It’s July October. I’ve been travelling, working and enjoying life and tI’m not in Indonesia. Maybe that’s why this income report is a bit delayed…
What Just Happened?
If you’ve been following my income reports this year you might be wondering what happened to the last third of 2016. Good question. You know when you feel like you are juggling too many things at once and everything’s going to collapse?
That was me.
I decided to go to India at the beginning of the high season with an untrained colleague who I needed to replace. It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Trying to manage 100+ emails a day by while being be a tourist is ridiculous. I barely managed to stay afloat and any side projects I started crashed and burned.
It sounds like a bad thing…
Jaipur Palace. Just beautiful.
Well it was the business. Life is not just about business though. I wanted to travel and felt it was the right time to go.
I’ve been enjoying myself and having a great time (life’s about finding the right balance after all). Now that I have seen a rhino in Nepal, who knew, and found the work life balance I’m looking forwards to working on this site. It is something I really want to do, so I’m going to do it.
And Now Back to The Usual Report
If this is the first time you’ve seen my income report, you might be wondering why I want to share these income reports online. In part these income reports are a way to track my progress. It’s nice to be able to look back and see what I achieved in October and what I wanted (and maybe failed) to do, but they are also a way to share my experiences.
Blog Income July-October
I earn most of my money through my travel consultancy service, with B2B (business to business) commissions that don’t cost my guests anything.July, August and September are the high season in Indonesia. My income jumped accordingly. To keep this focused though I’m just going to talk about October, otherwise we will be here all day.
I earned $2,213 from Discover Your Indonesia and that includes $67 from my first Blue Host Referral (you can find my guide on How to Setup a Blog in 3 Easy Steps here). Income from hotels also jumped up and I received my first payout from Agoda.
However my expenses this month are also rising. Still I have money in the bank and I’m feeling positive. Plus, and this is amazing, I’ve been doing all of this while traveling through India and Nepal and spending a LOT more money than usual.
INCOME
Source Income
Travel Consultancy USD 1,877
Affiliate Income USD 338
Total USD 2,213
Expenses
Wages USD 325
Hosting USD 25
Total USD 350
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Latest Developments On the Blog
October was a relaxed month for me. After three months of traveling I was ready to slow down and get down to work. So when I found a nice place to stay in Goa I stopped moving. Completely.
It’s been great.
Slowing down gave me the time to focus on building the business and training my new colleague Riri. I also arranged a contract with a freelance writer, a girl called Geninna from ABC, and outsourced some writing projects.
My other big focus has been diversifying my income. One of the first things I did when I got settled in Goa was bring more tours online. I created and launched two new location based packages for Tours in Lombok and Tours in Jakarta.
In addition to adding new tours to the site I also started to systemize article writing on Discover Your Indonesia. I just wanted to get things a bit more organised and have fresh helpful content published on the site.
New Content on DYI
There’s a lot of newly published content on Discover Your Indonesia. To get us up to speed I’ll just highlight some of the most recent content that was published on the site and the things I think were important.
- Lombok Day Tours
- Lombok Tour Packages
- Jakarta Tour Packages
- Exploring Bandung: A Short Visit to the City
- 7 Best Villas in Canggu for Under $100
Alongside publishing new content I’ve also been revising older content to make it more useful to travellers. You can see my approach in the new list articles where I’m highlighting the best places to stay and things to do, plus adding the negative feedback. It’s early days, but I think this is the right approach for the future.
Plans For November
November will be a mixed month for me. I have another week left in Goa before I start traveling. The plan is to head south towards Karnataka and Kerala and then over to Puducherry. It’s going to be great and I’m looking forwards to be on the road again and seeing new sites (India is really amazing).
For business the focus will be getting the Flores tours online and getting things on a roll with the email list. I’m optimistic and have a lot of ideas about how to grow the business while sharing some of the good times and the bad through this site.
Final Thoughts
This is the fourth income report I’ve published and there was a big gap since the last one. I feel my life is a bit more organised though now (thanks Riri) and I’m excited to share content on the site. Maybe even some travel stories and good old-fashioned advice on where to go and what I’ve really enjoyed (including a review of my current home away from home).
How did your month go? Are you planning to make a change in your life?
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