How I Make Money Blogging – October 2015 Blog Income Report

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’ve started doing these Traffic & Income Reports on a monthly basis!

I believe that more bloggers should reveal their income, but I personally do so for several reasons:

• To Inspire: No, I’m not narcissistic, and I don’t believe that what I’m doing is even inspirational at all, but just when I think about stopping these posts about how to make money blogging I remember how inspired I was by reading others’ blog income reports when I was just starting out.
• To Be Transparent: I’ve committed to complete transparency, both in my Budget and Net Worth reports, and completing a monthly report like this completes the transparency packaage.  I believe that transparency breeds trust, and as such it’s something that I am committed to.
• Accountability: I can’t even begin to tell yo how much it hurts to complete a post at the end of the month and not meet all of the goals that I set for myself.  These reports help me push myself and stay accountable for always moving forward and improving.

This is my actual blogging income, folks.

Let’s get started!

How I Make Money Blogging

October was a combination of good and bad for me.   I spent less time working than ever before, hired an additional employee, signed more new clients in one month that ever, and hit an income milestone.

Overall, it made me realize that I needed to make some changes, shift my focus, and really take some time to focus be more thoughtful about how and why I do things. I also started to realize the need for balance.

Email is a constant source of frustration for me, for a couple of reasons.  First, the emails never end.  I get 200-300 emails a day, maybe half of which are actually important, another 100 may or may not be important, and the rest are junk that needs to be gotten rid of.  I told a friend the other day that when I get done cleaning out my inbox which legitimately takes 2-3 hours a day, I feel like I’ve “been run over by a truck.” – and I was not kidding.

Email has been sapping my energy. I’ve really been wanting to get an admin assistant to help with emails, but I know that getting it set up will be a complete nightmare, so blogging friends: what do you recommend?  Any help/suggestions for hiring help & taming the email monster??

In the last couple of months, I’ve had a few people ask me why, with how many page views I receive every month, I don’t make as much per page view from ads as other bloggers and I think it’s a valid question.  I’ve been looking for answers myself for a couple of months, and I’ve finally {halfway} found them.  The biggest part of the equation is how tailored my adds are to my audience.  This blog is only 2 years old, and I’ve been with The Blogger Network for about a year.  The longer your website is active, the more tailored your ads will become, and the more money you will make.  I’ve seen this over and over, and I’ve noticed that even the last few months, when my page views have fallen because I’ve been focusing on The Pinterest Assistant rather than Retired by 40!, my cPC has gone up, so I’m making more money per page view, even with fewer page views!

The last couple month I admit, I’ve been slacking here on the blog, but with the help of a birthday weekend away, The Best Year Ever planner, and some serious thought about my goals, 2016 is going to be intentional, and I’m planning to release some amazing new features and content here – stay tuned!

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.

I’m Hiring….Again!

As part of this newfound focus on creating a team that works well together and separately, I’m hiring!

A Visual Editor

As The Pinterest Assistant expands, I am looking for a part-time contractor familiar with Canva and who has a good eye for design.  The position does not pay an hourly rate, but rather a “per image” rate that I’ve calculated out to be about +/- $24 an hour.  There are also no set hours for this position, and you could work whenever you like as long as deadlines are met.  If interested, please send your resume plus 1-3 examples of you work (I am ok with 1 example only if you create images for your own blog and are applying for this to be your first visual editor positions) to retiredby40blog {at} gmail {dot} com with “Visual Editor” as the subject line.

An Admin Assistant

As I talked about above, emails, responding to comments, and some other tasks are becoming nightmarish for my productivity, and as such I am hiring a part-time administrative assistant.  The perfect assistant would need to have excellent grammar and communication skills, a great, positive attitude, and be willing to let me know in advance what hours you are planning to work.  If interest, please send your resume, rates,  and any applicable references to retiredby40blog {at} gmail {dot} com with “Admin Assistant” in the subject line.

Time Spent Blogging-

I believe in a couple of things related to hours worked: efficiency and hourly rate. Obviously, these are tied to each other, and while the reality of owning a business like mine is that the hours I work, and the amount I make for each hour will fluctuate – sometimes a lot – but what I want to see are slow and steady gains over time. I’ll be honest, In October, I didn’t keep super strict track of my hours, but I did keep a general eye on the hours worked every day, and it amounted to about 6, which is actually my goal!  No, this doesn’t make me a slacker, it makes me a better mom, it means I’m being more efficient, and that I’m managing and incredible team! Based on 6 hours each week day, here are the hours I worked in October:

• October 1-3: 12 hours
• October 4-10: 30 hours
• October 11 – 17: 30 hours
• October 18 – 24: 30 hours
• October 25 – 31: 25 hours
• Total Hours: 127 hours

Efficiency, baby!

In October, as you’ll see detailed out below, I made $4,580.77 gross income, $2,550.43 after expenses.  In order to determine how efficient I’m being, I’ve started tracking my hourly wage two ways: before expenses and after.  I track both because some of my expenses are controllable, and I want to make sure I’m not spending too much on overhead and expenses, as well as using my time wisely.  So, with that in mind:

Gross Hourly Wage: $36.07

Net Hourly Wage: $20.08

This put my daily income at $150.96, a very healthy wage that I’m quite proud of!

Quick Statistics Update

I haven’t done a social media statistics update in a while, so here goes, in case you’re curious and don’t want to go hunting me down in ever social media channel:

• Facebook: 2,720
• Twitter: 5,732
• Pinterest: 15,142
• Instagram: 2, 574
• Google +: 344
• Bloglovin: 219

 Some Highlights –

After reading Carrie’s article on FreshBooks, I decided to try 30 days free, and so far, I’ve been impressed.  It’s easy to use, comprehensive, and does everything I need it to do expect for one thing: it doesn’t integrate with a Business Paypal account.  Disappointing!  I am not get through my free 30 days and haven’t decided if I’ll stick with them, but if you are looking for an affordable online account option, FreshBooks is a great option! I also purchased The Best Year Ever Planner from Ruth Sokup at Living Well Spending Less.  I think that she has great perspective when it comes to balancing work and family, and she’s obviously had great success, so I’m excited to use the planner these next couple of months to great a gameplan for next year, get myself organized, and do things with more intention.  More to come on this!

I also ordered The Purposeful Life Planner from Ruth at Living Well Spending Less.  The planner won’t ship until 12/1 but I’m excited to lay out a game plan from 2016 with a comprehensive life/business planner.

Income

This is important: Previously, I was reporting the income I earned (not necessarily was paid) and actual expenses paid.  When this blog was smaller, it worked well, mainly because I was so excited to be making money – haha!

So now, I am reporting the actual income I received, as well as actual expenses.  This will make for a more accurate income report and hourly rate, but it will look a little bit deceiving, because some of the income I reported in previous months I will show as received this month – so just realize that as you read this!

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.

• Ad Networks: $369.51
  • The Blogger Network: $369.51
  • Media.net: $0
  • BlogHer: $0 ( I ended my contract with BlogHer)
• Affiliate Sales: $1,124.96
  • Commission Junction: $160.40
  • Tailwind: $40.52
  • EBA: $797.20
  • Amazon Associates: $11.44
  • BestMark: $10.00
  • Personal Capital: $100
  • $5 Meal Plan: $5.40
• Sponsored Posting: $0 (I didn’t get paid for any sponsored posting in October)
  • Moms Affiliate: $0
  • TapInfluence: $0
  • Clever Girls: $0
  • Kasai Media: $0
  • iSway: $0
  • LinkVehicle: $0
  • Other Sponsored Posts: $0
• The Pinterest Assistant: $2,835.30
• Freelance Projects: $350
• Total Income: $4,580.77

Expenses

Running a blog is truly work, and truly a business, which means that I have expenses.

Crazy, right?

This month was higher than normal due to a few anomalies, which you’ll see below, but beyond that I’ve been investing more and more money back into the business, which also means higher expenses.  Ultimate, I would like to see expenses (other than payroll!) less than $500/month.  That would make me super happy!

•  Advertising
  • Facebook: $194.66
  • Pinterest: $266.00
• Business Trip
  • Gas: $32.24
  • Meals: $177.06 (for 3 people for 3 days)
• Contractors: $800.75
• Office Expenses
  • The Purposeful Life Planner: $48.22
  • gretchenlindow.com: $10.95
  • Republic Wireless: $283.81
  • Software: $81.04
  • Stock Photography: $60.00
  • Paypal Fees: $75.61

• Total Expenses: $2,030.34

Yikes! October was expensive!  Between the business trip, inflated payroll costs, and some things like a new work-only phone it was just really expensive!  However, it was 100% worth it, I have to say!  I had a great business trip to visit with a couple of employees, work on training, and all get on the same page, and the new work phone has totally help with productivity!

October 2015 Goals

• Apply and accepted to PubExchange – FAIL! I applied but didn’t hear back, so I’ll reach out again in November.
• Apply and accepted to Influence Central – SUCCESS!
• Run Promoted Pins, determine budget – SUCCESS!  This will continue into November
• Run FB Ads, determine budget – SUCCESS – this will also continue into November
• Diversify Ad Income.  I have already started to do this, but I need to step it up! – SUCCESS! – I won’t actually get paid on this newly diversified ad income for a while, but diversifying has been helping!  In October I made about $650 in ad income, probably my highest month ever.
• Revamp the blog’s sidebar with featured posts, holiday posts, and popular posts – FAIL!  I seriously ran out of time.

November 2015 Goals

•  Revamp the blog’s sidebar with featured posts, holiday posts, and popular posts
• Set up email addresses under retiredby40blog.com, not just gmail addresses
• Create gifts guides for the holidays & promote
• Start brainstorming ideas for 2016 – think big!!

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.

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

Linked up

You May Also Like:

How I Make Money Blogging: September 2015 Blog Income Report Traffic & Blog Income Report – March 2015 August 2015 Blog Income & Traffic Report Traffic & Blog Income Report – April 2015 Traffic & Blog Income Report – February 2015 Traffic & Blogging Income Report – October 2014 Traffic & Blog Income Report – January 2015 June Blog Traffic & Income Report 2-Year Milestone: July Traffic & Blog Income Report May Traffic & Blog Income Report