Welcome to my second income report revealed, ever.

You enjoyed the first one, so let’s get all those from the past shared soon so that I can get to what’s currently going with my monthly budget.

Let’s talk about the purpose of me doing this, though.

For a start, it’s because I’m opening up more this way. I don’t share much personal info on the site. At least not as much as other bloggers do. But I’m aware of the importance of this and am slowly getting comfortable with it.

The numbers aren’t impressive for most people, but I’m sharing it for members. And those who joined LRS premium are doing it for the love of personal growth and lifestyle design. And I am living life on my own terms. So that’s all that matters.

If you’re in it for the money, these reports aren’t for you. Although you can still learn about some new platforms to make money from that you haven’t heard of, or get inspired by a monetization strategy I’ve tried before that’s paying off now.

Let the motto of the reports be ‘It’s not about how much money you make. It’s about how you make it’.

It’s something I heard Gary Vee saying once.

I might as well get a standard job that pays well and set the goal of exceeding and getting promoted so that I can earn a lot from it. And that’s possible.

But it’s not the trajectory I’m interested in. I’m more about the type of work and the value it brings to the world, together with the satisfaction it gives me. Rather than making a lot monthly but not having the time and energy to do stuff I like, the freedom to travel or work whenever I want to, or the creative independence to chose my clients and projects.

Second, the purpose of this new section of the blog focusing on finance, is to show you how money can be made online. It’s for learning and growing.

But it’s also for encouragement. Seeing one person do this, with all the juicy details, lets your mind come up with your own ideas and ways to make money. And thus break free from the 9 to 5.

If you need to put me in a certain category based on what I make monthly, that will be quite low on the scale.

But if you do it in terms of freedom, meaning and independence, well, that’s what I’m doing pretty well.

You ever heard how some lifestyle designers are making around 1K and are either traveling the world, or living the dream life by working from home, moving to a place they love, investing their days to their craft?

Let’s say I’m one of those.

No investors, initial capital, help from other people, experience in the niche, being tech-savvy, having people in my life doing the same, or else. None of that is necessary.

What I did that lets me do what I like the way I like it every day of the year now is hard, focused work, consistency, dissatisfaction with my old lifestyle and a vision of the new one, staying motivated by reading about all the other people doing it, and not listening to my doubts and excuses (these are part of everyone’s journey).

I want my income reports to become part of my legacy, so to say.

That means contributing by sharing what works and doesn’t work for me, and thus saving you some mistakes on the way and making you familiar with some new potential income streams.

Can’t wait to get your feedback. That’s new for me too. So let’s see where it takes us.

Here’s the second one of my old reports, from December 2015.

December, 2015

Total

Earned: 537

Expenses: 12 (hosting for podcast)

Revenue: 525

Money made freelancing: 434

In the previous report, I mentioned only the amount of money made through platforms connecting freelancers and employers. Now I’m adding other clients who I find, or who find me, personally or by referral.

As for platforms, obviously UpWork was working for me.

I was doing article and ebook writing and only on topics I enjoyed, which means leaving tons of money on the table solely because I didn’t wanna do other boring tasks or write about side topics, although I could.

But you can easily earn more solely from UpWork.

Whatever your skill is, create a profile today and see how it goes. Takes time till you build the confidence to present yourself in an effective way with your proposal, and to understand what people are looking for and how you can help them.

The competition might be discouraging for some of you, and the time it takes to get your first gig may also be disappointing. Once you get though these barriers though, you can be making money from a site like UpWork practicing whatever it is that you’re capable of in the digital world.

If you want to make more money fast after that, you can become somebody’s virtual assistant, or start doing things that almost anyone can do. Such as editing, translating, guest post outreach, social media marketing, etc.

Money made from sponsored content: 60

Now, I mentioned sponsored posts are a big deal for me. It’s what helped me keep making money while I was in Thailand for a few weeks and got into  the real vacation mode.

So one of the best uses of these income reports is to see how the number of sponsored posts and money earned from them increases over time.

In the beginning, I never planned for this. I wasn’t aware of how people were doing it, either.

It just happened once the blog became more recognized. Now people are reaching out to me to ask me to place a link or a whole post that they’ve produced, for which they will pay.

The first element you need in order to make solid money this way is to have a platform of your own that has some level of authority.

More on that in future reports.

I’ve also included TapInfluence. It’s for social media campaigns mainly and is a way to get noticed by companies or brands wanting to promote something, that pay you to share their product across your social media channels if you have a big follower base.

Final thoughts

Feels good to be writing that type of content, seriously. Hope it’s as valuable to you too.

I’ll keep doing it, with more details each next time, and with more info on the income streams, online opportunities and lessons learned.

What do you think?