It’s 2022 and we’re all about income transparency. Grab a margarita mocktail, or your fav beverage, and get ready to dive into my world of delicately crushing my debt, growing my notary business, and sharing all of the details with you. These posts are certainly not created to brag or boast, but to show the journey behind it all – the wins, the lessons, and the downright ugly days. It’s all going to be documented here. Each section of this post will dive into different aspects of the income: the money made aka business-building stuff, the actual income, and finally the financial-goal aspects of my income & debt repayment plans. I’m only a few months in but I’m starting to get the hang. Lots to dive into..but did I mention I’m so excited?!
April was a big month.
Before we dive into the income, I’ve got to give you a little bit of background. The money I account for as my income for the month includes all of the checks that cleared during the month ONLY. It’s common for signings to payout up to 30 days post-signing so many of the checks I clear in April are from March. There are also many that are from the same month coming from direct clients. It all depends, but I’ll give you the full deets below!
Here’s the total income breakdown:
| Notary Business | $5,739.33 |
| Freelance Marketing | $1,875.00 |
| Miscellaneous | $119.28 |
| Total | $7,733.63 |
April was a big month. For starters, I turned 27 on the 18th. Another year wiser and closer to the 30s. Not only that, but I had a record-setting month in my notary business. It was officially the 5th complete month in business. The seeds I planted in February began to sprout in March and picked up Momentum in April. It was a big shift from months like February, which I may share another time.
Side Note: If you’re totally new to the notary world, it’s really important to know the type of business you can pick up. In general, there are 3 sources of income I get business from:
- Real Estate Signings From Escrow Companies (Direct Work)
- Real Estate Signings From Signing Companies (Signing Services AKA Third Parties)
- General Notary Work (Notarizing documents for the general public)
As I mentioned above, I cleared $5,739.33 in the bank from my notary business, but my total signings for the month looked different. I’ll be diving deeper into the monthly breakdown of my month in signings in a different post. As some signings may not clear until May, I don’t want to include them in the income report.
Additionally, I have maintained steady work as a freelance marketer. This month I cleared $1,875 from my role as a social media account/team manager. This is a little higher than usual, but our team had a switch on payroll, which turned out to be an advantage on my part.
Let’s Talk About My Debt
I never really thought twice about debt. It didn’t bother me mentally or emotionally, even though it was more than my annual income at one point. It wasn’t until a new seed was planted in my heart that everything shifted. I wanted to be more generous with my money and living with a bank statement of overdraft fees was not the way. I often felt frustrated with my finances, but always had big dreams. I read the books, but none of them worked for my situation.
Not to sound cheesy, but it all changed when I released the desire and my dream to God. I have to give praise to God for making everything work together.
It was in December of 2021 and I was at a refinance loan closing appointment in Redondo Beach. The client was refinancing an investment property and somehow we ended up talking about personal finances. He mentioned a name that every millennial hates — Dave Ramsey — and recommended I listen to his talk radio show. I nodded in agreement never really thinking too much about it at the moment.
And on the way back home, I searched it on Spotify to see if it was there because I certainly wasn’t going to listen to the FM radio. No, sir! To my surprise, it was. A few episodes later, I listened to countless couples do the infamous Debt-Free Screams and I got inspired. I never looked back.
I listened to Dave Ramsey on the way to my many escapades and loan signings across Southern California. I even bought his audiobook Total Money Makeover and listened to it whenever I could. In retrospect, I had the will and desire to devise a plan to “make it” but it wasn’t until this *random* person came along, that one who I only met for 30 minutes had the answer for me. It was a God moment.
All of that long story to say, I devised a plan in December but I had many restraints and couldn’t get my budget to work for me until February & March. Here’s a list of all my debts and their status through April of 2022.
| Debt | Amount | Status |
| Quad Pay | $62 | Paid |
| Affirm – Tire Agent | $347 | Paid |
| iPad Installment | $778 | Paid |
| Credit One Credit Card | $346 | Paid |
| Venmo | $186 | Paid |
| Destiny Credit Card | $359 | Paid |
| Genesis Credit Card (Wayfair CC) | $481 | Paid |
| Discover Credit Card | $223 | Paid |
| Capital One Credit Card | $297 | Paid |
| iPhone Installment | $293 | Paid |
| Wayfair through Affirm | $525 | Paid |
| Speedy Cash | $220 | Paid |
| Quad Pay | $62 | Paid |
| Farmer’s Insurance Collections | $156 | Paid |
| IRS 2019 Tax Debt | $4,220 | Open |
| Capital One Auto Loan | $13,728 | Open |
| Student Loan | $31,030 | Open |
In March and April, I worked hard to pay off every single small debt that I once looked at as innocent, but was really stealing my income.
The total amount of debt I paid off was: $4,335! Simultaneously, I’ve been making minimum payments on the other large debts. I even started the refinance process for my auto loan. The interest rate went from 12.76% to 6.55%!
But I’ll share more on that in May. 😄
If I didn’t mention it before, you should know I’m using the debt snowball method to crush my debt. I hope to share more of my journey in much more detail next. This initial post was to mainly share where I am starting and the type of debt I’m ‘digging ‘ through.
Goals Moving Forward
- Get one month ahead on my expenses.
- I have been SUPER obsessed with the way I budget track. My goal is to fund my expenses for the month ahead so that I have less to stress about. This is SO helpful and something to strive for especially if you are an irregular-income-girly like me. 💁🏼♀️
- Pay off my IRS debt
- This is my debt with the lowest balance. I am so determined to attack this one with all that I can while funding my current estimated taxes so I never have to do this again. 😫 Honestly, just waiting for the relief to say that I only have TWO debts to go.
- Go full-time with my notary business.
- This is one I’m striving for. I’ve found my stride and LOVE what I do (and I think I’m pretty dang good at it.) Most importantly, I am tangibly helping teams and signers get the important stuff done and I want to dedicate and commit my time to doing notary with all of my time and focus.
- Stick to the 75-Day Hard Challenge!
- I started the Andy Frisella challenge in May (the date I’m writing this) so I won’t go into depth with this… but I will definitely be keeping you up-to-date on this. I’ll add links here once I have more to share.
