Dirty Money Talk: February 2025
Welcome to my Dirty Money Talk, 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 I worked in February?
88 hours, 34 billable (39% billable)
How was February overall?
I’m not mad I ended up making around $5000 this month. Honesty, its $5000 more than I expected. The agency partnership project I had bookmarked to start late Jan was pushed back almost a month. Not their fault, but it still left me in the lurch. So even though I had worked booked for this month, I figured with the way I invoice agency partners, I wouldn’t have any money land in my account until early March.
But the agency paid their first invoice super quick, so that crept in this side of the calendar month. And a big project I’d been in talks for end of last year decided to sign on and pay a deposit. Between those two, I landed at $5326.
Which is great, but…
Between paying my VA, paying the first month up front for a new co-working space, AND paying for some business strategy sessions, pretty much all of those earnings went back into the business.
I’m open about this because I think it’s important to share these little blips and learning curves we have along the way. I knew this was coming, and luckily me and my partner have an emergency fund to smooth things out when things like this happen.
Did I still feel gross about it? Absolutely.
So if something similar ever has or does happen to you, you’re not a failure. Okay?
How did my goals go for February?
I finished working through Carrie Wilkerson’s Lab Intensive, and it was super valuable. I’ve implemented quite a lot of what I learned and have a plan for attacking the rest at a reasonable and realistic pace.
I didn’t finish reworking my own content pillars, but I DID get two customer interviews in to support those. So I took steps. I get a treat.
I also started posting on Instagram! Right now, my main goal is to have fun and be consistent-ish. I’ve only posted a few times, but so far, so good. Check me out and say hi?
Goals for next month:
Post consistently-ish on Instagram
Tweak my onboarding process
Tweak my offboarding process
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.
