Income & Expense Report – May 2016
This post may contain affiliate links.
In August 2015, we left the comfort of our desk jobs and began a new and uncertain life as freelancers. We had always dreamt of working for ourselves, being our own bosses, but we had now idea how to start. Until one day, when we just sort of… started. And ever since then, we’ve been riding the learning curve – every single day.
Over the past 10 months, we’ve developed our skills as photographers, writers, and visual storytellers. We’ve spent countless hours building Fresh Off the Grid, developing content, creating working relationships, and managing the never-ending conveyor belt that is “social media.” We’ve never worked longer or harder before in our entire lives. But today we get to announce something very special, something we’ve been looking forward to for a while. As of May 2016, Fresh Off the Grid is officially profitable.
That’s right, for the first time since we started our journey, our monthly income covers not only our business expenses but our living expenses as well. Now, before we get too excited, this is just for one month. Freelance work comes in two cycles: feast & famine, so while we might be in feast mode at the moment, we’ll never know if the next famine is right around the corner.
Which leds us to another point: You don’t have to make a lot of money to be profitable. Profitability is a ratio between your income and your expenses. In order to be profitable, all you need to do is keep your expenses below your income. It’s that simple. Yet many people (ourselves included) struggle with it.
By living on the road, we have kept our expenses to an absolute minimum. If we had to pay for rent, or if we had credit card debt, or took out a car loan to buy a sweet van, then we’d be in a dramatically different position. But as it stands right now, we have no debt (which is something we’ve always worked hard to maintain).
So while we’re profitable today, the only way to sustainably grow and ensure we’re profitable tomorrow, is to keep our expenses in check. So high fives for now, but then it’s back to work!
May 2016 by the Numbers
Miles Driven: 2,619
Average MPG: 30
Nights Free Camping: 20
Nights Paid Camping: 0
Nights with family, friends, or on assignment: 11
States visited: 4 (CO, AZ, UT)
Income
Blog Income
-Affiliate Income $129 (we use Amazon, AvantLink and ShareASale)
-Sponsored Content $485
Freelance Work
-Digital Content & Articles $1425
Other
-Sold old camera equipment $425
Total Earned Income $2,464
Business Expenses
– Food Expenses – $78
– Adobe Creative Cloud $29.98
– New Hard Drive $126.95
– GoDaddy Domain Registration $15.17
– Misc supplies $40.90
Total Business Expenses $291
Net Income: $2,173
Expenses
Gas $211
Food $680 (includes coffee shops for work & alcohol)
Camping $0 (Find out how we camp for free here)
Car Maintenance & Repairs $38 (oil change)
Insurance $167
Cell Phone $80
Gym Membership $35 (used primarily to be able to take “real” showers!)
Misc. Expenses $88 (toiletries, laundry, stove fuel, and firewood)
Total Expenses $1,299
Net for May $874
If you have questions about anything we have listed in this report, please leave us a comment below and we’ll try our best to answer your questions. Thank you for your continuing support!
Wow! Congratulations guys. Your transparency in this topic has been so helpful to me. It’s great that (at least for now and hopefully from now on) you are no longer having to take away from your savings, but maybe add to them. Cheers!
Thank you for your continuing support, Carl! We are so happy to hear that you find these helpful. Best of luck in your own endeavors!
This is awesome! Thank you for being so transparent about your income and expenses. I would love to be able to do this eventually, but have wondered how people can pull it off financially. Thank you, and I look forward to reading more on your blog.
Thanks Hillary! It was a question we had ourselves before we started out, too. For us it’s been a matter of adapting our skills to be able to earn some money on the road, while also keeping our expenses as low as possible. We also saved up while working out old desk jobs so that we could float ourselves for a few months while we worked on that first part – I can’t tell you how invaluable it was to know that we had money set aside while we built up our freelance careers. If you’re looking to do the same at some point, I’d highly recommend saving as much as possible ahead of time. We wouldn’t have been able to make it happen otherwise. Every path is different, or course, but that’s my two cents 🙂 Best of luck!
You are living my dream. Uhmmm except I have no skills! Really enjoy living vicariously through you. Roll on!!
Love this! Wish I’d had your income reports as a guideline for when we did our own U.S. tour back in 2011.
Hi friends!
First of all – love the blog, so glad to have stumbled upon it in my research! I’m about to set out on my own cross country, live in the car, camp for free kinda journey and have found so much great stuff here!
One question – I noticed your “insurance costs” are pretty low. Does this include health and car? Would you mind sharing what kind of health insurance you have?
Thanks, would love to hear from you!
Hi Melissa! Yes, the “Insurance” category is auto & health combined. We have a VERY basic auto insurance plan because our car is so old and worth so little, it doesn’t make sense for us to have anything but a bare bones policy. I think it’s through Allstate.
For health insurance, we went through Stride Health who helped us find the most affordable plan for our needs. Again, nothing fancy – we opted for a low monthly payment plan but it comes with a high deductible should we need to use it. It’s a trade off we are willing to risk because we don’t have any high risk hobbies like mountain biking or rock climbing.
Hope that is helpful!!
Thanks guys! Definitely helpful. Will keep an eye on the blog, it’s been so helpful so far!
Are you guys going to post income reports from the rest of the summer? These are super helpful and interesting!