Hello & welcome to the first income report of this year where I made over $8657 through this blog in the month of January.
Took a while to publish this as I was putting it aside and was focussing on other blog stuff. As you already know, I usually publish income reports within the first two days of the month, now somehow it’s the 20th of February and I thought it couldn’t be delayed any further.
Don’t want to publish January’s income report in march 😬
So here it is!
Anyway,
When compared to last year, where I made just over $2000 in January 2020, this is quite an increase! A whopping 4x increase, as you can already tell.
Jeff Bezos who? 🤣🤣 jk
Taking a closer look at just the numbers, there is a slight decline in income compared to last month due to the fact that December is considered the most money-making period in terms of ad revenue and after Christmas, companies hold back their spending on ads.
This is why ads income in January was $2000 less than December despite the fact that January had more traffic than December. It is what it is 🤷🏻♂️…
January has been a slow month in terms of new content. I was a little preoccupied creating and designing some key pages for this blog which will be published later in March.
But despite the lack of new articles and posts, income was not affected in any way. This is one of the prime advantages of having your own side hustle/business or in my case, my blog!
One of the best decisions you can take for tomorrow is by starting your own side hustle TODAY.
When I started my blog, all I heard was it’s a little late to start a blog and to succeed in blogging, I should have started back in 2011. Even if you hear or think stuff like, it is too late to start or the market is too saturated for blogging, just remember that,
- No, it’s not too late to start
- No, it’s not saturated
Blogging is one of the few business/ side hustle ideas that will not be obsolete for decades to come.
So the takeaway here is, you can start your own blog without any hesitation.
Moreover, there is almost nothing to lose when it comes to blogging.
It is not some high-investment business plan that will snatch hundreds of thousands of dollars right out of your pocket just to get it started.
It costs less than $3 (literally at coffee price) to fund your blogging business every single month, so even if you are unable to build your blogging brand for some reason, you won’t even notice the financial loss.
Ready to start your own blogging business? Check out his article, where you can start your own blog in less than 10 minutes.
Also,
I’ve also created a segregated list for you if you’re interested in blogging, making money through blogging, getting traffic, or anything blogging related in general.
Sign up with your email below to get access to all the upcoming blogging resources and news directly to your inbox.
Also, you’ll be the first ones to know when income reports will be published because they’ll be sent within seconds to you.
See ya in the inbox 👋 …
Table of Contents
Why Share Income Reports At All?
To those who are new to this whole “income report” thing, you might be wondering why does he expose his income like that?
Well, I am not the only one who does that, many bloggers share their income and their blog updates on a monthly basis. On YouTube too, I’ve seen quite a lot of videos where creators share their income journey.
But the question remains, why though?
For me, the income reports are a reflection of the journey so far, the monthly progress of a brand new blogger, an inexperienced college student who just wanted to build a full-time income stream.
And thus I wanted to share all that it took me to make this happen.
Publishing an income report isn’t about bragging about the income, not at all.
Nobody wants to share something that is so personal and potentially vulnerable to their competitors just to show off. These kinds of “inside peek” blog posts often come with some surprising benefits.
For example, I’m publishing these income reports for two primary reasons:
- To motivate you
- To motivate me
Let me explain…
1. It motivates people
It’s no secret that,people are largely motivated by results!
Are you ever inspired by a tiring workout?Probably not, you are inspired to have a well-shaped body which is the end result, and thus you work out.
It’s not the process that gets people moving but the euphoric feeling to have achieved the end goal that motivated them to start in the first place.
Hence, I share my results to motivate you!
And if after seeing my results you do decide to start your own blog, I’ll say this article served it’s purpose well.
In my case too, my first impression of this whole blogging industry was through an income report of a wildly successful blogger who had 6-figures in her monthly income reports.
And that was enough to start my very own blog.
Witnessing someone make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a month working for nobody but themselves really gave me a strong dose of motivation.
I wanted those results and the financial freedom that comes with it.
By giving you the inside scoop of what a blog really makes (which is usually kept under wraps), by giving you those exact income digits, it’ll show you what is really possible and hopefully motivate you enough tostart your own blog.
2. It motivates me to be better
Publishing my progress and the journey online for people to read also benefits me in certain ways.
Sure, I make a little ad income every time people read through an article like this but that’s not the most valuable thing I’m acquiring here.
When I have a like-minded community that monitors and analyses my progress over time, it makes me do things more sincerely and responsibly. And this makes me want to give my 110% in everything I do on this blog.
In short,It keeps me in check when it comes to slacking off.
Moreover, it will help me to keep track of the blog like a well-sorted document and how far the blog has come in terms of growth, both readers and income.
I’ve been writing the same answer to the above question in all the previous income reports, it feels a little repetitive but I don’t think I need to change the answer every time I have to write this.
Now let’s jump right into the income breakdown of January 2021.
The Income Breakdown: $8657
| SOURCE | AMOUNT |
| Mediavine Ad Income | $4038 |
| Affiliate Income | |
| – Bluehost | $3440 |
| – Proofread Anywhere | $1115 |
| – Flex Offers | $64 |
| TOTAL | $8657 |
Truth be told, Mediavine income for January 2021 is pretty good considering ad earnings after December is supposed to be the lowest compared to the rest of the year.
Bluehost hit an all-time high this month, a solid $880 increase since last month. I will be focussing on generating more affiliate income from this point on since the ads are taken care by Mediavine itself.
Here’s a monthly income progress over time for quick comparison.
Check out the previous income reports:
- Blog Income Report: How I made $5266 in August 2020
- Blog Income Report: How I made $7542 in September 2020
- Blog Income Report: How I made $6761 in November 2020
- Blog Income Report: How I made $9482 in December 2020
Blog Expenses for January 2021:
| SOURCE | AMOUNT |
| Blog Hosting | $34.95 |
| Email Service Provider | $99 |
| Canva Pro | $12.95 |
| TOTAL | $146.9 |
Expenses for running this blog stays pretty much the same every single month. But every once in a while there is a huge bump in expenses.
For example, I got the MacBook Pro a few months prior and bought the iPhone 12 pro max last month, both were paid fully in cash.
Talk about splurging on tech…
These are obviously rare purchases (once every 2 to 4 years) and one might choose to opt for less expensive options. But since my whole business is run through a laptop and a phone, I prefer to have high-end devices for both.
So technically, it’s an investment!
And moreover, since these are business expense, they can be excluded from the total taxable income.
Net profit: ($8657 – $146.9)
+ $8510
Income proof:
Mediavine:
Bluehost:
Proofread Anywhere:
Traffic stats:
Blog updates:
As I’ve already mentioned in the previous income report for December 2020 and the start of this blog, I am modifying some of the main pages on this blog to make it more navigation and SEO friendly.
I’ve been working on a new homepage design and redesigning almost all the category pages to make it seem a little less … basic!
And I can’t wait to publish it somewhere around March, as there are still a few things left to do for now.
That’s all for the income report for January 2021. See you soon, very soon actually, it’s almost March! Holy Sh*t!
Note to self: Never delay the publication of income report because of its time sensitivity and stuff.
Byeeeeeeeee…..
