I am so thrilled to have you as part of my online community!!
Keep an eye on your inbox for lots of blogging tips & tricks coming your way.
In the meantime, here are some posts that might interest you:
How to start a Blog {when you have no idea what you’re doing}
How to create your own Blog Mastermind Group
9 Best Websites to get Free Stock Photos for your Blog
Here is my July 2019 Blog Income Report
Welcome to my very first blog income report!
Let me tell you, I’m feeling a lot of different feelings right now!
I’m thrilled to be making some money from my blog, I’m excited to share all the details, but also I feel just a little scared.
I mean, I’m about to pull back the curtain on my business for the first time!
And while I’m making a steady profit, I’m not making all that much money yet. Part of me feels like maybe it’s too soon to be sharing my income reports.
But when I step back and think about it, the fact that I’m not making that much money is actually why I want to start sharing my income reports now.
There are so many income reports out there from bloggers who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars every month.
My goal is to grow my income each month and I want you to come along with me and watch it grow.
And so I’m just going to do it scared.
How I track my stats
I used to track my blog stats by checking them all the time. This was not only frustrating, but such a time suck.
Back in March I switched to only deliberately tracking (and writing down) my blog stats for the month right after each month ends on the first day of the next month.
I add each new month onto the bottom of the document and it’s been a great way to see my growth month over month.
I’d recommend you adapt a similar strategy to track the growth of your own blog.
All of that being said, this was an exciting month for me because I finally reached Mediavine.
(If you’re not familiar, Mediavine is a really great ad network to requires 25K sessions to apply).
Because of that, I was anxiously checking my Google Analytics each morning, waiting to hit that magic number.
(As you might imagine, there was a big ol’ dance party over here once I did.)
I’m now working on dialing back that habit – checking those numbers can be addicting! Especially, when they’re going up. I’d like to go back to checking once a month.
JULY 2019 BLOG STATS
Email Subscribers – 3,760
Pageviews – 76,059
Sessions – 60K (this was the first month I hit 25K, and I ended up reaching 60K!)
Unique visitors – 53K
How I Track My Income
I track my income based on the money I am actually paid during the month.
Blogging is a little different than regular income because sometimes there is a delay of several months before the money you’ve earned actually hits your bank account.
For example, this month I earned $150 from Amazon Prime Day. I will not count that as income until I’m actually paid several months from now.
JULY 2019 BLOG INCOME
Tripwire Products – $332.50
Amazon Affiliate Income – $10.48
Total Income – $342.98
If you’re not familiar with the term Tripwire, it just means a special limited-time offer that is offered to a reader right after they subscribe to your email list.
I have 3 different tripwires up and running right now and they are all performing well. This has been a great income source for me since I have been super focused on optimizing my blog for email signups almost since the beginning.
JULY 2019 BLOG EXPENSES
Sendowl – $15.00
MyECoverMaker – $14.95
Canva Pro (Yearly) – $119.40
Total Expenses – $149.35
JULY 2018 BLOG PROFIT – $193.63
Despite being my highest traffic month ever, July was a low income month for me. But that was intentional.
I was really focused on increasing my traffic so I could reach Mediavine and increase my future income.
I’m not upset about that profit total for several reasons.
I know that August will be a much higher income month.
I’m gearing up to launch my own shop on my blog in the next few weeks.
(By the way, if you’re in the personal finance / frugal living niche and would like to be an affiliate for my budgeting and money saving products, send me an email and let me know!)
I will also be doing my first sponsored post in August.
Previous Income
My June income was $642.
My May income was $612.
100% of that money was reinvested into my blog.
I paid for most of my expenses for the year in the past 2 months, including ConvertKit and DepositPhotos.
As my list has grown, email has become really expensive! I actually switched over from Drip to ConvertKit because they’re much more affordable (like $600 a year!) and I’m really loving them so far.
I also ran a few small Facebook Ads.
I’m so thrilled to have most of my big expenses paid for as we get closer to Q4 because I know that will cause my future profit to be so much higher.
I’m perfectly fine with making less money now so that I can make more in the coming months.
And now that those expenses are paid for, I’m actually in a position to cut myself a paycheck!
My profit for July was $193.
$93 will be saved for taxes – I’m all about being financially responsible these days.
$100 will be transferred into my personal bank account. For the very first time.
I can’t tell you how big that feels!
Yes, that breaks down to just about $1 an hour for July.
But 6 months ago, I was running my business at a loss.
And 6 months from now, I know I’ll be making so much more.
MY BIG GOAL
So, this might sound crazy, since my profit was under $200 this month but…
I fully intend to replace my teacher income by the end of the year.
(Did I mention I used to teach Kindergarten before I decided to be a work-at-home mom?)
Basically that means I’m planning to 10x my income in the next 5 months.
I think I can do it because I’ve worked so hard to put all of the little necessary pieces into place up to this point.
And I’m so excited to have the chance to check in with you along the way and update you on my progress. That is so motivating!
Here’s to a wonderful August!
Cheering for you,
Heather