July 2015 Online Income Report – $515
This is my fifth blog income report to share! This report only includes income I received from the month of July. I don’t include any money that is pending. If the money isn’t in my bank account, I don’t count it!
My journey to blogging and making money from my blog has been a slow, but steady one.
I started blogging almost a year ago!
If you are thinking about starting a blog, this tutorial will help you start a blog today. You’ll also get a FREE domain name for a year! I was able to quit my job and blog full time, all within my first year of blogging.
I am really glad I took a chance and started a blog! I invested around $140 to start my blog using Bluehost, and I made $13,000 in 6 months of blogging. That’s the best return of investment ever!
At the start of 2015, I decided to get serious about my blog and treat it more like a business.
I started commenting on other bloggers’ posts, joined Twitter and signed up with Pinterest.
At the start of 2015, I committed to writing two to three times a week, improved my photos and wrote better content.
In March, I even earned income from my blog. Since then, I have been slowly making money each month!
While I won’t be able to quit my day job anytime soon, every penny counts!
Here are a few of my previous posts about my blog income:
Online Income Report
As I stated earlier, my income report only includes money I have actually received.
Here’s my income breakdown:
- Affiliate Income – $35.00
- Google Adsense – $0 (even though I continue to earn money through this avenue, I still haven’t reached the $100 threshold)
- Product Reviews – $0 compensation, but received over $200 in valued product
- Freelancing – $480
Total Income: $515
If you want to keep track of your online income (which I highly recommend) check out Freshbooks! It’s what I’ve used to track business income, expenses, invoice clients, and more. Click here to learn more about Freshbooks.
I really like affiliate earnings, mainly because I don’t have to rely on crazy high traffic to generate income.
My affiliate earnings came from 1 source of revenue last month. There are only a few companies and services I have recommended so far when it comes to affiliate income.
These are the companies and products I use:
My blog’s theme: This is a wordpress theme I installed myself (yup, I installed it by myself to save money!)
Rakuten: This is my fave company I use when I shop online. Hello, free money! It’s free cashback on every purchase and the money gets deposited into my PayPal account. It’s really hard to turn down free money. I’ve made almost $700 since signing up, which is crazy.
Ibotta is another free cell phone app. You use it after you go grocery shopping and use your receipt. It’s basically a rebate app, so you can earn anywhere from 50 cents to $5 off everything you buy.
My favorite part about this app is that it’s not always brand specific, like a lot of coupons are. So you’ll be able to scan “any brand of bread” for 50 cents off, etc.
If you do coupon – you can STILL use Ibotta and get a rebate. For the diehard couponers out there, this will often result in getting an item for FREE. Crazy, right?
If you want to grab the Ibotta app and start making money off your grocery receipts, click here to get started. You will receive a cash bonus of $10 when you scan your first item!
Product reviews is a new category for me. I am just getting started in this area of revenue.
I am signed up with a few companies that have blog and social media “influencers” that promote products. Some of these are paid and some only include the product.
While I have yet to earn an actual paycheck from these “influential” posts, the product value is awesome. I only accept items I would actually use in real life.
Last month I did campaigns for a luxury, high end skin care company, Special K cereal and snack bars and Crest whitening products. I also blogged about The Honest Company’s products in a previous post.
Blog Expenses
- Google Apps $5
- Fiverr $5 – Technical stuff I didn’t have time to mess with
- Board Booster $5 – this is a great investment if you want to bring traffic to your blog. *2019 Updated – I switched over to Tailwind for all of my pinning needs.
- BlueHost $215.41 – I decided to renew my blog for the next 3 years.
If you are thinking about starting a blog, this tutorial will help you start a blog today. You’ll also get a FREE domain name for a year! I was able to quit my job and blog full time, all within my first year of blogging. I am really glad I took a chance and started a blog! I invested around $140 to start my blog using Bluehost, and I made $13,000 in 6 months of blogging. That’s the best return of investment ever!
Fiverr is my go-to for any miscellaneous, quick fix work right now. They have helped me with my logo and a bunch of technical stuff that I don’t have time for. This has saved me from headaches, so paying them is well worth it!
Blog Goals
My blog goal is simple for August – get back to a better blogging schedule if possible. I’m still posting twice a week, but I would like to alternate weeks where I post three times in a week.
{Resource: 10 Ways Your Blog and Business Can Benefit from Pinterest}
On a side note, I really don’t like posting unless I can comment properly. I enjoy reading other blogs and responding to comments on my site. I get really stressed out publishing a post and then disappearing for a few days, which is why my blogging days has been irregular.
The full time day job, my new part time job (this will hopefully turn into full time once I relocate) and everything involved with moving is definitely making things crazy right now. Last week I posted what my schedule looks like, and I’m excited for this schedule to end in a few months.
Overall, I’m happy with my this month’s blog income report. My little blog is chugging along and still doing better than I expected.
If you are thinking about starting a blog, this tutorial will help you start a blog today. You’ll also get a FREE domain name for a year! I was able to quit my job and blog full time, all within my first year of blogging. I am really glad I took a chance and started a blog! I invested around $140 to start my blog using Bluehost, and I made $13,000 in 6 months of blogging. That’s the best return of investment ever!
How was your July?
Hi Kristin, I am super new to blogging but trying to learn. Thank you for all of your information. I am shy about writing. Never considered myself a writer. Want to supplement retirement $. You have really inspired me.
I don’t consider myself a writer either, so don’t let that stop you!
I am curious what Freelance work you did when you first started out and where you found your clients. I am looking into becoming a freelancer specializing in finances, but unsure of how to start.
Thank you for the inspiration by the way!
The only freelancing I’ve ever done is as a Pinterest virtual assistant! I wrote a case study about how Pinterest helped my blog grow and after that was hired by fellow bloggers. I created a ‘hire me’ page on my site – I no longer offer services – and soon businesses found me and I received a ton of referrals. What kind of freelancing do you want to do?
Hey I love all the info you have here! I’m new to blogging and I’m trying to figure out how to up my blog traffic! You are super helpful to his newby! Thanks again!
Yay, awesome!
Hey Keistin,
Could you please ellaborate on what you did for getting more page views? I really need help with that.
90% of my traffic is from Pinterest. This is a good article to see how I my page views increased – https://www.believeinabudget.com/pinterest-case-study-pinterest-followers/
I’m curious because I’ve just recently started my own blog, you said part of this income was free lance work. Does that mean you were writing for another blog or source? I’m still trying to learn the lingo here.
Great …your earnings are inspiring me to continue blogging…
Kristin, that is some awesome-sauce progress! Good for you! Keep those inspiring posts coming…very inspirational!
Thanks so much Kristie!
Hi. Been reading a lot of your posts recently for starting a blog. The part I don’t actually get is HoW you make the money? I am feeling very daft at the moment ?
Hi Rachelle! What do you mean? In this report, I broke the report down to show I made income from 5 different sources 🙂
Thanks so much for this post. I am getting use to this blogging life after my first blog has traffic but my second blog is powerful!
Congrats Cinquanta!! Isn’t blogging life great?!
This is great stuff! I just started a blog (www.100kelvins.com) and I’m going to incorporate some of these ideas. I never thought about affiliate income and writing some content around it. I’m only at 5 bucks lifetime on AdSense :(. Thanks for the article!
Hey Kelvin! It took me several months before I got my first AdSense check – it’s the hardest $100 to earn ever! I would definitely get started with earning affiliate income – you have much more control over that compared to ads!
Thanks for your interesting article. I should find out more about affiliate income, thanks. Thought you’d be interested in WHY I started my blog http://tinyurl.com/qfe6msa
Cheers
MrRicket
Thanks!
Can you tell me what affiliate program you use, the one I used (CJ) for over 7 years generated me exactly $0
CJ is a tough one for me too. I really like Shareasale!
Thank you so much Kristin, I truly appreciate the advice as well as your blog! Oh yea, and CONGRATULATIONS on finally hitting the elusive Adsense threshold
!
Thanks so much Falesha!
Thanks for sharing your income report. Can’t wait to hit the adsense $100 mark too! Someday
I know right?!
Great job, Kristin! Can’t wait for that Adsense threshold to be met; that’ll be a ton of fun. Thanks for sharing your income report. It’s always fun to get that peek at other blogs.
Thanks Janeen! Someday I will achieve the Adsense paycheck, ha!
Hey, you are doing good so far! Any income you bring in is good, right? 🙂
Ha, so true! Income is income!
Hey! What google app are you paying for? I use google a ton and dont have to pay anything. You should try and cut that expense for sure. I think you did the right move by getting that 3 year blog contract at the cheaper rate!
Anyhow thanks for posting, ive updated you on the The Ultimate List of Blogger Income Reports
I use Google Enterprise – I think. It’s strange though – I have 2 near identical accounts (just 2 different websites) and one is free, but this one isn’t. When I reached out to Google I was told this – Please note that the free edition of Google Apps is no longer available since December 6th, 2012.
I haven’t tried any affilate income, yet. I think that will be waiting until next year. For the rest of the year I’m focused more on making sure I’m posting good quality content, promoting on social media, and driving up my traffic.
My affiliate income is pretty soft and not pushy. It’s all links to products or services I use! It has taken me a long time to sort through what works for me and what doesn’t, so I’m glad I got started early. I’m still trying to figure it out, ha!
It’s funny because I don’t like affiliates for the reason that my site doesn’t generate huge amounts of traffic! I get most of my higher paying clients through sponsored posts. People feel differently about it, but I try to make sure I’m seamlessly blending those with my own heartfelt words. 🙂 At least I try, but the income is too good to pass up. Have you gone that route?
I am hoping to dive into sponsored posts in the future, but haven’t even pursued it, mostly because I am not sure how to 🙂 I don’t really have a ton of affiliate links because I’m pretty picky. But I like that I can link to something in a post, and then it’s there forever with no extra effort on my part!