One of my guilty internet pleasures is reading blog income reports. I find them fascinating – seeing how other people are making money off of their blogs is totally inspiring. I enjoy all niches – frugal & financial blogs, lifestyle blogs, entrupreanuer blogs, and of course mommy blogs since that’s my niche and the most relatable to me.
So I’m super excited to finally do an income report of my own. October was when I officially started keeping track of my income and expenses (and when I realized legally I needed to get a business license as it was no longer just a hobby!) so I’ll be starting with October, though I have earned some money during the previous months.
Total Page Views: 20,956 (Up from September’s 10,891 due to a Pin going Viral)
Income
Affiliate Sales
I love affiliate sales, as they are an easy way to earn passive income. I’ll repost the blog post on various social media throughout the month on a rotation, but I don’t heavily invest marketing these types of posts. I typically do affiliate sales either as a review of a product or a gift guide, but I will occasionally place it in another blog post so if a reader wants an example of a product I am talking about, it is within easy reach. I always clearly disclose these links by marking them as an affiliate to keep my transparency.
Amazon.com: $78.44
DockATot: $280
Total: $358.44
Sponsored Posts
This range from paid to posts, reviews and giveaways and the like. Individual companies have not been named:
Total: $232.75
Advertising
Advertising is my least favorite way to earn money as it takes a large amount of pageviews to see any real payoff, which I just don’t have at the moment. I earned some advertising money during the month of October, but since I haven’t earned the payout limit, I haven’t been paid, so it is not being included this month.
Total: $0
Products
In addition to money, I also received products in order to facilitate some of my reviews. These include the reviews I did for Best Bottoms, Aurorae and Tom’s of Maine. Estimated retail value is around $96.
Next year I plan to start charging a minimal fee for product reviews since I am still required to pay taxes on free items.
Expenses
I try to keep my expenses down by doing as much as I can by myself. I do have a few things that are billed on a yearly cycle (domain name and hosting, social media schedulers etc). Since I pay for these all at the same time, I haven’t broken down the cost individually per month.
Dreamstime: $39 – Stock Images. I get most of mine from free stock sites, but occaisionally I need a paid option.
Blogging Ebooks: $60 – Purchased two ebooks this month, one on blogging and the law and another on increasing traffic.
Total: $99
Total Profit: $492.19
While I still am not making enough money to quit my day job (my eventual goal) it’s great to see my hard work paying off and a rise from the previous months income. Most of what I’m earning at this point is being invested back into the blog in the form of classes and ebooks in the hopes of creating an even bigger profit next month.
Are you a blogger? What has been working for you this month?
I love income reports!
Keep in mind that you can offer to sell Advertising on your blog either directly or through places like buysellads.
I like to start off by charging about $3 for every 1,000 impressions on my sites. You can start off higher or lower. I don’t do much of this since affiliate pays so well, but it can be a nice way to pad the revenue a little bit.
Thanks for the tip! Yes, I’ve debated selling advertising slots on my site directly, but hadn’t decided on a price that seemed fair. $3 for every 1,000 does sound pretty reasonable though. Thanks!