Welcome to my income report for October 2020

In October I have earned $421 in total. A lot more than in the previous month. This is because I managed to flip a broken graphic card, that was sold under the price.

What I Did In October

So what happened in October?

Monetised Flask Project With Stripe

It was finally time to monetize the Flask project with some kind of paywall. The value my project gave for free was tremendous.

So I made a goal to learn Stripe API documentation and try to integrate it into the registration process. I was always jealous of western indie hackers, who had access to Stripe.

This year, Stripe opened itself to the Czech Republic and I took it as a sign from above. So far I either used clumsy third-party payment services, which always took the customer out of my website and which lacked language and design customization.

All indie makers use Stripe and everyone is praising a simple integration with few lines of code. Which is true, if you are ok with their out of the box checkout solution.

I wanted something more. I wanted a paywall to be blended into my website. So I have immersed into their documentation and three weeks after, I finally made a nice looking checkout modal.

Payment processing is difficult, complex and a lot can go wrong. Credit card fraud, customer distrust, failed 3D secure verification, and many more.

But it was worth it. I learned how payments are processed, how the logic is set between the front end and back end. And how WebSockets work.

With WebSockets in my skillset now, I can create a real-time web application from now on, not just dynamic ones.

I hope locking everything behind Stripe won't discourage my visitors.

Restarted My Youtube Journey

Since the winter is coming, it is easy to get lazy at home, so I decided to keep myself busy doing something else than programming.

I decided to restart my Youtube journey.

I had big expectations and plans At the beginning of 2020. I invested in a mirrorless camera and tried to record three personal videos.

But after getting zero views and many dislikes I gave up my youtube dream. I was demotivated because I am not fluent in English, I don't have a model-like face, and I hate video editing.

I am still demotivated right now, but the difference is, I don't care about views or subscribers anymore. My goal is to improve my speech, get more efficient at editing, and just put out 100 videos, telling stories about what I am doing.

I forgot to follow my way of doing things, slowly, step by step, with a bigger goal in mind rather than going for short-term success. Slow and steady win the race.

Live projects

Good House Music

At the time of writing this post, my it grew to 167 subscribers. A 4% increase over the previous month.

Nothing much to write about. I have uploaded one new DJ mix and 7 single tracks. One of them got into a public playlist and recorded 99 views.

I will keep uploading till I reach 200 uploads, then we will see if it is going anywhere.

Financia

I worked hard on Financia in October.

Added monetization with Stripe
Released another version of Chrome extension
Optimized database model and web page loading time
Added more inputs fields into the form
Added Google login
Redesigned login and registration page

So far I have put all my time into coding, but it's not enough. Can't wait to work on the marketing side, which I hope will kickstart in December.

Before that, I have to stabilize the backend by moving part of my codebase to the windows platform and refactor logic with orchestration frameworks.

Income Report Breakdown

P2P Lending

Nothing has changed in October.

My P2P strategies are turned off and I am still waiting on the sideline. Mintos lenders are still owing me a lot in pending payments.

Savings Accounts

In October, I forgot to touch my savings, but I subscribed to the state subsidies pension plan. I chose the riskiest, dynamic strategy, that allocates most of the funds to stocks.

According to the prospects, the fund lost 3% for this year. Not a great way to save money considering you pay a 1% annual maintenance fee plus 15% success fees on top of the stock market losses.

But hey, state subsidy should cover the maintenance cost and I am in it for the long term.

Except for that some banks announced even lower saving limits starting next year. So it seems my passive income will shrink even more.

Used Stuff Sales

My path to life minimalism went well in October. I got rid of a graphic card, a kitchen mixer, and a vintage Playstation 1 game. The less material things I own, the more freedom I get.

Plans, dreams, and wishes

My goals for November are the following. Make Financia better, keep working on a new authority website, and produce video content on regular basis.

That would be it. Thank you so much for following me on this journey and see you in the next report.

Income Report Oct 2020 - Monetised Flask Project With Stripe