November 2018 Blogging Income Report: $25,871 – Everything that I did to make a full-time income working from home blogging.
This is insane. I can’t believe I get to write this post for you! It hasn’t been an easy few months, but this makes it all worth it! You get to see a behind the scenes look at my blogging business and how I make a full-time income working from home as a mom of 3 young kids with another on the way.
It’s been just over 3 years since starting my blog and about 2.5 years since I started taking it seriously. In that time, I’ve seen my blogging income skyrocket. If you’re interested in skyrocketing your blogging income – check this out! We’re talking I was making $0.17 in my highest earning month before the class and now I’m making more than my husband makes at his job!
September and October were crazy months! Traveling, kids starting school, more traveling, morning sickness, product launches, more morning sickness… you get the picture. And as if all of that wasn’t crazy enough, my Pinterest traffic took a MAJOR hit over the summer. We’re talking that it got to a point of being lower than it had been in years. SUPER depressing stuff, honestly.
But thankfully, it recovered in November! And I think it has a lot to do with 2 things:
- The seasonal changes meaning that Christmas posts are doing better and better every day.
- Posting more frequently!
That last one has been a key for me in November. Posting more frequently wasn’t on my top priorities list because of how much other stuff I have to do and that I have a library of 3+ years of posts to update and work from rather than creating new content. But we’ll to that more in a later section…
If it weren’t for blogging I don’t think I would have ever had these opportunities. And this is honestly one of those “if I can do it, anyone can” kind of things. I’m just a regular mom trying to help people as best as I can. I never thought that when I started my blog that, less than 3 years later, I’d be making more than a full-time income! It’s craziness!
I didn’t figure all of this out on my own, though. There are some really great tools that helped me to get here. The 2 biggest ones are:
- Blogging on Pointis my monthly group coaching program for bloggers that I run with my biz bestie, Tracy Lynn. Click here to join hundreds of women who are increasing their income month after month!
- MakingSense of Affiliate Marketinghelped me go from making $500 each month from affiliates to more than $7,300 in less than 9 months! This course is taught by Michelle from Making Sense of Cents, who earns more than $50,000 each month from affiliate income! She is a great teacher and will walk you through all of her best tips and tricks for affiliate income.
Looking to start a blog? Check out these posts:
- How to Start a Profitable Blog the Right Way
- Start a Blog on a Budget
- How to Start Using Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers
- How Bloggers Make Money
- Can You Make Money Blogging in One Year?
Why am I sharing my November 2018 blogging income report?
There are a few answers to this, but honestly, it all comes down to you. I want to help you!
You need to know that this is all possible. That you can make it as a blogger and make more than a full-time income blogging.
It’s a lot of hard work and you don’t get to see me ignoring my wife and mom duties in order to get tomorrow’s post done. But no matter how hard it is, my whole family feels like the sacrifice is worth it because we have so much more than we ever could have hoped for thanks to this blog! And it’s possible for you too if you can work at it for yourself.
1. To show you that you can use affiliate income to really make money.
I used to think that big bloggers needed to have 1 killer, million dollar affiliate that made them their money. That’s not the case at all! If you have 10 affiliates who you earn $100 from each month, you have $1,000 of income!
Some of my highest earning affiliates are for things that people get for free. Ibotta and Ebates are my 2 favorite examples of this. They are totally free and never cost a cent for people to join them. But they still pay me $5 and $25 respectively per referral.
People are more likely to join something that’s free, so I know that I’m very likely to make money each time I mention those products. Don’t think that a commission is too low if you know that the product will help your audience. (That ruledoesn’t apply to high-ticket items for the most part, but a referral fee of $5 can still add up!)
2. To let you see the back end of blogging and lift the veil a bit.
I had NO idea how much work went into blogging when I started. People still ask me what I do all day that takes so much time.
Blogging is so much more than just writing posts all day. Yes, having great content is a big part of it, but there’s also the planning that comes into everything. If you want to make money blogging, you can’t just throw links onto your sidebar and hope that people click on them.
Blogging is a lot more than that. Which is why you get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly each month in these income reports!
3. To share with you the things that worked for me and the things that didn’t so that you don’t need to make the same mistakes that I made.
Let’s be real: we’d all like to take the easy way if we can help it, right? That’s human nature!
We want to know exactly how to get the results that we want with the least amount of effort and time. And that’s where these income reports come in.
You can see what has worked for me and what failed miserably so that you can avoid mistakes or make the choices that have already worked. Learning from others is the best way to make sure that you avoid spinning your wheels and can actually grow your blog (need help growing your blog? – click here)!
What Worked:
1. POSTING MORE!!!
Yes, really! I went almost the whole summer without posting a single brand new piece of content. And wouldn’t you know it… my traffic plummeted. Yes, you can say that it’s just seasonal. But the fact that the traffic came back and came easier when I was making NEW posts is really difficult to look at as anything other than a sign to post more, NEW content.
2. CREATING MORE PRODUCTS!
So let me spell this out to you in a super easy way… I made more than $15,000 from the sale of my own products in November alone. I had a small affiliate team who contributed to about $$750 of that, but outside of that, I was on my own with promotions.
I’ve been segmenting my email list more and more, meaning that I’m going to stop sending emails to people who aren’t opening them. So my list size is actually pretty small for my blogging people (around 8,000 active subs).
And – are you ready for this – most of that income from my own products was off of $7-12 ebooks. YUP! We’re not talking $297 courses here!
So seriously… don’t overthink yourself into a corner when it comes to your own products. Starting off with a $297 ecourse really shouldn’t be your first step when it comes to selling your first product. Start small and keep adding to your product library!
3. BLACK FRIDAY & CYBER MONDAY!
Holy what whaaaaat?! Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales this year were NUTS! In a good way!
In 2017, I made $5,000 between Black Friday and Cyber Monday/Week sales alone. This year, I made $12,000+! And that’s without promoting a TON of Amazon, Target, Kohls deals!
Percentage-wise, we’re talking 98% of the money I made was from the sale of affiliate products like courses, ebooks, etc.
4. SELLING MY OWN PRODUCTS!!
OK – I’ll be the first to admit that I am still working on some SERIOUS limiting beliefs about selling. Especially when it comes to my own products!
So much of this month’s income comes from the fact that I got over my problems about making and selling my own products. After launching, not 1 or 2, but 3 (!!!!) products this month, I can honestly say that more and more products can be expected. Because seriously… it’s working!
Lesson learned: I will no longer be afraid of creating and selling my own products (within healthy reason, of course)!
What DIDN’T Work:
WASTING TIME!
Oh yeah… it’s still a struggle! Figuring out the highest ROI (or return on investment) tasks and STICKING to them is killing me.
Exhaustion is a part of pregnancy that I don’t love. So getting out of bed at5 am every day has become tough. Plus… in an effort for total transparency, I take an afternoon nap regularly. Hey, growing a human is TOUGH!
But I’m working on it! In December, I’m giving myself 15 minutes to get out of bed and then I know I’ll be eating into my productive time.
HOW I’M ORGANIZING THAT’S ACTUALLY WORKING…
There’s a blog post for this one coming, but I love my current situation with my time managing!
All I do is get a calendar from Amazon (less than $10), get a metric TON of tiny post-it notes (or the Amazon generic brand!), and write down ONE task per post-it.
Your week will be PACKED! But then you can throw the tasks that you complete right into the trash. I’ll be honest: it’s VERY rewarding to throw out those to-do tasks! Plus, it gives me a really great, easy way to “brain dump.”
So if you’re looking for more info on how I do my time blocking and managing, be on the lookout for that post!
Next month’s goals:
November’s goals are really more about pushing myself to the limit and really maximizing my ROI.
Income goals: $30,000
Time goals: 25-30 hours each week (that’s going to be a tough one!)
Email goals: minimum of 3 emails sent each week with at least $500 made from each (excluding major launches where sales goals per email are different)
Pageview goals: 150,000 monthly pageviews (currently: 125,000)
Expenses goals:don’t incur any new expenses this month.
Product goals: launch at least 2 more products this month – 1 for my money saving people, 1 for my blogging people.
Income – Affiliates: $9,789
Blogging course that has since closed: $3,471
Proofread Anywhere: $1,392
Bluehost (check out the tutorial on how to start a blog): $1,175
Survey Sites: $751
Ebates: $650
Amazon(thanks Black Friday and Cyber Monday!): $471
GoDaddy: $200
SiteGround: $250
$5 Dinners/ My FreezEasy / Grocery Budget Makeover: $219
Ibotta: $215
Make Over Your Mornings: $184
Ultimate Bundles (you can sign up to be an affiliate for the next bundle coming up soon): $156
Become a Virtual Assistant Course: $103
Stupid Simple SEO: $99
ConvertKit: $86
Cents of Style (who have THE cutest clothes! Plus they’re prices are so great!): $46
Start a Mom Blog: $33
Other small affiliate income (there are a lot of programs that had small payouts – we’re talking a BUNCH – so I lumped them all into one here): $224
Income – Products Sold: $14,190
Budget Binder: $3,852
Paycheck Budget: $3,192
Holiday Blogger Bootcamp: $3,525
100+ Email Subject Lines: $2,255
Pinterest Group Board Master (get 50% off here!): $395
Pinterest Strategy Master Plan: $367
Pinterest Graphics 101: $394
10 Steps to a Profitable Blog: $210
Income – Display Ads: $1,892
Total November 2018 Blogging Income Report Income: $25,871
Expenses: $2,945
Payroll expenses (worth every penny!!!): $627
- Grayson ( Tech Wizard / WordPress Whisperer / Chief of Chill When I Break WordPress at 2 amfor the Third Time This Week )
- Asher ( Editor in Chief / the hubby )
- Janelle ( Chief Happiness Officer / Manager / Executive Assistant / President of Workflow )
- Maddy ( Facebook Manager )
Teachable: $39
Paypal / SendOwl / Teachable fees (paid when I get paid): 1-5% depending on the platform. I added it here so that you know that there are expenses even associated with making my own products.
Facebook Ads: $600 (YIKES. BUT they all get sent straight to a freebie lead magnet that converts at $.21 per lead.)
ConvertKit: $179 (worth it!)
New laptop: $1,500 (I didn’t want to! I fought that tooth and NAIL! But I had to do it. My MacBook that I’d been working on for now 3.5 years is from 2012. It was time. So I got a good deal on an open box at Best Buy.)
Taxes:I set aside 40% of every penny for taxes. Yup, FORTY percent. That quarterly bill hurts.
Looking at the end of the year and starting next year…
The end of the year is just about here and it’s time to get my goals and schedule all lined up! I’m super excited about thissince I started reading the 12 Week Year and I can’t wait to put it into practice (you need to go get that book RIGHT NOW. It WILL change your life, not just for blogging).
Since I’m going to have a baby in March, I’m PACKING the first quarter of the year with as much as I possibly can to make sure that I can take some time off to spend with Baby Vencil #4! But honestly, I’m trying to set everything up so that I can still make money without killing myself.
I started this blog when my youngest was 6 weeks old and I felt like a nut case. So trying to keep everything moving and working while I’m trying to spend some time with my newest little one is going to be tricky. But I think I’m up for it!
All in all, my November 2018 Blogging Income Report was my highest-earning month of selling my own products and I can’t wait to see what comes in December (spoiler… creating products is addicting!!!).
More blogging resources:
- How to Rock Affiliate Marketing When You Stink at Sales (Plus an Interview with Michelle Schroeder-Gardner)
- An Honest Review of Bluehost
- How to Frugally Start a Blog on a Budget
- Can You Make Money Blogging in One Year?
- How I Made a Full-Time Income From My Blog in 2016
- December Blogging Income Report
- November Blogging Income Report
- How to Start Using Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers
- The Blogging Class that Made Me a Full-Time Blogger
- Surefire Ways to Promote Your Blog and Grow Your Audience
- Best Tips for a New Blogger From a Blogging Pro
What is your biggest struggle with starting a blog? Let me know in the comments and I’ll get you an answer! 🙂
