Possums!
Yay! Welcome back to my monthly tradition where I review my life & business & share behind-the-scenes numbers as well.
I’ll cover:
- life blessings & challenges
- what I’ve created in my business
- how much revenue generated
- my goals for next month.
You can read previous monthly reviews here:
2021
2022
How I went with my goals for the month
Life:
- Stay sane – DOING
- Supreme self care – DOING
- Pack – DOING
- Organise renovations & moving – DOING
Business:
- Launch Get Organised! – DONE
- Get everyone settled into the Uplevel Incubator & it working beautifully – DONE
- Create & share delicious content – DONE
- Get into good management habits of assigning priorities etc! – DONE
What I got up to in life!
- As I mentioned in March’s update, we signed a contract on a new home about 30 minutes south of here. So we spent April organising home loans & renovations. We’ll move in end of May.
- Kids finished up their first term at school. They’ve both got such a great friend group this year, I’m so grateful!
- We went on holidays for a week to Hervey Bay and stayed at an Airbnb with a pool near the beach. We spent many happy hours out by the pool… can’t wait to move to our new home with a pool! We went to a wildlife park, an aquarium, the botanic gardens, a few markets & a gorgeous restaurant that sits on stilts over the ocean. We raced after the ice cream truck barefoot and walked to the end of one of Australia’s longest piers. We got to spend some time with Chris’ parents too.
- We went to Sea Life and a big trampoline park with some of the kids’ friends and had a glorious day out!
- My kids got their second vaccination – hip hip hooray at last! Thanks modern medicine! You’re so rad!
- I had lunch with some gorgeous business goddess friends: Tash Corbin, Brigit Esselmont and Emma Veiga-Malta.
- Chris’ parents came and stayed with us overnight. My littlest was so funny – she squeezed herself between them on the couch and spent the rest of the evening blissfully cuddled in a Nanny and Poppy sandwich.
- My biggest kid went to a friend’s high tea-inspired birthday party. She bought a dress, got her hair curled and wore mascara. My tiny baby is growing up!
- My kids got new haircuts – my eldest chose a shag cut which just cracks me up! She’s so cute!
- We went to an art sale at a huge old Queenslander house. It was just gorgeous, and we got some beautiful paintings for our new house!
- We gave away some furniture, toys and gardening equipment on a local community board & met some absolutely gorgeous people! It made my heart so happy!
- I started seeing a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist – I feel like I need more tools in my mental health toolkit, and more coping mechanisms. I really like my new therapist, it feels like a great fit, and I’m so glad to be doing.
- After my disastrous attempt 2 years ago of walking the Camino virtually (which resulted in a prolapsed disc & 5 month recovery time), I decided to try doing virtual walks again – this time using World Walking. This time however, instead of throwing myself headlong into a 700km long walk, I’m doing the smallest walks first! Some of them are only 1km or so. It’s a bit of fun inspiration to walk more, then look at the digital view of the city I’m walking in. Here’s all the walks I’ve done so far. Quebec City was most surprising to me. CASTLES! Walking around European cities is just wildly dreamy too.
Best Books & Audiobooks & Favourite TV/Movies
April wasn’t a big book reading month for me (only 10 finished – about half my avergae), but my 5 star favourites out of what I did read were:
- A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing but Using the Bathroom as an Escape (short and ridiculously funny… made me snort out my nose.)
- Invisible Differences: A Story of Aspergers, Adulting and Living A Life In Full Colour (great graphic novel on ASD)
- Re-read some favourites – The Kiss Quotient and two of the Bridgerton series – Romancing Mister Bridgerton and The Viscount Who Loved Me.
On the audiobook front, I’ve been listening to Rachel Rodger’s We Should All Be Millionaires. It’s blooming brilliant, and a smart read on money and time management.
I also binge watched Heartstopper season 1 in a day. I fell head over heels in love with the Heartstopper graphic novel series, and the TV version was just as delightful. It’s just EXQUISITE to see LGBTQIA+ love stories and friendship on the screen!
What I did in business!
- Finished launching The Uplevel Incubator – a 3 month small group coaching program
- Got all my new Incubator coaching clients settled in
- Released “Dear God, It’s Me, Leonie” – a free illustrated zine I made about keeping the creative flame alive after 2 decades in the industry!
- Released my brand new free Inspiration Library – a collection of the dozens of free goodies I’ve made over the years to help you live a shining life & biz!
- Launch Get Organised! – my new course on getting organised in life & business.
How much money I made
Total income: $116,291.70
Where that income came from:
- E-courses: $81,608
- Uplevel Incubator (small group coaching): $31,912
- Goal Getter planners: $1,301
- Passive income business: $7,875
- Shares & Ethical Managed Funds: No growth this month
- Investment property: Currently not rented while we wait for my in-laws to move in
- Affiliate for Kajabi: $1,463
- Affiliate for Pure Accountability: $90
- Calm Christmas Planner on Etsy: $9.70
E-course income breakdown:
- Get Organised! workshop: $62,527
- Marketing Without Social Media: $8,191.40
- 40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course: $3,714
- Work Less, Earn More: $968.43
- Sales Star: $4,906
- Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income: $1,081
- 40 Days To A Finished Book: $811
- Mini workshop: Behind The Scenes of A Multi-Millionaire’s Finances: $220
Expenses
Due to popular request, I’m going to include expenses for the business for the last month as well to give you an even more transparent look at profitability.
- Contractors: $5,345
This is for 1 part time Customer Service Virtual Assistant and 1 part time Online Business Manager. This is probably on the higher side for pricing, but I prefer paying more for people who I trust and have a long term working relationship with. I want them to feel appreciated, and I want them to be able to live good lives. - Donation: $1,000 to OzHarvest (this delivers 2,000 meals to food-insecure families in Australia)
- Affiliates: $3,200
- Paypal & account fees: $1,374
- Software subscriptions for everything we use to run our business online (see full list further below): $1,774
- Website hosting: $128
- Accountability Coach: $330
- Courses & books (for me & my staff to learn from, we are continuously learning): $2,196
- Minimum purchase order to qualify for my passive income business income: $150
Total expenses this month: $15,497
Profit levels!
Total profit: $100,794.70
That’s approx 86% profit EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes).
Most businesses run on around 5-30% profit margins.
From that profit, my husband and I take salaries (that we then pay personal tax on) and pay compulsory superannuation (contributions to retirement funds).
The rest of the profit stays in the holding company, and regularly gets invested in ethical managed funds. We invest with Australian Ethical, and they’ve just shared they currently won’t hold Russian investments.
If you want more details on how we manage and grow our income streams, Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income is the course for you!
Blog posts I published
- How I Know I Am Officially Middle Aged (An Illustrated Zine)
- March 2022 Biz & Life Review: How Much I Made & Spent, What I Did & Read!
Current list of software I use to run my business:
- Kajabi for most things in my business:
- selling through their shopping cart
- teaching my courses through their learning management system
- running my affiliate program
- ActiveCampaign to send all our marketing emails.
- Zapier to connect Kajabi and ActiveCampaign
- Optin Monster to create all the pop-ups, reminder windows & lead magnet forms on my website.
- Calendly to screen interviewers and book in interviews.
- Xero is my accounting & financial management system.
- I host my WordPress websites on WPEngine.
More tools of the trade here if you find that kind of thing useful!
Goals for next month
Life:
- New house renovation
- Move in
- Prep new house for sale
- Stay sane
- Also, don’t fuck up my back
- Or my nervous system
Business:
- Work with my Incubator coaching clients
- Get Organised completed, launched & put to bed
- Weekly newsletters.
Hooray!
Let’s do this!
Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
Love,
FREE GOODIES:
BOOKS:
- Goal Getter workbooks for 2022 & beyond!
- Calm Christmas Planner
- Salt: a hottttt romance novella (published under my pen name Lola Leigh)
COURSES: