The last income report I wrote for you guys was way back in October, when I wrote about having my very first $10K month in August.
And I shared with you why $10K is my magic number: it’s the amount of money I need to make to replace my salary and benefits, pay taxes and cover my business expenses and reinvest money back into my business.
Paycheck + Benefits + Taxes + Business Expenses + Business Investments = MAGIC NUMBER
By sharing my numbers, I want to peel back the curtain and show you exactly how much money my online business makes, how much it costs me to run it, what my expenses are and how fast it’s growing – but within the context of day-to-day LIFE.
You can read more about the journey to this point in these blog posts:
How Much Money I Made in My First 6 Months in Business
The Exact Steps I Took To Have My First $5,000 Month
The Truth About My First $10,000 Month
Here’s the thing: you might not need or want to make as much money as I want to make.
Or you may want to make a LOT more. How much it costs to live in Columbus, Ohio can be very different than how much it costs to live in your city. How much money we want and need to live the kind of lifestyle we want to live is a very personal thing.
Before you read on, I encourage you to figure out your own magic number.
Because if you’re anything like me (and I’m guessing you are or you wouldn’t be reading this), you’re not building a business just for fun.
You have a deep desire to change something in your life.
You want freedom, you want creativity, you want experiences, you want to be in charge of all of it and not have it dictated to you.
And having clarity on that target is just another tool to keep you going when everything is going to shit around you.
Because in 2016, I had some pretty low lows.
I watched my two favorite people in the whole world, my Grandpa and my dog Gracie bear, both be diagnosed with cancer in early spring and pass away within a week of each other in early summer.
My husband lost his grandmother in March.
Those life events put strain on our relationship since we were both hurting.
I gained 15 pounds because I just didn’t care about taking care of myself, I wanted to eat to feel better instead of feeling my emotions to feel better.
I buried my head in work to distract myself from the sadness, and got sucked deep into some work that made me feel totally disconnected from the WP+BFF community and like I had lost my way a little bit…
But I also had some really high highs: an amazing vacation in Mexico, my first $5K month, lots of time with family during Grandpa’s illness and in hospice as we helped him move on from this life into whatever is next, my first $10K month and some deep, inner self work with a mindset coach to help me process my emotions without eating them, watching the WP+BFF Community grow, making the 2016 100 Best Sites for Solopreneurs, bringing on some super inspiring clients, working with Skillcrush and launching the Web Designer Academy, seeing Lewis Howes at the Summit of Greatness, an amazing trip to Colorado, being featured on Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle School Podcast, and deciding that life without a dog sucks and bringing home a new puppy, Scarlett Grace.
That’s the real shit that happens while you’re “hustling” to build a business that supports your life.
Hitting the magic number does not mean that it’s only highs from there on out.
So at the end of the day, I really just want to love and find purpose in the work I do and have it support me through the highs, the lows, and all the stuff in between.
Okay, so before I give you the specific numbers, let’s talk TIME.
There are 168 hours in a week.
I have 40-hour a week day job with a 30 minute commute each way = 45 hours
And then I spend about 30 hours a week on WP+BFF.
I sleep for 56 hours a week and that leaves me just 37 for whatever… But here’s the thing: WP+BFF doesn’t feel like work. It’s fun. That’s what I look forward to doing. It’s my choice, and I’m totally in control of it (even when it feels like I’m not sometimes, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post).
I’m totally looking forward to having 45 hours freed up soon, and then I’ll have 82 hours a week to do whatever the hell I want!
So I’m telling you all of this again, because your life might not look like mine.
I don’t have kids. My puppy is a freaking handful and has actually significantly impacted the amount of time I can spend working on WP+BFF at home, but from what I understand, kids take up a lot more time 🙂
I don’t want you to compare yourself to me and think you have to spend 30 hours a week on your business.
But I do want you to figure out your magic number and carve out a realistic number of hours a week that you can work toward reaching it every week.
Because if you’re just winging it, it’s going to take you a lot longer!
So here are the numbers:
And out of that Net Income, I sent a check to the IRS for about $3600.
Here was my very first thought after seeing those numbers:
“Wow, it sure is costing me a lot of time and money to make $11,400 a year… how the hell am I ever going to be able to quit my day job???”
But then the second thought I had was… “This is it. THIS is the foundation.”
I have everything I need in place right now to grow my income without having to increase my expenses. I have all the tech tools that I need, all the systems in place, and all the people in place. In fact, many of those expenses, like subcontractors and a few others will actually significantly decrease this year.
And I was totally right, because look what’s already happened in the first quarter of 2017. I’ve almost made as much profit in the first 3 months of 2017 as I did in all of 2016.
It’s for this reason that I’m so glad I haven’t quit my day job yet. I can’t imagine trying to build this foundation while also trying to write myself a paycheck.
I’m really, really fortunate to be able to be building this business in my spare time while having a steady paycheck and benefits.
So if you are building a business you love to escape a job you hate, see what happens when you look at that job in a totally new way.
So in the comments below, I’d love to hear what your magic number is, and let me know what questions you have about my income and expenses!
