How to Track Your Blog’s Income and Expenses to Hit Your Business Goals

After I hit $10k/month in my business, I kind of felt like I was done. I’d probably hit the most I was ever going to earn from my blog, right?

Then I read Denise Duffield Thomas’ “Get Rich Lucky Bitch” and Jen Sincero’s “You Are a Badass At Making Money”, and my mind was BLOWN 🤯!

I realized that $10k/mo is nowhere near the most I could be making as an online business owner, and that the only thing holding me back was me. So I immediately started implementing their advice.

One of the first things I did was start tracking my income and expenses EVERY DAY.

That’s all I changed from July 2023 to October 2023 – and my income nearly tripled! I had my first $26.5k month.

I’m going to share my exact set up – because while I love both of these books, their advice is more for a traditional business model – so you can track your income and expenses too.

This spreadsheet pairs with my business planning strategy, which you can get free here. It’s an interactive workshop, so bring some post its to partake!

Setting Up Your Income Spreadsheet

I recommend using Excel or Google Sheets for this. I like Google Sheets so I can use it from any device if I’m abroad.

We are going to end up with the following sheets:

• [Month] – x12
• Total Income
• Total Expenses

These need to be within the same file so that we can use some formulas to calculate between the sheets for us, and save us some time.

Setting Up Your Monthly Income Sheets

Step 1: Set up your sheet with the current month (or January if you’re starting one for the new year) in the A1 cell.

Step 2: Fill out the rest of column A with your income sources. I break this down by who is paying out to me.

For example, I would put “TravelPayouts” rather than each individual affiliate inside of that account. I find this easier than having to track the $0.12 I might get from a company I only link once on my site.

Try your best to fill out as many as you have every single month so we don’t need to add to it later or move where our totals go, as this will impact your final formula for our yearly totals later.

I leave 5 extra spaces beneath my current income sources, because some will crop up over time that you may not expect – like when I monetized my Youtube channel at the end of 2023 – or some might only last one month – like a bundle or summit that’s running for a limited time.

If you are brand new, I recommend setting up minimum 20 rows for income sources, even if you only have 3 potential ones now.

There is no maximum number to have.

Step 3: Calculate the totals.

I put “Total” in the A column, and in B column I use the following formula: “=sum(B2:B#)”. Replace the # with the row that is just above your Total row.

This will add up the total income earned above into one easy total.

I recommend also changing column B to be formatted as a $ amount so that it’s structured $0.00 for every field in the column. It just looks cleaner.

Step 4: Add your goal income to the bottom – usually 2 rows below your Total.

The goal income here is your yearly income goal.

I put “GOAL” bolded and in capitals in column A, and the goal income number in column B beside it.

This keeps our goal right in our face every day, and helps us see how we’re progressing towards it.

Step 5: Track your progress towards the income goal.

Beneath this, I put “To Go” in column A. You could use another phrase like “So Far” or “Income Earned”.

In column B beside it, I use this formula “=[Goal $ amount] – [Total $ amount]”.

Rather than inputting these numbers individually, click on the cell with them and it’ll auto populate any time the total income changes.

Step 6: Set your monthly income goal.

Just seeing a large number like $100,000 can feel daunting. That’s probably not going to happen in a month – definitely not in month 1!

So we also want to have a monthly goal.

I put it in column D in the same row as the “Total”, but you can keep it all vertical if you prefer.

In column D I put “Monthly Goal”. Beside it in column E, I put whatever dollar amount I have as my goal for the month.

In the row beneath it, I put “To Go” – just like we did for the yearly income goal.

This time our formula is “=[Monthly Goal $ amount] – [Total $ amount]”.

This shows us how much more we need to make that month to hit our goal.

Step 7: Duplicate the sheet 11 times, and rename the sheet and the A1 cell for the relevant month.

I recommend duplicating January to February, making the one formula change that I’m going to tell you about in one moment, and then duplicating it for March. Then change the formula, and so on and so forth.

The one formula we need to change is our “To Go” amount in column B.

Initially, this tracked how much we made in that month, but now we need to know across multiple months.

We need to change the formula to this: “[Total $ amount] – [Goal $ amount] – January![Total $ amount]”.

For example this would look like: “=B13-B11-January!B11”.

Then for March, it would be “=B13-B11-January!B11-February!B11”.

You will add the previous month each time so it’s constantly adding up the total income from every month so far.

Alternatively, the first time you make the sheet, you could preemptively put every month in. But you’ll need to have those sheets premade to ensure it doesn’t break the formula.

Setting Up Your Total Income Sheet

Now that you have your months set up, we need a sheet that summarizes what you’ve earned each month so you have it in one easy spot.

I call this the “Total Income” sheet. I rename the sheet this.

Step 1: In cell A1, I put “Months” and list out each month below it.

In column B beside each month, I pull the Total $ amount number from the relevant spreadsheet.

For example, it would look like “=January!B11” if my income earned total was in cell B11.

We want to do this for each month so we have the monthly totals in one spot.

Step 2: Put “Total” in cell A14. In cell B14, run a sum calculation to total up all of the income you’ve earned thus far.

The formula is “=sum(B2:B13)”

Step 3: Input your “Goal” in cell A16 and the $ amount you’re aiming to earn in B16.

Beneath it, put “To Go” in cell A17.

Use the formula “=B16-B14” to get the to go amount for B17.

Step 4: If you need to do a conversion to your local income, like I do (my business runs in USD but I’m Canadian), add this in A19 and B19.

Every month, I search the average conversion rate from USD to CAD, then add it into column C beside my months on this spreadsheet.

In A19, I add them together.

Alternatively, you can put an average conversion rate for the year, and convert from the Total $ amount in B14.

I recommend going with the lowest exchange rate so you’re pleasantly surprised if more ends up in your bank account.

Step 5: Add a column of ideas for more income.

I put this in D1 and then list my ideas below. This is where I can plan out how much I think I’ll make each month, or ideas for new products or ventures that would make me more money.

I plan ahead here, but I also use this to help me get out of an income slump if a month doesn’t go as well as I expect. For example, I might be feeling down that a month only did $1k instead of $10k (working off a $100k goal in this example for the year).

If I come to this idea area, I can check if I have a new product idea or promotion idea I haven’t implemented, or if there is some other money making activity I haven’t tried recently.

For example, I was below my December 2023 income goal, so I decided to launch a sale based off of some requests I had earlier in the year that I’d added to my “Ideas For More Income” column.

I toyed with opening coaching, but didn’t have time with Christmas, etc.

That bought me much closer to my end goal and upped my total income for year so that I made over 5x what I did in 2022!

I hit my December income goal, although I fell short of my lofty income goal by about $60k.

Setting Up Your Total Expenses Sheet

Most people only track their income, but they forget about their expenses.

A fellow course creator told me that they did $1 million in revenue in 2023, but only $200k of that was profit.

I was like “WTF?!?! How did you spend so much?”

They didn’t track it.

So they had no idea how much money was going out, because they kept feeling like so much was coming in each month. $200k is still a lot of money for a year, but it’s a LOT less than $1 million, especially in an online business that usually has 90% profit margins.

So let’s set up an expense sheet.

Be prepared for this to put you in the negatives for a while with the start of your business. That’s totally normal! There are a lot of up front costs and learning costs associated with running a business.

Step 1: Create a new sheet on the spreadsheet and call it “Expenses”.

I also use this as basic bookkeeping as well, so we’re going to set this up for bookkeeping purposes too.

In row 1, we need these columns: “Expense Name”, “Date Paid”, “Invoice”, “Total Paid”.

The expense name is going to be the name of the thing. For example, the name of the freelance writer or the keyword research tool.

Date paid will be the date the money came out of your account or was charged to your credit card.

I include a column for invoice where I can put a link to the invoice in my Google Drive folder. This is where I keep them all for my accountant later. I find it makes it much easier.

And lastly, we have the total amount paid. If you pay in 2 currencies (for example I’m Canadian so I pay in USD for things with my Paypal and CAD for things with my credit card), you can add an extra column and differentiate them with ([Currency]).

Step 2: Create a “Total” row.

This can be anywhere on the sheet. I usually put it in row 11 to start, then add more rows as needed above it when I get close to it.

I don’t want to start with it down in row 100 so I have to scroll to see it, even though I expect I’ll be that far long before the year is up.

In column D, under “Total Paid” on the row of my “Total”, I put this formula “=sum(D2:D[lastnumber of row above])”

This totals the invoices paid so I know how much I’ve spent so far.

Keep an eye on this spreadsheet as it’ll help you figure out what you’re spending money on, and figure out which things have proper returns on investment (i.e. if a Pinterest VA costs $2k a month but your Pinterest traffic isn’t increased and it’s been a year, that’s a bad sign. I’d either change the strategy or cut them loose).

Bonus: Calculating Profit

Now that we know our income and expenses, we want to know what we’re actually getting to keep (pre-taxes. That’s a whole other kettle of fish).

How much has our business profited in the current year?

I put this in my Expenses spreadsheet to force me to look at it more often (cause let’s be real,who wants to look at the money they’re spending?).

After my “Total”, I add another row for “Profit”.

I calculate this by the “Total” from the “Income” spreadsheet, minus the “Total” from this “Expenses” spreadsheet.

So if I made $100,000 according to my income spreadsheet, and I had spent $30,000 on expenses, my profit would be $70,000.

Keep track of this throughout the year so you get an idea of profit margins.

No business will have a 100% profit margin unless they’re stealing – please don’t steal!

But you also don’t want a 10% profit margin in an online business. That’s not the norm for our industry.

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What to Track

Now that you have your spreadsheet set up, let’s talk about the income you should track.

I recommend including all income earned in your business, if this is a business spreadsheet.

The mindset books I read talk about this for personal use, so they recommend including all money earned from things like finding $20 in your pocket or selling a shirt on Poshmark.

That’s legitimate money, but it’s not coming into your business, so I would exclude it from this. Keep a personal spreadsheet for that instead.

Here are some of the types of income I recommend tracking:

• Affiliate income, broken out by affiliate platform
• Ad income
• Income from client work or services
• Sponsorships and press trips (in this case, paid press trips. However do note that the value of a press trip technically counts as taxable income, even if you weren’t paid monetarily)
• Physical products sales
• Credit sold (i.e. gift cards – but only for ones sold, not ones given away as gifts or promotions)
• Commissions of any sort
• Interest in a high yield savings account (it’s like free money in your business!)
• Dividends, if invested within the business’ accounts

What I don’t include in my income:

• Affiliates that haven’t paid me yet (earned affiliate income will shift until the payout date, especially if things get returned or cancelled)
• Income that hasn’t met a payout threshold (i.e. Google Ads only pays out when you hit $100. I hit $64 in my first few years blogging combined. So I technically never made that money since it’s not in my bank account)
• Affiliate commissions on my products (I only include the amount I actually made on sales, excluding the affiliate commission)
• The value of a trade, for example if you trade services with someone (I don’t recommend this anyway)
• Net60 or net90 payments – anything that isn’t physically in your account yet. Freelance work means things get paid late all the time (I probably still have $100 of freelance writing income floating around out there). Wait until they actually pay you

These are just my rules so far. Adjust them for yourself and your business.

I know some people factor out the Stripe or Paypal processing fees before adding income to their spreadsheet. I don’t, only because it’s annoying to do every day. So I put it in my monthly expenses instead.

When to Track Affiliate Income

Affiliate commissions are an odd type of income, because they aren’t real income until they’re paid out – just like a sponsorship payment with a net60 or net90 payment schedule (that means they pay after 60 or 90 days).

People cancel or return things all the time, and we don’t want to “lose” income on our tracking because of that.

I want to keep it accurate, so I only include affiliates that have been paid out.

I have a secondary sheet tracking earned affiliates so I can track data trends.

How Often to Check Your Spreadsheet

Unlike blog analytics, I recommend checking your spreadsheet daily.

One of the first things I do each day is input the income earned from the day before into my spreadsheet.

This helps me look at all the affiliates I work with, so I can remember to promote them – and check if they owe me a payout.

It also means you start your day looking at your income goal. You’ll be faced with the amount you want to earn and it helps set an intention.

Whenever I want to mess about or procrastinate, I ask myself if that’ll help me reach my income goal. Of course, you’ll still mess about sometimes. But it helps keep you on track more often than not.

I do my expenses each week on a Friday before I finish for the day. I find doing them daily a bit much, especially since I’m not usually spending money every day.

I was doing them monthly for a while, I found it hard to remember what some of the affiliate company names were in my bank statements that way. They often have very different LLC names for some reason – I’m talking completely illegible ones.

Mindset Alone Won’t Make You Money

No matter how much you meditate or how many vision boards you make, if you don’t go out and do the thing, your income won’t change.

Mindset should be motivation for you to implement.

But the implementation and hard work are what will make you rich (whatever you choose to define “rich” as).

When you’re filling out this spreadsheet the first time, really spend some time on the “Ideas For Income” section.

Don’t just bank on Mediavine or something you need a certain amount of traffic to get into at some indiscernible point in time. Look at things you can implement ASAP, like working on writing more affiliate posts.

Or doing an affiliate audit to find missed opportunities for more affiliate income.

Then take action on those things to grow your income – and your profits!

Read More About Monetizing Your Blog

• 60 Best Travel Affiliate Programs for Bloggers
• How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger: 15 Ways I Made $30k
• Ezoic Review: Will it Increase Your Blog Revenue?
• Mediavine Requirements (And How to Reach Them)
• Travelpayouts Review: 6 Figure Travel Blogger Weighs In
• How I Made $26.5k on Black Friday by Blogging & What I Learned Along the Way
• Blog Business Planning Workshop: Setting Profitable and Achievable Goals
• How I Made $110k in a Month in June 2023 👀
• 19 Best Ad Networks for Bloggers to Make 6 Figures
• How to Make $6k on a Digital Product Flash Sale
• I Sold a Starter Site For $2k. Here’s Exactly What I Did!
• How to Use Link Whisper to Increase Affiliate Conversions
• Selling Digital Products with Email Marketing for Beginners ft. Kate Doster
• Growing a Niche Site to $50k Series
• How to Make Your First $10 From Affiliate Sales in 7 Steps
• Are ConvertKit Email Ads Worth It? 6 Week Case Study Review

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