here are my April expenses:

• Google Apps
• VA work + professional services
• Facebook ads (we worked with the guys who created this course.)
• Affiliate payouts

Total Expenses: $7,037.80

I also have pre-paid expenses that I have already paid for annually. The reason I switched over to annual plans compared to monthly plans is because of the savings. Pre-paying with an annual plan can save a lot of money!

I would recommend doing this if you feel confident about your purchase. I feel confident about most of the tools I’m using, but it took me over two years to feel like this with certain companies!

If you are planning on being online for the long term, then you should start looking at your budget. While you don’t need to pre-pay for everything at one time, I would start with one service/provider that you love and switch to an annual plan if you can afford it!

I don’t include the services below in my monthly budget because I’ve already paid for them. I do set aside funds for these expenses each month so I can be prepared when their various renewal dates come up.

• Bluehost – hosting company I started with in 2015!
• Tailwind – my favorite Pinterest scheduler I use for myself, recommend to clients and for all my students.
• Teachable – where my courses are located.
• SamCart – this is the checkout page I use to sell my courses and products, as well as pay out affiliates.
• ConvertKit – email provider
• PostPlanner – how I schedule my social media posts to Facebook!

I set aside money each month that go towards my annual expenses. That way when an annual payment is due, I already have the funds set aside. Having a buffer for my business is really helpful!

This allows me to be financially ready when payments are due without having to take money from that current month’s income.

Aside from starting my blog and selecting a theme, I had very few if any expenses for almost my first year of blogging. As my income grew, I was able to invest in more tools (all the ones mentioned above) one at a time.

Finally, this doesn’t include things like health insurance or taxes. I was putting 30% aside each month, but now I’m adjusted that to between 30-35% moving forward to account for buffering my business savings account.

I also have to plan for things like savings, retirement, my HSA account, etc.

---

If you haven’t started blogging, this blog post will provide you with a list of blogging ideas, tips and teach you how to set up your blog in 15 minutes. 

Read the post here.

---

We had our first six figure launch!

I might write more about this in a different blog post, but April was our first official launch of the year for Become a Pinterest VA TODAY!. We have been hard at work, which resulted in a six figure launch.

Launching a course is a lot of work, and I’m excited for the course to go evergreen in the fall.

Become a Pinterest VA TODAY! has helped so many people transition into new side hustles and even careers as a Pinterest virtual assistant.

As this is how I got my start in the online world, it’s been super exciting to come full circle and now teach others my skill set. It’s a great feeling being able to work online from anywhere, and a job as a Pinterest VA is one of the most coveted online jobs around.

This course (along with all the products from our Pinterest VA shop) is a totally separate business from Believe In A Budget.

As it makes up part of my work week, income and expenses, I track everything in Quickbooks. Since I have a business co-owner (my friend Gina), we split all the income and expenses for Pinterest VA 🙂

How to use Pinterest to make money online

Ever since I started my blog and to this day, my main source of traffic is still Pinterest, followed by Google and then Facebook!

Pinterest allows me to earn a great living online.

By using Pinterest, I can send traffic from Pinterest directly to my website, blog posts or my products. I did so well with Pinterest at an early time, that I became a Pinterest virtual assistant and then started a Pinterest management company.

As a Tailwind ambassador, which has an official partnership with Pinterest, I have been really fortunate to hone in on my Pinterest skills and stay up to date on all the Pinterest trends and changes.

If you need help with Pinterest, I recommend doing the following:

• Grab this FREE guide below on how your blog or business can grow and make money using Pinterest.
• Use this 20 Step Checklist to make sure your Pinterest account is optimized and ready to go.
• Sign up for Pinterest Presence, which teaches you how to drive traffic back to your website and is full of technical training and marketing strategies. It’s how I went from 5,000 monthly page views to over 200,000 monthly page views in roughly six months!
• If you want to learn how to use Pinterest AND start a $500-$1,000 per month side hustle, check out How to Become a Pinterest VA TODAY!

April highlights

If I could summarize my entire month in one word, it would be…tired!

I worked a ton. This blog keeps me busy, as does the prep-work, course launch and follow-up with students. Both of these businesses keep me busy full time.

I generally work Monday through Friday and hover around a full, 40 hour week combined between both companies. With the launch, I added in some weekend work so I wouldn’t fall behind and because of the demands of the course!

I also worked on setting up my new LLC company for my secret side-hustle project I’ve been working on since the start of the year.

This means I will have three businesses to run and operate!

Setting up and running a business is not that hard. But with three businesses, I have to make sure I am 100% on top of my game.

This means keeping everything separate and managing all the various bank accounts, VA help, emails, schedules and more. I’m pretty organized in general, but sometimes it can get overwhelming.

Fortunately, having a partner like Gina really makes working together on the Pinterest VA business less stressful because there are two of us. We also have a lot of ideas, which ends up being more work for us as well ?.

With the new secret-side hustle business, I’ve had to be really intentional with my time and schedule.

For the most part, as I mentioned above, I try not to work on weekends. I’ve found that it’s much better for my mental well being to take time off and disconnect from being online. I’m not going to lie though; that’s hard to do!

With this new project, I’ve been working early in the day or else late at night, which has cut into my sleep schedule. I’m tired, but it’s definitely worth it. I’m excited about this new business and I can’t wait to share it with you!

I hope you enjoyed reading April’s online income report!