My Business Got Smacked Upside The Head By 2022

It’s a new year and time to do my annual business review.  If you’re not familiar with my story I semi-retired to 20 hours a week at my main job in 2017 after reaching financial independence years before.  Since then much of my newly freed time has been spent on what started as a fun side hustle and has turned into a nice little business of doing graphic design. 

I don’t know what amount of money it takes to change “side hustle” to “business”, but here’s my earnings history by year:

• 2017 – $1,136
• 2018 – $2,751
• 2019 – $7,143
• 2020 – $14,932
• 2021 – $20,743

As you can see I was more than doubling my revenue each year from 2017 – 2020, but that kind of growth is really hard to maintain.  Then last year in 2021 I grew 39% which was still great and I crested $20,000. 

So how much did I make in 2022?

 

2022

All parties come to an end.  2022 was a year of record-high inflation and steep stock market declines.  Oh and bond declines too.  And mortgage rates jumped about 3%. 

In other words, consumers have been pressured from all sides.  Almost everything costs more and they have less money. 

When your business involves selling non-essential items such as t-shirts and coffee mugs with cool designs, a year like 2022 is bad for business.  All things considered, I think I got off light. 

In 2022 my business made $19,642.  That’s a 5.3% decline from 2021.  Drat. 

As I showed in last years post, here’s a chart of my monthly earnings in 2022:

 

The year started out pretty well actually.  My month-over-month revenue from 2021 was up pretty nicely through March, but then things started leveling off.  I maintained close to even from 2021 through summer and was content with that knowing consumers were probably just not spending as much. 

Then my September revenue was significantly lower than 2021, and November was way worse.  My 2022 November revenue was down 42% from 2021 in the same month, ouch!  I recovered decently in December and was only off a few hundred dollars, but the impact of the current recession was clearly shown in 2022. 

 

Why Are You Bummed?

You might be thinking “how can you say it was that bad of a year if your revenue was only down by 5.3% in a recession?” 

That’s a great question.  My business is pretty simple at the core – the more works of art I have out there for sale the more money I make.  Up until 2022 a chart of the number of my designs looked very similar to a chart of my earnings – more designs, more earnings. 

I now have about 1200 more designs in total than I did last year, that’s an increase of about 25%.  

Unfortunately due to the financial climate in 2022 that increased number of designs was only enough to approximate last years earnings.  It wasn’t enough to increase earnings as it has reliably done since I started.

 

Starting To Add Up

To date I have made $66,659 in my graphic arts business.  As the saying goes, sooner or later we’re talking about real money.

Here’s a chart of my total earnings by month since I started the business.

 

Man, if only every month could be December.  This clearly shows how much spending goes on during the holiday season as compared to the rest of the year. 

Overall I’m still more than thrilled at what I’ve built.  And even though it’s a bit of a downer to have a year of negative growth, it’s not for the reason you might think.  I don’t care about the monetary outcome so much, I’m financially independent. 

What I really care about is getting better as an artist and designer.  The more work I put in, the type-A achiever in me wants to see things getting better – that means my sales and skills.  Unfortunately the only one of those that can be quantitatively measured is sales. 

So the downer part is that based on my revenue it appears I didn’t progress, but that doesn’t mean my skills didn’t improve per se.  I know that in my head, I just wish there were some other number I could track to prove that I’m advancing. 

And the good news is that I’ve continued to show up everyday and add new designs to my collection.  I have no doubt that as the economy recovers my revenue will skyrocket past previous levels simply because I have so much more to offer.

 

Moving On…

I’ve got my head up and I’m keeping a positive attitude about 2023.  In the end I can’t complain, I’m covering a substantial portion of my annual living expenses by doing something I enjoy.  That’s a place I wish everyone could get to.