Welcome to another monthly online income report! You might be here because you wondering, “how much money do bloggers make” or, “how I make money blogging”, which is what I am going to be talking about today.
I’m calling it an online income report since it not only incorporates the blog income but also YouTube earnings. Having several sources of online income growing at the same time makes sense to me in case one ever disappears.
Motivation to rebuild my online income is at an all time high after going back to work after having my baby. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop working a regular job, but having income coming in from other sources gives me many more options!
Why Share An Online Income Report
A couple months ago I decided to take my blog seriously after years of just being a hobby blogger.
During that time of blogging on and off I watched other bloggers like Pinch of Yum, Busy Budgeter, Just A Girl And Her Blog, post monthly blog income reports where they grew from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars a month. I realized if they could do it, why couldn’t I? Even if I only made it to a couple of thousand dollars a month, how would that change our lives?
Currently I’m nowhere near a full time income. I started tracking my income with a rough monthly range of $300-$500 per month and hope to grow that amount to better help support my family.
This is a process for me as I reorganize, refocus, and build from a place where my blog was abandoned for a couple years. If nothing else, I want to see what I can do.
I don’t know how long I’ll be doing these, but I’d at least like to chronicle the experience while I’m focused on earning enough extra income to pay for new expenses like daycare!
Previous Income Reports
If you’re interested in past income reports, you can see my last few here:
- July 2018 Online Income Report: $584.16
- August 2018 Online Income Report: $353.44
- September 2018 Online Income Report: $309.49
- October 2018 Online Income Report: $558.70
Q1 2019 Online Income
Here’s my earnings broken down by type with the sources listed below:
January Online Income: $855.44
February Online Income: $817.57
- Affiliate Marketing
- Advertising
- Adsense – $396.75
- MLM
- Advocare – $91.71
March Online Income: $706.26
- Affiliate Marketing
- Advertising
- Adsense – $354.31
- MLM
- Advocare – $22.00
Total Income: $2,379.28
Online Income Results
My goal is to earn $500 monthly online and I exceeded that goal every month! I’m really thrilled with that progress considering last year I didn’t hit my goal several months. It just shows that the efforts build upon themselves as you continue to work on it, even if you aren’t working on it with 100% focus.
Over $700 per month for Q1 is a great result. I’m still keeping my goal of $500 per month all year since I know things can change but I’d like to hope back up to that next level of income over $1,000 a month. That will go a long way toward paying off debt and moving us toward freedom.
Affiliate Earnings
This is an area I’d like to continue to grow more because there is a lot of potential here. I only recommend sites and products I believe in and either have bought for myself or would by for someone I love. Because of this I find affiliate earnings a way to share what I love and also be paid to help people at the same time. It gets a bad rap because some people use it in a shady way but I think it’s a really awesome thing. I also think I have a lot of room to grow in this area.
YouTube Earnings
YouTube earnings have been consistent which has been great as blog advertising income drastically dropped overall (it is not a huge focus currently but may be in the future).
My channel is normally earning between $250-$300 in a 4 week period. That’s fantastic considering a year ago at this time I was earning $20 and then demonetized. That means in a year I’ve grown my income by a multiple of 10. It doesn’t seem like a big deal when it’s just $250 a month, but it’s a huge deal when I think of the snowball effect and consider what this amount will be if it’s multiplied by another 10. That is some serious money.
What Didn’t Work Well
I didn’t have much time to do anything besides make videos. I have been dealing with personal stuff on top of work and taking care of Penny so it leaves less time for working on this little once again growing side hustle.
Another thing that didn’t work well was my focus on the things that work well. I suffer from the common affliction of chasing the shiny new thing, so I tend to lose focus on the work that matters. I think some accountability or a mastermind group might help keep me on track here so it might be something I need to find.
What Worked Well
I think consistent video creation has worked well on my YouTube channel. I’ve grown my channel to over 5,000 subscribers which is insane since my goal last year was just to hit 3,000 – and that was a stretch goal. People are finding my channel more frequently and seem to like my content. A planner budgeting community has developed with many bigger channels and my mid-size channel. It is pretty exciting to see how it continues to grow!
Goals For Q2 2019
What I’m planning for next quarter:
- Open my Etsy shop!
- Continue at least 3x videos a week on YouTube
- Clean up old blog posts and improve them for better traffic
Popular Posts & Videos
I’ve been making videos regularly over the last three months.
Posts published in Q1 2019:
I really didn’t put much effort into blog posts in the first quarter of the year which is reflected in the small amount that were published:
- April 2019 Budget & Sinking Funds
- Debt Snowball Update – February 2019
- How to Stop Impulse Buying
- Debt Update – January 2019
Popular posts on A Merry Life last quarter:
- Healthy Eating Snack Ideas
- 50 Motivation Quotes For Your Motivation Board
- How To Deodorize Smelly Shoes
- The Best Thing I Ever Did For My Anxiety
- Baby Shower Brunch Food & Drink Ideas
Popular YouTube videos on my channel last quarter:
- Our House Price & Mortgage Details
- January 2019 Budget With Me
- February 2019 Budget With Me
- DIY Tile Coaster Tutorial
- What I Packed For An Alaskan Cruise (who is going in October?!?! I hope you are preplanning!)
Want to start a blog and earn money too? Check out these posts:
- How to start a blog
- How to monetize a blog
- How to make money blogging
- How to earn $40k a year from blogging
- More blogging how-to posts
Want to start your own blog?
Blogs are popular these days and obviously I’ve loved using mine to share my life and projects. There are so many people now making hundreds to thousands to even tens of thousands of dollars a month from blogs they started. It’s truly a limitless opportunity.
Starting a blog is incredibly easy and very budget friendly these days with cheap hosting and WordPress.
You can create your own blog with this easy-to-use tutorial.
I’ve got a whole section on this site that helps answer blogging questions and talks about making money blogging.
Wow. What a perfect time for me to find this post! I’m about to go hit your previous posts. I have no idea how to monetize my blog but I literally just decided to start blogging our path out of debt as well. Thank you. Of course now I have homework. Thanks teacher! @@ LOL
Ha! Well there is a lot to learn about monetizing blogs but thankfully there are a lot of us out there who show what we are doing and how to do it. It’s pretty amazing we can earn money online!
I currently use blogger. I’m probably going to have to switch to wordpress huh? If I want to monetize at least?
My other thing is I have no issue sharing my debt total. I’m a little concerned on the showing income part though. Coworkers know I blog. I’m trying to figure out a work around though.
Not necessarily on either point! WordPress is more commonly used and has more functionality options though and I do prefer it. But that’s just my preference. Some still use blogger and others use different platforms.
You don’t have to share your income on the internet or tell people what it is. Even if you want to blog about paying off debt or budgeting there are plenty who do so without sharing income. I only share my online income and our take home income, which is not our total income. It’s a little work around that makes me feel okay about sharing so much of what I do. But if you are nervous about all those things maybe you should be sharing about a different topic?