Calculating My Fixed Monthly Expenses 2.0

That Didn't Last Long

Last time I calculated this (in the heady days of...five months ago), I was amazed to find that thanks to some cost cutting (mostly leaving the GoDaddy ecosystem) my Patreon was now covering my fixed monthly expenses! I got them down from 62 bucks a month to 40ish, which is less than the 53-55 bucks I get each month from my Patrons. It was a goal I had been working to for a looooong time.

Welp, then Mailerlite decided to pull some bullshit. 

Up until a week or so ago, Mailerlite was free if you had less than 1k subscribers. I had about 800, so I was good to go. Out of the blue though, they decided to drop that number down to 500. I actually went through my list and culled about 200 names (anyone who had not opened an email from me since I swapped to Mailerlite 10 months ago), but that didn't get me below 500. And honestly, I knew the day where I was going to have to pay for my newsletter was coming...I just hoped I could put it off longer. 

I actually looked around, and strongly considered swapping to Email Octopus, but in the end I decided to hold what I got until my next renewal period hits. When that starts getting close, I may see what the lay of the land is then, and look at swapping to something cheaper.

But that would not have gotten me up above my Patreon limit on it's own. No, to do that I added a subscription to Schedchie. This is a social media scheduler. I am technically still on my free trial, but I will absolutely be subscribing once that trial is up. It's already paying off, and I haven't really started using it fully. It's going to make running my smaller social medias so much easier. 

Also, it turns out I pay for Bookfunnel each year? It's only 20 bucks, and I hear people say they use it all the time, but I will be honest...I don't know what it does. At one point I did, clearly, because I signed up for it. But I didn't realize it until I got a renewal email. I feel like it's important?

So anywho, here are the new totals:

Fixed Expenses

• Mailerlite - 126.00/year, 10.50/month

  • Again, not happy with this, but too complex to swap at the moment, what with the integrations I have set up.

• Schedchie - 129.24/year, 10.77/month

  • God I already love this for me. The fact that there are actual posts on the Bearded Bard Instagram? Yeah, it's thanks to this. 

• Bookfunnel - 20.00/year, 1.67/month

  • This does...something. I have about 8 months to figure it out before I have to renew again. 

• P.O. Box - 170.00/year, 14.17/month

  • Nothing I can do about this. I have to have an address for my newsletter, and I don't want to use my home address. Also, I like getting mail/postcards from and and other authors. 

• Tales by Bob Domain - 11.06/year, 0.92/month

  • I use porkbun for this. 10/10 would recommend.

• Bearded Bard Inkworks Domain - 11.06/year, 0.92/month

  • I use porkbun for this. 10/10 would recommend.

• Tales by Pod Domain - 11.06/year, 0.92/month

  • I use porkbun for this. 10/10 would recommend.

• Webhosting - 47.88/year, 3.99/month

  • I use Hostinger. I bought a 4 year hosting plan, which gave me a 240 dollar discount. I host all of my sites on this one plan. So, I am betting it will go up after 4 years, but for now...I'm set. Very happy with the price.

• Captivate - 204.00/year, 17.00/month

  • My biggest monthly expense, and the one I arguably use the least right now haha. But I love Captivate: I have all my podcasts hosted there, it lets me have a network, good stats, the whole shebang. I'm not saying I would never move, but I haven't heard of a better fit for me. 

Total Fixed Expenses Per Year: 730.30

Total Fixed Expenses Per Month: 60.86

Amount Patreon Sent Me This Month: 53.36