Q3 Side-Hustle Income Report

Leaves are changing, temperatures are dropping, and Q4 of 2019 is here already. I’m really excited to share my Q3 side-hustle income report with you because although I fell short on a few (read: all) of my goals, I still made a lot of exciting progress!

To recap, I’ve been sharing income reports for revenue generated by my online side-hustles since Q4 of last year. Why? For two reasons:

1. To hold myself accountable and motivated to keep pushing on in my business

2. To (hopefully) provide helpful information to others who are thinking about starting an online side-hustle and are looking for real information about how it can be done.

** My blog posts contain affiliate links, which means that I may earn a commission on purchases you make after clicking on those links. (At no extra cost to you!) Full disclosure here. **

Feel free to check out my previous income reports if you’re curious!:

Q4 2018 

Q1 2019

Q2 2019

I plan on writing one more income report after this one for Q4 to complete this series. 

Before we get into it:

1st Disclaimer: This report is NOT 100% accurate because I haven’t been keeping track of the USD to CAD exchange rate for every transaction. To simplify things for the purpose of this post, I’m going to base the numbers on 1.30 average exchange rate. (This is actually probably a little lower than what the actual average is – it’s been around 1.32 for most of the quarter.) I’m also kind of horrible at math and I feel sorry for the accountant I’m going to have to hire to help me sort this out come tax time. #honesty.

2nd Disclaimer: There may be affiliate links in this post, which means if you make a purchase through one, I may make a commission at no extra cost to you. Full privacy policy here. 

With that out of the way, let’s jump in!

Q3 Goals

My goals for Q3 were:

• Generate 8k in side-hustle revenue for Q3
• Land my first sponsored post
• Get my bookkeeping in order
• Work on nurturing my email list more

The #Fails

So… ready for this? I didn’t reach any of these goals. To be honest, life threw a few curveballs at me over the last few months and things did not play out the way I had expected. Not using it as an excuse, but if I knew how the next three months would be when I made these goals, I would have made different goals!

Despite that, I feel that the quarter was still a success, overall. 

I did try to hire a bookkeeper, but after a couple of consultations, I realized that it doesn’t make sense financially for me to hire one at this stage in my business. I will be hiring an accountant come tax time, however. 

Q3 Side Hustle Income Report

Q3, while falling short of my 8k goal by a substantial amount, it was still my best quarter to date. Again, amounts are approximate because of exchange rates – not only did I not keep track of the exchange rate for each transaction, but I’m pretty sure PayPal skims a little since their exchange rate always seems a couple of points lower than the actual exchange rate. That said, I would say it’s at least 95% accurate. 

Here’s the overview:

Approximate Gross Revenue Generated: – 6658.51 CAD

Approximate Expenses – $615.22 CAD

Approximate Net Earnings (Excluding taxes) – 6043.29 CAD 

Let’s dig into this a bit!

Gross Revenue:

Here’s a snapshot of my earnings month over month:

Zooming out a bit, it’s quite a jump up from the previous quarters:

 

Breaking it down further, here’s where the revenue came from this quarter:

• Freelance/VA work = $5887.44
• Affiliate Sales = $99 CAD
• Monumetric (Ads) = $672.07 CAD

I fell short of my 8K goal by about $1300 CAD give or take, but still a huge increase over my Q2 earnings! Freelance work is still bringing in the majority of my income. This is all from writing articles, Pinterest management services, and blog/content management services by working evenings and weekends.

I just have to say it again, there is no way I would have gotten to this point if I had never taken Horkey Handbook’s 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistance Success (as well as her freelance writing course, since I have clients in both niches.) 

There’s also been some substantial growth from Monumetric, and I think this is because my traffic reached new all-time heights this summer with 30% of that traffic coming from SEO/Google (Which seems to yield a higher RPM than Pinterest traffic.)

I’m still struggling with affiliate sales but still up over Q2 so at least we’re heading in the right direction. Lots of work to do there!

Overall, I’m very happy with these numbers!

Expenses

Here’s a visual of my expenses for the past 3 months:

Let’s break it down:

Canva: $4.02 – To be honest I can’t remember what these four bucks were for. I think I broke down and bought a couple stock photos that weren’t included in the annual Canva for Work subscription.

Convertkit: $118.24 – Geez, that monthly fee really racks up quickly for us Canucks. I’m toying with the idea of switching my EMS provider but for now, it’s just easier to stay with Convertkit. It is super easy to use so I figure I’m paying for convenience!

Depositphotos: $79.32 – I had canceled this subscription for a while but I ran out of photos so I subscribed again. I feel better about it though because I am now using up my monthly allotment so I definitely feel it’s worth it. 

Horkey Handbook’s VA Leads group:  $101.84  – I love this group! Worth every penny for the community and support alone. 

PayPal Transactions: $190.52 – Ugh, this number bugs me but there’s not much I’m willing to do about it right now. That’s not even including the money I lose out on from their lower exchange rate… For the time being, I’m just writing this off as the cost of doing business.  

Tailwind: $61 – I had downgraded my subscription so this is much lower than in Q2. To be honest, my traffic hasn’t suffered for it at all. But I read a new strategy recently involving Tribes that has me toying with the idea of upgrading again. We shall see! At any rate, the scheduler is definitely worth the minimum investment and a huge time saver. 

Wave Video: $13.48 – I can’t remember why I got dinged for this, I think I reactivated my account to play around with video pins and then canceled it shortly thereafter. I found a free way to make video pins using DaVinci, so I don’t need this subscription. 

Overall, I’m really proud of myself for keeping costs down. 

Goals for Q4

I want to finish out the last year strong, but I also want to set realistic expectations of myself and avoid getting stressed or burnt out. I thought about this for a while, and here’s what my plans are for Q4:

• Publish at least 2 new posts a month: I’ve really let the blogging slide the past few months so I need to get back into a consistent publishing schedule again!
• Reach $7000-8000 CAD of Revenue: Giving myself a window, with $7000 being my minimum target and 8k being the “stretch goal”. I’m going to keep plugging away at SEO, Pinterest, and affiliate marketing to reach this goal.

That’s it! I’m keeping it super simple so I can stay focused. As someone who blogs and freelances, it’s really easy to get distracted by All the Things. So rather than set five goals and not hit any, I’m setting just two so I can really zero in on reaching them both. 

Over to You!

Do you find my Q3 side hustle income report helpful? Are you on an entrepreneurial/side-hustle journey right now? What are your main goals for these last 3 months of 2019? (Whether they are for business or otherwise!) 

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!