Income Report March 2022 $16,717.21
New here? Start with February's Income Report and read a little bit about why I started doing them. 🙂
This month shows a decrease of income from February, by $803.79. Because of my launch that was coming up in April, I stopped working on basically everything else.
There are several reasons for the decrease, but they're all things I'm happy with because it comes down to one thing: I didn't put the work in. Passive income isn't going to continue to grow without ANY hands-on action at all. I got lazy. I spent a LOT of time not working and I'm happy with that.
On a more positive note, we donated more than $3,000 to the local community (feeding kids, helping set up businesses, etc) with your help. I will feature Letty's business in my April income report, because hers will open the first week of April! 🙂
Note: Affiliate links may be used in this post. I earn a commission when you make a purchase through them. 🙂 Click to learn how to increase your affiliate earnings on your own blog.
Lessons From in March
1. Abundance is a mindset. No matter how much money you make, you'll never be happy or fulfilled until you are doing what you were created to do. We all go through different phases in life. Everything ebbs and flows, but I know without a doubt that my family is meant to be in Mexico right now. Manifestation is a HUGE part of our lives.
We are meant to feed families, we are meant to inspire new businesses, we are here for a purpose that is greater than ourselves and we are meant to leave a lasting impact on the world. If we can inspire even ONE person to make a change, even ONE person to feed a family so they aren't hungry… if we can do that on a small scale, it's all been worth it – but if we can do it on a large scale? Man. Imagine the change in the world.
2. Resting is important, but resting too much can lead to laziness. This is a lesson I learned this month and to be honest I didn't feel bad about it, but it's not something I can do every month.
Much like February, I took the majority of March off. I didn't realize it at first, until I looked through my photos and my time spent and realized most of it was not spent working. I was happy, I enjoyed my time off, but I realized that if I want to reach my goal of $30,000/month by December, I needed to get my ass into gear. I realized this on March 29, by the way LOL.
Yes, my income took a hit. Not much of one, but a hit nonetheless – and I know 100% it's because I didn't put any work in this month (other than nurturing my PIPs and coaching my VIPs – that's non-negotiable for me). April will be a higher income month, I'm sure of it.
3. As you get more and more successful, as you help more people, you will have more eyeballs watching what you do. When you are doing well in your business, there will be copycats.
Instead of spending time gossiping about the copycats, fighting with them to stop trying to rip off your entire business (can you tell I'm going through this right now? LOL), you've gotta focus and KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME.
Think back to why you started. Think about why you're doing this. Think about WHO you want to help. Those are your reasons, that is you why, and that is what will keep you going. Put your blinders on and get back to work. Full stop.
Anyone who copies will always be at least one step behind you! So as long as you just keep going, you'll create more and more distance between you and them. Others will notice, and they will naturally start to gravitate away from the copycat and to the person who is truly there to help – not just there to make a quick buck.
March 2022 Income Report
I started a new website called Tuck and Sleeve – I will be adding the income from that site to these reports as soon as it is profitable. I'm starting slowly, as I already have a lot on my plate and do NOT want to work more than 20 hours a week.
Tuck and Sleeve will have slow growth, but I will share it as soon as I get it going! 🙂 So far, I've just posted a few blog posts that I hired one of my VIPs to write.
PIPs
I have PIPs Plus, and PIPs VIP.
PIPs is my membership, which includes my Etsy course, my writing course, my affiliate marketing course, and more. The cost is $67 per month. I have 72 paying members, making the total for PIPs $3,097.00 per month. The math isn't exactly $67 x 72 members. Some members got in at $47 (Black Friday) and $57 (January launch).
VIP is my group coaching program. It includes everything PIPs offers, plus group and 1 on 1 coaching with me. I charge $167 per month for VIP, with the price going up to $197 per month after April. I have 32 paying VIPs as of March 31st. I removed 4 people from the program last month.
Sometimes people leave, sometimes they're just not a good fit, but either way when you have a membership, coaching, etc you have to expect some “churn” aka people leaving. That is why you need to make sure you have new people coming in regularly.
My launch will bring that number up substantially as my goal is 25 new VIPs. The total for VIP is $4,905.00 per month.
I have individual courses that were sold this month as well, but they were minimal at less than $1,000.
Total: $10,688.00
Affiliate Marketing
I promote multiple affiliates, but the main income I make comes from three. I also included Amazon in this report just to show how shitty their payouts are in comparison and why you should take affiliate marketing seriously. 🙂
Affiliate 1: $1,703.60 (+$242.40 over February)
Affiliate 2: $2,750 (+$1,750 over February)
Amazon: $80.83 (+$21.40 over February)
Ads
March ad earnings: $693.24 (+$199.84 over February)
My blog traffic is up 9% from last month, most likely due to me scheduling out links in my free Facebook group and publishing more blog posts than usual.
Digital Products
My digital products portfolio is pretty passive, but I do add new products throughout the year. For example, I'm doing a $7 affiliate marketing challenge next month. I will then turn it into an evergreen challenge that funnels people into my PIPs and VIP programs.
Every 12 weeks, I do a different challenge to “launch” my membership and coaching program so there is a steady stream of new members throughout the year. This makes it less passive, yes, but the return is high enough for me both monetarily and in a “feel good, I helped a lot of people grow their businesses” kind of way that makes it worth it.
PLR for Blogs: $758.50 up $390.50 from February. This has been passive, though I am going to start working on the site again because it is easy to make good money from it.
Teachers Pay Teachers: $65.89 down $53.24 from February. February sales were higher because of my Black history resources.
Income sources not included
Smiley's Points: We sold 70% of this blog last year and now get a deposit each month for 30% of the monthly income. This is our first solid passive income investment outside of stocks. We hope to build and sell sites in the future in the same way, retaining a portion as passive income. Right now, my next project for this is Single Mom Budgeting.
Plug-in installs: I charge $25 to install PrettyLinks on my client's blogs, but that gets wrapped into donations.
Investments
My current Stash portfolio is sitting at $20,036.88. Last month, I was at $16,333.33 and was down over $2,000. This month, I'm up about $400. So the $3703.55 increase over February is from my portfolio going back up and also me investing.
I earned $8 in dividends from one of my favorite ETFs, Delicious Dividends. If you're on Stash, check that one out. It's been good to me!
My investing “strategy”
Basically any time I get an impulse to go shopping, I invest $50-$100 instead. Keeps me from buying dumb shit and keeps my portfolio growing. I started by replacing my $5 coffees, and it's grown.
I can't log into my main investment account so I'm going to record the number from last month, and update again next month (instead of letting this stop me from hitting publish) — Last month, our investments were at $102,244.60.
We also just started investing with Mainvest. You can get 100% returns over the course of several years. For example, we invested $100 into a business and will get paid back $200 by January 1st, 2028. We love supporting businesses of all sizes and Mainvest makes that easy to do.
Our kids started investing last year as well.
Sapphire (15) has $3,152.45 invested (+$540.45 from February).
Micah (17) has$1147.00, $976.49 invested (+$170.51 from February).
Final Numbers: 16,717.21
This month shows a decrease of income from February, by $803.79.I do not share ALL of our income in this report (nor am I super specific about everything, so there are probably #s missing here), but it is the VAST majority. As other income sources pick up, I may add them to these posts.
As most of you know, I'm NOT a numbers person and posting this is stretching me WAY out of my comfort zone, but income reports always help inspire me and I think transparency is important… so here we are, published – not perfect. 🙂
Biggest lesson learned
I am so proud of the money we've earned but even more proud of the lives we've touched. For us, it's not about the money but about what we can DO with the money. Who we can help, who we can serve.
We've been feeding 100+ people every week for a few months now and it's more and more rewarding each time we are able to do this.
The biggest lesson to take away from all of this is to JUST DO IT!
Yes, just DO THE THING. Whatever it is, whatever you've thought of but second-guessed yourself about… it's time to do it.
Our journey to F.I.R.E. started last year and we are already so far ahead of what we ever could have imagined. Why? Because we DID THE THING.
If I could ask just one thing today, it would be that you step out of your comfort zone and take a step towards financial freedom by choosing a side hustle and invest that first $5!! That is how it all starts.
Thank you so much for sharing. You truly are an inspiration!