Traffic & Blog Income Report – December 2014

During my 1st Year Blogiversary post, I asked you all if you would be interested in my doing both a Pinterest post (since 60% or more of my traffic comes from Pinterest) as well as an income report now that I am actually making some money!  Your response was overwhelmingly “Yes!” so I’m going to start doing these Traffic & Income Reports on a monthly basis!

I believe that more bloggers should reveal their income, as well as some stats about their traffic to inspire and encourage others, so I’m am giving monthly updates about my income and traffic statistics. This is my actual blogging income, folks.  Read on!

Let’s get started!

 Traffic –

I’m going to share percentage increases from the month before for my traffic stats, as well as actual numbers :-).  Also, data is from either Google Analytics stats or Alexa.

Retired by 40:

• Pageviews: 281,800 (avg. 9,090 per day)
• Unique Pageviews: 90,938
• Bounce Rate: 44.7%
• Daily Pageviews/Visitor: 4
• Daily Time on Site: 5:07

Ten Minute Savings

• Pageviews: 1,988

Time –

This month I had a really smart readers ask me who much time I invest in this blog each week.  To be honest, when she asked me I had absolutely no idea!  To be honest, I do way more work on this blog when I’m at my day job than I should, but I still should still keep track, so if I get a job where I cannot get away with as much as I currently do, I will know just how much time I need to carve out at home!

So, for the last week of December I kept track of my hours, so I’m going to record them here for you, in order to give you an idea of how much I make per hour blogging – and I plan to include them in all of my traffic & blog income updates from now on!

Sunday, December 28th – 5.75 hours

Monday, December 29th – 4.5 hours

Tuesday, December 30th – 3.5 hours

Wednesday, December 31st – 0 hours

Thursday, January 1st – 3 hours

Friday, January 2nd – 2 hours

Saturday, January 3rd – 4 hours

Total Hours = 22.75 hours

If we multiply this by 4 weeks, that gives me 91 hours during the month of December (just a guess), giving me an hourly rate of:

$12.83 per hour

Not the best, but not too shabby, if I don’t say so myself!

If you want to start your own money-making blog, you can do so very cheaply.  I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own in about 10 minutes, and very cheaply, with prices starting at only $3.95 a month.  This low price is only available through my Bluehost link, and when you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting, Bluehost will even throw in a FREE domain name (a $15 value).  Again, this pricing + free domain name is only available through my link, and if you want to make money with your blog, then self-hosting through a company such as Bluehost is essential.

Income –

Keep in mind, this is purely my income.  I have earned this, but I may not be paid on it for up to 3 months.  The actual income I receive is recorded in our Budget Updates on the blog income line!

This does not account for the 30% that I hold back for taxes.  Also, this does not take expenses into account – those will be covered in the next section.

Retired by 40!

• Ad Networks: $662.79
  • Adsense:$184.60
  • The Blogger Network: $107.46
  • Blogher: $151.38
  • Media.net: $183.6
  • InfoLinks:$35.75
• Affiliate Sales: $505.31
  • Commission Junction: $124.05
  • Tailwind: $22.46
  • EBA: $358.80
• Total Income: $1,168.10

Expenses

• ViralWoot – $15.00.  ViralWoot does my Pinterest scheduling so I don’t have to be plugged in constantly.  If you would like more information about how I drive 60% of my traffic from Pinterest, you can read about it here. **Update: I now use Tailwind for my Pin scheduling.  You can learn more about how to schedule pins for only $10 a month here.
• Printer Ink & A Binder for EBA: $26.00

• Total Expenses: $41.00

Some Highlights –

I started with The Blogger Network this month, and so far I’ve been really happy.  I’m already making more per day than I was with Adsense, and now I don’t have to manage any of my ads.

I know I’m driving BlogHer to the ground, but I’m going to talk about how unhappy I’ve been with the money I’ve been making from them one more time.  I’m working on getting out of that contract and handing over my premium ad spots to The Blogger Network.

My post 21 Things Frugal People Don’t Do was shared by Money Saving Mom on her facebook page not once, but twice!  As a result, I had my highest day ever, clocking in at a whopping 47,000 page views by the time the day closed!  I was freaking out that my site was going to crash, but my hosting company handled it fabulously as usual (especially considering I only paid $7.90 for all of my 2014 hosting!!)

In other news, something I’m looking forward to in 2015 is letting my creativity shine!   I’ve been kind of  boxed into this personal finance blogger role, but with the blog taking off, I want to embrace you, my readers.  What are your needs?  What questions can I answer?  Along with that, I’m taking this really cool (and free!) mini series to help me “rediscover my creative genuis.”  Sounds cool, right?  If you’re interested in taking this free course, you can sign up here.

Lastly, I got approved for Rich Pins!  Whoop!  For those of you that don’t know, Rich pins get your pins seen by people who don’t even follow you, through their related content feature.  You can learn how to apply for Rich Pins in 5 minutes here.

Goals for December –

• Read Ruth Soukup’s book – before her book launch! – SUCCESS! – 12 Secrets To Living The Good Life taught me a ton about balancing marriage, motherhood, my career, and my marriage.
• 2 EBA Units Complete – SUCCESS!  I also tripled my page views with EBA, and I finished the course during December.  I’m planning to do it again for Ten Minute Savings.
• Revamp my media kit.  SUCCESS! A media kit has been absolutely essential in boosting not only my blog income, the relationships I’ve been developing with brands.  Want a peek?  Check it out here.
• Average 3,800 daily page views – SUCCESS! – I actually blew that goal out of the water.  On December 5th, Money Saving Mom shared my post on her facebook page and my traffic blew up.  Like, 50,000 page views in a day blew up!

• Finish writing my 31 Days of Finances & Fitness Series – SUCCESS! – Have you Signed up yet?

 

Goals for January 2015 –

• Finish Elite Blog Academy – I’m done with all the reading, but I have a couple of assignments to finish up yet, including one of my big goals: write an ebook.
• Make $1,500
• What are “no follow” links? Ultimate no-follow plug in?  I’m pretty sure google is penalizing me and I need to figure out what this is.
• Average 4,200 daily page views
• Pitch 2 companies for sponsorships
• Work with The Blogger Network to get my mobile ads up and going
• Hit 1,200 people signed up for 31 Days of Finances & Fitness Series – Have you Signed up yet?  Right now I’m sitting at 1177 people!
  • We’re going to Challenge every single budget expense line, to help you reduce your expenses for the new year
  • I’m giving you shopping lists, eating plans, and even instructions for how to prep and entire week of healthy meals
  • Plus, free printable to help your track your finance & fitness starting points & goals!

Join Us! Course starts January 5th!

Have you signed up for 31 Days of Finances & Fitness yet?

How was your month?  I would love to hear about it!

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