Hello all,

The first month is over! (Apparently I’m actually a day early given that the first Financial Overview was posted on october 24th, but, nevermind that, I post on Wednesdays here!)

Time to take stock.

First, what the fuck.

This month has been a weird mixture of emotions. University exams are done and dusted. Work spontaneously took me off several shifts which drastically harmed my bank account. (Even my boss doesn’t know why this happened as my bosses boss has left, and she was the one who changed it). I have also been attempting to begin Youtube, Etsy, this website, and a NaNoWriMo project.

Oh, and attempting to find a place to move to with my partner, still. Slow going.

But, let’s get into the nitty gritty of the finances.

Cost in Total: $343.62 (Etsy’s Listing charge was $4, I believe it’ll be $6 or so next month. I also bought a subscription to Photoshop. Prematurely, apparently, as my regular laptop doesn’t have the capacity to install it currently. Fun).
Money Earned: $0.
This is looking like a horrific investment currently.

As a poor student, expenses such as these are ludicrously not fun. I’m trying to make that sound okay, did I succeed

It is stressful.

But for the moment, it is bearable. I’m currently attempting to pick up a few more permanent shifts at work to try and help ease things.

However, I will also need to start looking into ways to cut down on these costs. Most likely by using different software, but I’ll keep you informed as to how all that pans out.

Currently, it is a complete net loss. Furthermore, even if I do somehow succeed at monetising anything at all, it’d need to earn me more than $180 a month to successfully make a profit.

This is a horribly ill-advised venture.

But, I’m going to find alternative software to try and mitigate these costs. Sure they might be less grand or less intuitive for user-quality-of-life, but being irritated at a software is preferable to starving or homelessness.

But, time for a mental breakdown of what has been accomplished:

Youtube:

I have currently completed twenty-eight (28) videos and have finally caught up to my One-Video-Per-Day of November. I have also completed a further twenty-seven (27) Youtube Shorts to accompany them.

Not too bad all in all. Fifty-five videos in all.

I have gained seven subscribers, had 103 hours worth of my ontent watched and (hopefully) enjoyed and have had 1.2views in the last seven days.

It could be worse, it could be better.

I have a few plans on making it better, at least.

First:

Thumbnails.

They are incredibly important for very obvious reasons. (And maybe some not obvious ones?) As I begin to explore in Photoshop, I’ll post progress here. Everyone loves progress!

Thumbnails might be something I can use to attract more people and use my content to gain more subscribers.

Consistency.

Posting an hour long video a day is tough. (Do remember, this channel specialises in soothing/relaxing music videos to help insomniacs). Creating the content itself isn’t actually too difficult, but my old laptop is a sluggish beast. Not only does it crash and burn in the middle of creating a video, but when exporting the video it will often corrupt half way through because my laptop is taunting me.

I swear it wants to be set on fire. It was asking for it, Your Honour.

I should make this clear: I have two laptops. One is the one I use for these videos and can be considered my main laptop. The other is a backup I have that I got two years ago when money was less tight and I thought that this laptop was going to melt itself into oblivion.

I will need to use the second laptop for Photoshop, and possibly even Premiere Pro if things get bad enough. I am in the middle of saving up money for an external hard-drive to try and make things a little easier on my old laptop. But, that’s also slow going.

To be frank, I was an idiot to attempt to post a video for every day of November. The majority of my videos are decent quality, some few may even be good. However, the stress of catching up led to about six videos that are far shorter than the rest – about ten-minutes long a pop.

Whilst, yes, it means I’m all caught up, it’s also entirely useless to both myself and the people I made this channel for. Ten minutes of Youtube is not going to help myself or anyone else find rest.

I am looking forward to December. In the beginning I will drop it down to two videos a week, with a focus on learning Photoshop and Premiere Pro more in depth to try and create better quality…. Everything.

After I’m a bit more settled in I’ll up my drive to three a week, which should be quite doable.

Something New:

One last thing regarding Youtube. I’ve also created a TikTok, with the purpose of sharing my Youtube Shorts there. I’ve only does this today and I’ve only uploaded twelve of the shorts. As to how well it will do, or not do, I’m unsure. However, I am curious. I will keep everyone updated as I continue.

Etsy:

Very little to say. Disappointing. Maybe I’m not patient enough, maybe no one wants socks.

I feel like I have very little control over Etsy. I can improve thumbnails, shift up my content, or a dozen other things on Youtube to see what works. However, with Etsy, there is very little. I could bombard my friends and family, my partner and her friends and family, with “BUY MY ETSY MERCH I WANNA BE NOT POOR!”

But, I feel like that would both be rude and… possibly make me single?

I’m not testing that, sorry.

I will be deactivating my listings at the end of this year. I do not believe Etsy can be a success for me, I am just not well-minded for physical products. If anyone reading has any advice that they’d like to share, I’m quite willing to hear it!

Hamishmaccoll.com:

This website was getting a good few views every day or so when I was posting each week. But then I disappeared for a few weeks and the views have stopped. (all except for one, American Dad, thanks).

However I can control this website, I can grow it, make it a decent resource as well as a transparent look at my journey.

From Here:

I’m going to showcase my first real attempts at making thumbnails come December. I intend to showcase all of it – minus me buggering around with Photoshop installer. I’ll go through the research of the channels similar to mine, the process I create to decide what thumbnails to create, and then getting all of that to align into an image I can upload onto Youtube as a thumbnail.

I want this website to be a transparent look at my journey, probably crashing and burning, but maybe not.

However, I also want it to be a resource that people can use for their own journey. Plus; it would be interesting to come back next December and see how my skills with creating thumbnails have changed and (hopefully) improved.

To Conclude:

I’m fucked. Money is terrible. The World Is Burning.

But I have hope.

Stupid, ignorant and idiotic hope. But it is there, for some reason.

Until next time, all the best.

Hamish