How to Read This Income Report
Every month, we will be sharing 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, but usually by the end of the month, it’s been worked out. 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. As opposed to the inflated, before expenses number that 98% of bloggers who do income reports post. 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.
Important Happenings This Month
We made a decision to drop our last remaining ad network (SheKnows aka BlogHer) this month. It was slowing the load speed of the blog down and negatively impacting user experience in other ways. To us, that is the most important thing and drives every decision we make. We gave up an easy, passive $400-$700/month in ad revenue to do this, but we think it’s worth it in the long run.
We had a family emergency that required Katie to leave town for several days. While our business suffered a bit, we recovered just fine. It’s times like this that make us so thankful that we’re able to shift the hours that we work around so easily. We can be wherever we need to be at the drop of a hat.
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!
BLOGGING REVENUE
- Sponsored Instagram posts – $550
- Retail affiliate income (Nordstrom, Shopbop, Macy’s and other affiliates. We love VigLink) – $13323.73
- Amazon affiliate income – $1010.93
- Sponsored blog posts – $1300
REVENUE EARNED FROM BLOGGING CONTENT
- HostGator (start a blog today!) – $4375
- Studiopress – $299.97
- PicMonkey – $10.00
- Aweber – $13.30
Total Revenue – $18909.53
EXPENSES
- KnownHost – We started with HostGator, but outgrew them after a few years. $55
- Aweber– the best email service for creating, building and managing email lists! – $29
- Social Media Advertising – $3836.76
- Giveaway prizes (this falls under our marketing budget) – $550
- 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 – $4519.76
TOTAL PROFIT – $16,363.17
Overall this was a fantastic month! Coming off of our best month ever, this was a nice follow-up. We’d love it if we could average this amount or better for the next few months!
If you’re feeling motivated after reading this income report, head over here to get your blog started right away!