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
October is historically our worst month every year. We’re focusing on getting ready for the holiday season as are most brands. We prepared our Q4 media kit, adjusted our rates and sent pitches to companies for the holiday season. As you’ll see in the November and December reports, it went pretty well for us!
This was our first full month with Mediavine (our new display ad network) and it went well. We decided that it was worth having ads on the blog if we generate at least $400/month with ads and we definitely did that.
You’ll notice our ad spend was way down this month too. Part of this was due to us saving funds for November/December advertising. This was also due to most retailers having much fewer sales this month- again, gearing up for the holidays.
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 – $350
- Retail affiliate income (Nordstrom, Shopbop, Macy’s and other affiliates. We love VigLink for beginners) – $5,463.97
- Amazon affiliate income – $527.31
- Sponsored blog posts – $0
- Mediavine Ad Revenue – $534.92
REVENUE EARNED FROM BLOGGING CONTENT
- HostGator (start a blog today!) – $2625
- Studiopress – $90.96
- Aweber – $31.80
- Convertkit – $8.70
Total Revenue – $9632.66
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
- Convertkit– the best email service for creating, building and managing email lists! – $59
- Social Media Advertising – $835.02
- 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 – $1,049.02
TOTAL PROFIT – $8583.64Given that we knew going in that this would be the worst month of the year, it wasn’t all that bad. Even if we made that amount every month, it would still be a 6-figure year! Now, on to the best two months of the year! Hopefully.
If you’re feeling motivated after reading this income report, head over here to get your blog started right away!