Below you’ll find all my finance details for July 2018.
I was traveling around the UK with my lady until the 11th, then spent almost a week in Ireland before landing in Amsterdam on the 17th.
I’ve been tracking everything I earn and spend since January 2011, just a few weeks after quitting my day job. Every month since, I’ve published one of these finance reports.
Sharing this info publicly keeps me accountable and hopefully gives you some insight into how I earn a living online.
Patrons get to see each new report before anyone else.
Summary
Total Income | € 3,312 | $ 3,867 |
Total Expenses | € 4,509 | $ 5,265 |
Profit/Loss | € 1,197 | $ 1,398 |
Income
Freedom Business Builder 1 | € 1,556 | $ 1,817 |
Consulting / Project Management 2 | € 1,434 | $ 1,674 |
Strong Viking refund (x2) 3 | € 174 | $ 203 |
Coaching 4 | € 43 | $ 50 |
Patreon 5 | € 34 | $ 40 |
Book sales (via Amazon) 6 | € 22 | $ 26 |
Book sales (via ebizfacts.com) 7 | € 21 | $ 25 |
Booking.com referral bonus 8 | € 15 | $ 18 |
Cheap Flight Checklist 9 | € 13 | $ 15 |
Total Income | € 3,312 |
$ 3,867 |
Previous Month | € 5,727 | $ 6,695 |
I was hoping to pull in €4000 in July but didn’t quite make it.
Expenses
Food & Drink
Eating out | € 416 | $ 486 |
Groceries | € 327 | $ 382 |
Total | € 743 | $ 868 |
Previous Month | € 627 | $ 733 |
That’s a good bit more than I usually spend on food and drink. Restaurants and groceries in the UK, Ireland and Amsterdam ain’t cheap.
Housing & Utilities
1 month at Amsterdam Airbnb (balance due) 10 | € 1,550 | $ 1,810 |
Extra set of keys for Amsterdam apartment | € 11 | $ 13 |
Total | € 1,561 | $ 1,823 |
Previous Month | € 744 | $ 870 |
Health Care
SafetyWing travel insurance 11 | € 32 | $ 37 |
ZMA supplement 12 | € 25 | $ 29 |
Total | € 57 | $ 66 |
Previous Month | € 85 | $ 99 |
Travel & Transport
Flights: Malaga > Copenhagen > Bangkok 13 | € 401 | $ 468 |
7 day rental car in UK | € 204 | $ 238 |
Fuel: UK rental car | € 81 | $ 95 |
4-week bicycle rental in Amsterdam | € 75 | $ 88 |
Flight: Gran Canaria to Malaga 14 | € 55 | $ 64 |
Ubers in Edinburgh 15 | € 40 | $ 47 |
Taxi in Amsterdam | € 39 | $ 46 |
Train: London to Stansted airport (x2) | € 34 | $ 40 |
Ubers in London 16 | € 27 | $ 32 |
Puncture repair | € 15 | $ 18 |
Lockers at Edinburgh bus station | € 15 | $ 18 |
Ryanair overweight bag fee | € 12 | $ 14 |
Tube in London | € 8 | $ 10 |
Parking in Scotland | € 2 | $ 3 |
Total | € 1,009 | $ 1,179 |
Previous Month | € 303 | $ 354 |
Business Expenses
Outsourcing 17 | € 321 | $ 375 |
Facebook ads 18 | € 310 | $ 362 |
WD 4TB Elements external hard drive 19 | € 116 | $ 135 |
Google Drive storage (1TB) 20 | € 86 | $ 100 |
Ticket for Nomad City 2018 | € 49 | $ 57 |
Phone credit | € 26 | $ 30 |
PayPal fees | € 25 | $ 29 |
SmarterQueue 21 | € 19 | $ 22 |
Virtual Post Mail 22 | € 8 | $ 10 |
Gumroad fees | € 4 | $ 5 |
Patreon fees 23 | € 4 | $ 4 |
Amazon Web Services (storage) 24 | € 1 | $ 1 |
ActiveCampaign mailing list software 25 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Dreamhost web hosting 26 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Elegant Themes 27 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Teamwork project management software 28 | € 0 | $ 0 |
MemberMouse 29 | € 0 | $ 0 |
Total | € 969 |
$ 1,132 |
Previous Month | € 1,876 | $ 2,193 |
Gifts & Donations
Flowers | € 29 | $ 34 |
Monthly Love & Courage podcast donation 30 | € 5 | $ 6 |
Waking Up podcast donation 31 | € 3 | $ 3 |
Busking bagpiper in Edinburgh | € 1 | $ 1 |
Total | € 38 |
$ 44 |
Previous Month | € 41 | $ 48 |
Books 32
The Naturalist **** | € 1 | $ 1 |
The Four Tendencies 33 ***** | € 0 | $ 0 |
Total | € 1 |
$ 1 |
Previous Month | € 28 | $ 33 |
Clothing
Total | € 0 | $ 0 |
Previous Month | € 0 | $ 0 |
Miscellaneous Expenses
New Rebels backpack 34 | € 40 | $ 47 |
Toiletries | € 26 | $ 30 |
Coachford 5k run (x2) | € 20 | $ 23 |
Netflix subscription | € 11 | $ 13 |
Weed (Happy Haze) 35 | € 11 | $ 13 |
Monthly banking fees (Hong Kong bank) 36 | € 8 | $ 9 |
Entry to the Nelson Monument in Edinburgh | € 6 | $ 7 |
Arcade games at TonTon Amsterdam | € 5 | $ 6 |
Ear plugs | € 4 | $ 4 |
Monthly banking fee (Dutch bank) | € 2 | $ 2 |
Amazon movie rental: Brave 37 **** | € 0 | $ 0 |
Amazon movie rental: Deadpool ***** | € 0 | $ 0 |
Amazon movie rental: The Good Dinosaur **** | € 0 | $ 0 |
Total | € 131 |
$ 153 |
Previous Month | € 137 | $ 161 |
Expense Summary
Housing & Utilities | € 1,561 | $ 1,823 |
Travel & Transport | € 1,009 | $ 1,179 |
Business Expenses | € 969 | $ 1,132 |
Food & Drink | € 743 | $ 868 |
Miscellaneous Expenses | € 131 | $ 153 |
Health Care | € 57 | $ 66 |
Gifts & Donations | € 38 | $ 44 |
Books | € 1 | $ 1 |
Clothing | € 0 | $ 0 |
Total Expenses | € 4,509 |
$ 5,265 |
Previous Month | € 3,841 | $ 4,491 |
I was aiming to keep everything under €4,000 for the month but didn’t manage that. The main thing I failed to foresee was booking those flights to Thailand.
Biggest Regret?
No one thing in particular sticks out, but traveling so much this summer, especially in more expensive countries, has definitely taken its toll on both my finances and energy levels. Going forward, myself and my lady are going to try stay longer periods of time in cheaper places.
2018 So Far
Here’s how I’m doing this year in terms of profit and loss:
January | € 2,466 | $ 3,070 |
February | € 4,384 | $ 5,346 |
March | € 908 | $ 1,107 |
April | € 3,594 | $ 4,337 |
May | € 1,085 | $ 1,266 |
June | € 1,886 | $ 2,204 |
June | € 1,197 | $ 1,398 |
Total | € 2,188 | $ 2,708 |
Where That Leaves Me
I had €16,727 / $19,555 to my name at the end of June.
Taking into account all my July income and expenditure, and the most recent exchange rates – I have accounts in EUR, HKD and USD – my total bank and cash balances now work out to €15,400 / $17,982. 38
Outlook For August
It’s the 5th as I’m writing this and so far I’ve earned about €2,400 and spent €550. That’s a pretty good start.
But I won’t earn anything else from consulting in August, so any additional and significant earnings will have to come from my course. Hard to predict how that will do each month, but I’ll be quite happy to pull in €4,000 overall.
As for expenses, I’ll be spending a couple of weeks in Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands in August, and those aren’t cheap places. We have accommodation already paid for, but we’ll be splashing out for a rental car for 7 days on the islands, among other things. I’ll also have to pay for accommodation in Gran Canaria when I arrive there at the end of the month.
Best case scenario, I’ll spend less than €3,000 total.
How I Track All This
Curious as to how I track everything I earn and spend? Check this video…
Feedback Welcome
Thoughts? Questions? Speak up in the comments below.
Archived Finance Reports
I’ve been posting these monthly finance reports since January, 2011. You can view all my old reports via this page.
Interesting!
Yes I’d be tempted to stay in a cheap place for a few months and get something passive going.
Easy to say that though when pinned down in one place for the next 15 years or so!
How long are you going to Thailand for? Going to nomad summit?
Thanks for the comment, Joe.
Hadn’t planned on going to Nomad Summit. Not even sure when it is!
Right now the plan is to be in Thailand for 3 months.
I think it’s in Chiang Mai in January?
I’ve not been but have heard of it. Might be fun meeting lots of nomads. Although sounds like you do that already!
Always enjoy the reports Niall 🙂 Seems like you have an ever-present conflict between wanting to travel and explore, and keeping the expenditure in check. I feel ya!
Since having a more automated / passive income stream is or appears to be your goal (i.e. courses over freelancing), what about heading for a very low-cost country for a period of time to really focus on marketing and working on the course?
It would mean you could dial back on or completely stop freelancing since your costs would be pretty low, meaning you’d have way more time to focus on marketing the course and your students. This would get you to your goal more quickly (in theory).
I’m guessing you like to have mix of everything though (travel and everything else you’re working on). I’d be the same 🙂
Yeah man, that’s a good plan. This year has been great travel wise, but hasn’t helped me save much money or work on my own projects as much as I’d like.
But September I’ll be in Gran Canaria for a couple of months, which is quite cheap by European standards, and then off to Thailand for 3 months or so in November, so that should help.
Yeah lots of travel – same here! Off to Berlin for work at the end of September, and then Cyprus for a holiday the week after!
Sounds good, couldn’t believe how cheap GC was last year. Food shopping in particular!
Enjoying the FB lives by the way. Have you ever thought of setting up a Facebook group around working and travelling online? They can work really well I’ve found and should help you grow your list and overall audience.
I got a few hundred new email subscribers alone from mine. You would have opportunities then as well to position your course and related free content within the group, and far better reach than with a Facebook page.
Yeah, have thought about doing a public FB group (I have a private one for students), but always figured it would be a lot of work, and not sure about the ROI.
Two questions about your group:
1) Does it take up much of your time?
2) Do you have any measure of the ROI? As in, how do the leads generated from the group compare to leads generated in other ways?
Hey man, I still have the group but don’t actually spend much time on it anymore – just the odd post here and there. It does take time but what’s nice is that it can run without you IF the members are engaged and active – they will post all by themselves and keep the group alive and on people’s feeds, meaning you will still have that visibility even without being on there all the time!
As for ROI, I set it up to get email addresses first and foremost, with affiliate commissions for a FB groups marketing course I was promoting as a bonus. I made a few hundred dollars from that and also went from 30 -> 300+ email subscribers just from collecting email addresses when people joined the group.
I wanted to build my list with the goal of offering an SEO course at some stage, and while I haven’t gotten to that yet I will at some stage!
You could give it a go and just test it for a month. Once it’s up and running you could see whether the members are active all by themselves or if it’s taking up too much of your time (without the corresponding ROI you want). I have a cheat sheet I can share too for getting started with groups.