Blogging Income Report November 2016: $25,319.87

Welcome to my very first blogging income report! I'm not even going to lie – sharing the details of my business is scary stuff. So I'm going to take a deep breath to (hopefully) calm my nerves and let y'all see my numbers.

Why would I do this? In my previous jobs, it was a stern rule that you were not supposed to share how much you made. Money is a tricky subject, but I'm opening up to show you just how much money you can make blogging. With over 500,000 people a month coming to my website, I hope to inspire at least one person to follow their dreams and be successful doing what they love.

If this story does inspire you, you can learn how to start your own blog in under 15 minutes with my step by step guide.

Before we get started, I want to share a few details on how blogging has changed our lives:

Even though I started this blog as a hobby, I left my day job within a year. This gave me more time to focus on my family.

Now my husband works with me full time, so we have the freedom to travel as much as we want because we have plenty of time as well as plenty of money to go where we'd like without worry. Our biggest luxury: We go to Disney world about 5 times a year. Crazy huh? It's our favorite place on earth – and blogging gives us the freedom to work there if we need to.

My biggest change: I never worry about money. I grew up very poor and my relationship with money was very awkward. It took me a solid 2 years of making over 5 figures a month to feel secure in our financial situation. So if that's where you are in life, don't worry – I've been there.

REMEMBER – these numbers are before expenses, but we'll get to that at the bottom of the post.

Speaking of numbers… let's get to it.

BLOGGING INCOME REPORT – NOVEMBER 2016

November was a great month for me. I actually made more this month than I made in an entire year working my old day job. Crazy, huh? As I've shared before, making money from blogging means you have 4 basic categories…. so here's how that adds up for us this month:

AFFILIATE INCOME: $9,736.02

SPONSORED POSTS: $6,500

DISPLAY ADVERTISING: $8,981

PRODUCT SALES: $99.85

GRAND TOTAL: $25,319.87

That's a crazy big number in my world. And that's more than double what I made last November.

So what changes did I make between last year and this year?

I took an online course and learned all about affiliate sales. After nearly 6 years of blogging without thinking much about affiliate marketing, learning more about it has drastically changed my income without any more effort than before.

I raised my sponsored post rates. I took a long, hard look at what kind of results I was giving my brand partners, then I looked at magazine statistics and compared my results with theirs (my unique visitors per month versus their subscriber numbers). When I did the math, I realized I was drastically undercutting myself. Instead of doing 6 posts at $1000 each, I did two (one paid more than the other). Less work, more money. Boom.

I hired help. I used to run this show all by myself. Now I have four assistants who help me run the small tasks that HAVE to be done but ate up my time. Now I can accomplish more each day and, in turn, make more money.

EXPENSES:

With more income comes more expenses… so let's take a look at that:

ASSISTANTS: $1200

CONVERTKIT (my email service): $175

BOARDBOOSTER (how I schedule pins): $30

SUPPLIES FOR PROJECTS: $315

MISC.: $239

AFTER EXPENSES I MADE $23,360.87

This does not account for income taxes (roughly 25%) nor does it include health insurance (which isn't cheap, yo!) Those are the biggest expenses for small business owners like we are.

Just a few notes that I'd like to point out:

I've been doing this for nearly 8 years – it is not a get rich quick scheme. While I do have a degree in professional writing, I don't think it's necessary because people make great money with no formal education whatsoever. I also think it's important to note that I don't believe I am particularly talented in any way – but I'm tenacious as hell and I knew that I didn't want my kids to grow up poor like I did. So I made it work. But it has worked better than I could have ever imagined.

What changes do I plan on making next?

Learn more about SEO – it's ever-evolving, so the more I know the more I can evolve this website.

Purchasing advertising. I need to promote my own products more often than I do, and creating good ads on the right venues should help me increase my income.

Deep thinking my content strategy. I'm still working on this one, but once it all pans out then I will most definitely write a blog post on it.

Now why go through all that? Because I wasn't always a blogger – but blogging has changed our lives in so many wonderful ways that I hope I can help others reach their goals, too.

Want to learn how to get started blogging so you can make money, too?

START HERE – I show you step by step how to start your own blog in under 15 minutes.

Learn how to make money blogging here – I share everything you need to know about running a profitable blog.

Have a question about blogging? Leave it in the comments and I'll try to help you all I can.

Source: Blogging Income Report November 2016: $25,319.87