How to Read This Income Report
Every month, we share our blog’s income in posts like this one. We do this to motivate and inform you. If you’re ready to start a blog of your own, click here and follow the steps to get started.
These reports will include money earned and expenses from the given month. Some affiliate income gets adjusted due to returns and we factor in a 10% loss for that in these reports. We also take the difference out of the next month’s affiliate income on the next report.
Also, the number you see in the title is our take-home amount after expenses. Most income reports you see with a big number in the title is a number that comes before expenses. We feel this is misleading, so we don’t do that. Please also note that none of this money is taxed yet. We make monthly payments to the IRS based on our income and tax projections and recommend all bloggers making thousands per month do the same.
On rare occasions, we will include free products in our profit line. We don’t normally include free products into our income reports unless is is 100% something that we were planning on buying anyway. In these cases, we look at it as profit because it is keeping money in our pocket. We do not count the retail price of the product, we count the amount that we were planning on paying for it- since that amount is what we saved. I hope that makes sense!
Important Happenings This Month
We had planned on this being a bounce-back month, but it didn’t feel like it. We dealt with a ton of new home stuff and sick kids, which took a LOT of time and focus away from business activities. There was a lot less time to reading and reacting to data and we felt it.
Sponsored content went way down as well. The past couple of months saw a lot that came our way and without time to go out and pitch opportunities, we saw that income go away.
Nordstrom had two events that boosted our affiliate sales- Triple Points Days and the Half-Yearly Sale. Pushing those sales with outfit posts became a main focus of the month.
We are trying to get our HostGator income back up (we make a commission when people use our links to start a blog), so we increased ad spend significantly on Pinterest and Facebook, but it didn’t work very well. Back to the drawing board on reaching more of the right people in this area.
The Report
The links below are affiliate links. When you click them and make a purchase, we earn money. Thank you so much for all of your support!
LIFESTYLE BLOGGING REVENUE
- Sponsored Instagram posts – $150
- Retail affiliate income (Nordstrom, Shopbop, Macy’s and other affiliates. We love VigLink for beginners) – $23,251.31
- Amazon affiliate income – $615.88
- Sponsored blog posts – $1,000
- Free Products (see note above) – $800
REVENUE EARNED FROM BLOGGING CONTENT
- HostGator (start a blog today!) – $5,700
- Studiopress – $384.76
- Aweber – $26.90
- Convertkit – $17.40
Total Revenue – $31,946.25
EXPENSES
- WP Engine – our current host. We outgrew HostGator and a couple of other hosts and we found the BEST one for high-traffic sites. Our site’s speed is unparalleled with WP Engine and their security and support is amazing. $65
- Aweber– the best email service for creating, building and managing email lists! – $29
- Social Media Advertising – $11,371.62
- Developer Costs – $100
- Giveaway prizes (this falls under our marketing budget) – $0
- PicMonkey – the best online image creation and editing software – $5.00
- Long Tail Pro – keyword research software that helps us show up better in Google. $25
- Optin Monster – create beautiful optin forms to collect email addresses – $9
- US Global Mail – online PO Box to use with our email service so we don’t have to use our personal address – $10
Total Expenses – $11,614.62
TOTAL PROFIT – $20,331.63
Within $1,000 of last month’s income. It’s consistent, but that’s not what we’re going for. Our goal of averaging $1,000/day continues into June.
If you’re feeling motivated after reading this income report, head over here to get your blog started right away!