I saw a post over at The Financial Blogger explaining that his online business is sometimes cash flow negative since they roll their profits back into developing their online niche sites and eBooks. They made $5700 last month but spent about $6000 on business-related expenses like outsourcing.
This made me realize that I rarely mention the costs I have running my blogs and freelance projects. I don’t invest as much back into my business as TFB, but I’m not operating at the bare minimum either. Here are the past couple of month’s of my income and expenses:
June 2011
Income: $5186.78
Expenses: $371.08
Expenses Breakdown
Outsourcing: $170.00
Paypal: $134.08
Scribe SEO software: $27.00
Love Drop: $20.00
Technical Assistance: $20.00
July 2011
Income: $7007.50
Expenses: $646.63
Expenses Breakdown
Outsourcing: $285.00
Paypal: $227.65
Podcast Mic from Ebay: $51.98
Scribe SEO software: $27.00
Love Drop: $20.00
Business Card Design: $20.00
Sponsored Giveaways at Other Sites: $15.00
Outsourcing
The outsourcing I mention above is through two people. When I am hired to create a sponsored post, which are very boring to me, I outsouce the post to Mark Pierson’s Article Writing Services. They are good and they are inexpensive, but that is why my sponsored posts sound a bit different from my own posts. I also outsource my blog carnival submissions to Jesse Michelsen from PF Firewall. He is also inexpensive and saves me from the tediousness of blog carnivals.
Other Costs
I also paid $152.54 for unlimited hosting through Host Gator from 11/26/2010 until 11/26/2013 (about $51 a year) thanks to an awesome Black Friday sale last year. My domains cost an additional $15 a year, so that’s $75 annually as well for Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, How I Make Money Blogging, About Life Insurance, Crystal Clear Thoughts, and Dog’s Life For Me. I paid a few years in advance for all of them, so I already was able to take off the business expense in my 2010 taxes.
In short, my expenses have been between 5%-10% of what I make.
My Plan Going Forward
This month, I’ve decided to expand a bit and hired Jesse to start helping me with all of my social media and to create and run my new BFS Newsletter. He already submitted my BFS posts to blog carnivals each week and he was the one who created my BFS Android App, so it just fit to expand with him. It’s nice to work with someone you trust. His services will run me $200-$300 a month depending on how much of his time I end up taking up. If you are ever in the market for some help, I’d highly suggest emailing JessicasSpencer *at* SpicedVent *dot* com. No, I won’t get a discount or anything for referrals, lol. I am just very happy with his work.
I’m hoping that even with new expenses, I can keep my costs to 15% or less of my online income. Since this is my full time job now, I need my monthly profits to hit $3575 no matter what to cover my 26 paychecks at $1650 each. So yes, reinvesting in a business is a viable method of growth, but I simply can’t afford to reinvest a huge part of what I make quite yet.
What do your blogging costs look like?
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