Monthly review January 2025
Welcome to my monthly review, where I lay out all the dirty details of my business for everyone to see.
I subscribe to a couple of people who do these and read them every single time they land in my inbox. Because I’m nosy, and I like seeing what other people are doing, how they’re doing it, and how they feel about it. So I decided to start doing them myself.
I want to do these for a few reasons:
It keeps me accountable. Writing these up for you guys forces me to actually look at my data and reflect.
I think financial transparency is extremely important and hopefully me doing these helps break down the money taboo.
How many hours did I work in January?
69 hours, 27 billable (40% billable)
How was January overall?
Well….
This month didn’t quite go according to plan (financially). I was super happy to come back to a VIP week project. 50% of that was paid as a deposit back in December, and then the big agency partnership project I was meant to start last week got pushed back to a mid-Feb start. It’s not the agency’s fault, but that did leave me with a weird gap that I (unsuccessfully) scrambled to fill. The project leads that I did have come through wouldn’t fit in the weird three week gap.
So all my income from this month was from final instalments of projects from last year. Because I do my accounting monthly in advance, I’m all good for February, but March is going to feel sticky. This is the first time I’ve been in this kind of situation with an agency partner and their client so I don’t have anything in my contracts to protect me.
Right now I’m not quite sure how to prevent this from happening again, but I’ll talk to my business buddies and see what I come up with.
My expenses were also really high this month, especially in relation to my income. Some of that was unavoidable (having to buy an expensive new router), some of it was worth it (investing in a 2 day coaching intensive and paying my VA), and some of it was definitely unnecessary.
Am I the only one who stress-buys business resources around this time of year?
How did my goals go for January?
I did deliver two client projects that I’m proud of. I’m actually insanely proud of the work I’ve been producing lately, and I’ve got some plans in the works to tell you guys about it in a fun way.
I worked through some of the offer planning course but then dropped it… it wasn’t really giving me what I needed. I did work through a lot of the lab intensive I invested in and have a couple of sessions with a business strategist, so I would say I achieved this goal in spirit if not in letter.
Goals for next month:
Finish working through + implementing the information from the Lab Intensive
Rework my own content pillars and create a social media plan
Start posting on Instagram! (I don’t have any posts but I’m active on my stories… go give me a follow?)
Tech I’m currently using for my business
Productivity
Zapier (paid plan)
Upbase (paid plan)
Notion (free)
Moxie (lifetime subscription from Appsumo)
Clockify (free version) for my time tracking. I like the Chrome plugin.
Brain.FM to help get me into focus mode. Affiliate code: tbp for 20% off
Chat GPT 4.0 (free).
Squarespace for my website
Podcasting
Descript (paid annually) for podcast editing
Squadcast for podcast recording (free account with Descript subscription)
Marketing
Simplified.app for scheduling social media posts
Systeme.io* for emails, courses, products, and funnels!
Thrivecart (lifetime subscription) to host all my products and courses.
Finance
Thriday (annual plan) for my business banking + bookkeeping, and to implement the Profit First system. I mostly use Moxie for my invoicing because I sometimes need different currencies.
Wise for any international payments I need to send or receive.
