So you are a food blogger, huh? “What exactly is that?” That is a question I get all the time. “So you write about food? You take pictures of food?” My friend said we should all rebrand and call ourselves food personalities. I am down, that sounds fun.
Last week we talked about setting blogging goals, this week are talking business. Blogging business to be exact.
Regardless of what type of blogger you are, you more than likely are making a little money or trying to make money from your website. If that is the case, you are a business. Many bloggers don’t realize that they are truly a business. If you are making money or want to make money you need to treat yourself like a business. When you have a business there are certain things you need to consider and rules that you need to follow. I am not talking about rules from your local bloggers group, I am talking about government rules. Taxes to be exact, they are kinda important (Not really, they are REALLY important.)
So now that we’ve established that you are a business, whether you knew it or not, you need to treat your blog like the wonderful business it is.
To help my blog business stay organized and to keep all the information I need at my fingers tips, I created a blog binder. There are sites out there that have wonderful downloads. Ones that you can download entire, fabulously decorated sheets. You can print the sheets and create you own binder. Last year I looked at tons of them and didn’t find one that encompassed all I wanted to include. So I just took the best bits and pieces from the ones I liked. Make sense? As we continue though our blogging series, I’ll be sharing different pages that I have printed out and where they came from.
Remember those taxes that I was talking about earlier? Yeah, well these sheets will help keep some of the information together you need when it’s tax time. It is very important to keep track of your income (yeah! We like money!) and it is important to keep track of your expenses (sometimes you have to spend money to make money?!). It is also important to keep track of your mileage.
Here are some example of income:
- payment for a sponsored post on your website
- payment for an article you wrote for a brand’s website
- payment for you to tweet out information from a brand
So basically, when you get paid. Wahoo, its pay day!
Here are some examples of expenses:
- money that you paid to buy groceries to create that delicious Rustic Potato Soup recipe that you just posted
- money that you spent to buy the props that you used in the Cranberry Mint Tea recipe
- money that you paid your virtual assistant to schedule your social media
So basically, when you pay out money. Bye-bye money!
Here are some examples of mileage:
- mileage from when you drove to the Gluten Free Food Allergy Fest to sell your latest cookbook
- mileage to/from the store when you went to buy your new camera (see when you get paid, you can sometimes buy new things! YIPPY!)
- mileage to/from that new local gluten-free bakery so that you could write a review about them and sample their amazing goodies
So basically, anywhere you drive. Phew, those miles can add up!
While the the concept is an easy one, keep track and record the information. It can be a daunting one. Anybody else find those easy tasks, just daunting sometimes? So the key is staying organized.
In my binder, I have tabs for each month. Behind each tab is an income sheet and an expense sheet. I also have a separate mileage tab. I do not keep track of mileage on a monthly basis. I just do it all on one sheet.
In the front of my binder, I have envelopes labeled with the month and year. After I have recorded an expense, I place that receipt into the appropriate envelope. Typically, what I do is keep all receipts in a box until the end of the month. When the end of the month rolls around, I go through all of my expenses at once.
You can print an income sheet here.
You can print an expense sheet here.
You can print a mileage sheet here.
Let’s get organized!
I want to hear from you!! Leave a comment telling me what tips you use to organize your income and expenses! Let’s help each other!
