September Online Income Report

I can’t believe it’s already time for my next income report. If you’re a newer reader, you haven’t missed much because I just started doing monthly income reports last month to track the income I earn from online work better and be accountable for my goal of earning at least $1500 per month by the end of the year.

Earning at least $1500 per month in extra side hustle income is a must if I want to pay back all my debt by the end of next year.

Now that I’m getting married next year, earning more side hustle income is crucial.

I’ve been freelancing since February, so it hasn’t even been a year yet. Most of my income comes from freelance writing and I’m trying to diversify my online income by increasing my virtual assistant gigs, selling items online and building up my blog to earn a little income from it in the future.

Additional goals for last month were to pitch more, do some guest posts and increase my blog’s traffic.

Unfortunately, in September I didn’t get to pitch much at all. I sent a few, but most of my time was spent working ahead on projects for current clients so I could attend FinCon. Then, settling back in, reorganizing and following up with people after the conference.

In September I earned: $920

This is money I actually received in September so a lot of the work was completed a few weeks ago and this total represents the income I earned before taxes are taken out. Since I earned this money on the side of my full-time job as a freelancer, I’m responsible for paying taxes on it so I try to put up 25-30% each month for tax purposes.

Here’s how that total breaks down:

Freelance Writing: $800
Virtual Assistant Work: $120
Affiliate Sales: $0
Ads on my site via Google AdSense: $0 ( You need to earn at least $100 from Google AdSense in order to get paid so right now I’m at $25.35. So it might be a bit before I get paid with them again.)

I landed a few new writing gigs toward the end of September, so I’m sure my income will surpass $1000 next month and that’s pretty exciting! Freelance writing really took off for me after I started working with Cat Alford from Budget Blonde. She’s a successful freelance writer and coach who helps people learn how to get paid to write for blogs either as a side hustle or a full-time job.

If you’re interested in getting started with freelance writing and earning good money from it, I highly recommend her online course.

I’m all about investing in myself and learning how to improve my side business each month from successful people who have been where I’m at currently so I’ve got on the waiting list for Gina Horkey’s How to Become a Virtual Assistant in 30 Days or Less email course so I can learn some extra tips and techniques for launching the virtual assistant side of my side business.

Gina earned more than $11,000 last month alone from freelancing and almost 40% of her earnings came strictly from virtual assistant work.

This month I started tracking my hours worked so it will be interesting to see how much time I spend freelancing and how I can work more efficiently. I haven’t been tracking my hours strictly because deep down I know I’m probably working close to 60 hours each week between freelancing and my other job.

Goals for My Blog and Online Income:

Sarah from The Frugal Millionaire has an awesome goal to boost her online income to earn $10,000 per month by next year. Oh, and did I mention she wants to do this by only spending 20 hours per week or so on freelancing and blogging?

I told Sarah she would be my hero for pulling this off (since she works full-time and has kids as well) and it’s really motivated me to push my income goals even further. I would love to earn at least $5,000 per month from online work by next year and I’m excited to join in on her challenge.

Freelancing and blogging has really expanded my horizons and opened the door to the idea that I can control and increase my income on my own terms. Here are some of my goals for this month.

Follow up with more people from FinCon and send more pitches: I met so many wonderful people at FinCon and I still need to finish going through my stack of business cards and connect with everyone. I also want to send at least 3 good pitches per week for freelance or virtual assistant work.

Work on my blog’s redesign: This has been a big goal that I am finally focusing in on for this month. I need to implement a new blog design, reorganize this site, add some new pages and make it more user friendly. There’s no easy way to do all this. I’ll just need to block out some time to get it done and plan everything. But I’m excited to see the results.

Launch my Ebay store: I’ve talked about this and hinted on it long enough. I’m finally ready to work on this and start listing some items this month.

Increase my social media following: I’ve been pretty laid back with this lately, but since I manage social media for a client of mine, I realize I need to start working on my own profiles and engaging with my audience better on various different platforms. I recently started a Facebook page for the blog so please give it a like/follow 🙂 My Twitter and Pinterest handles are @mydebtepiphany

How was your month? Did you earn any extra income? Are there any side hustles you are considering trying?

*There are affiliate links in this post…but not many 🙂 All opinions and thoughts expressed on this blog are mine and I never mention or promote things I don’t truly believe in or find valuable. If you click on something and make a purchase, I might be compensated and I may use the money to bribe my son with Reese’s cups (his favorite) so he will clean his room up more efficiently. World’s greatest parent over here!