How I Made $104,065 In April Blogging

Welcome to April’s business income report where I show you how I made money online last month. It’s time to look at this month’s update and see how I did.

If you’re new to Making Sense of Cents, you may be wondering why I would want to publish my income report each month. You can simply skip to the next section if you’re not new here.

This all started out as my extra income report because, in the beginning, it was all about the money I was earning from my side jobs. In my side income reports from the beginning, I included all of the income I made except for what I made at my day job.

However, I left my day job as a financial analyst in October of 2013 and now my monthly income reports consist of the many ways I earn a living.

Many have asked why I would ever want to publicly post my income each month. Some think I’m crazy, whereas some are glad I’m open about what I’m doing. Whatever you think, I enjoy publishing my monthly online income reports and I share them publicly for three main reasons:

1. Before I started blogging, I knew nothing about side hustling and making money online. I didn’t think side jobs were worth the effort and I thought the only way to significantly increase your income was through raises at your full-time job. If it weren’t for others publishing their monthly income reports, I don’t know if I would have ever tried side hustling. I want to help show others the positives in side hustling and how it can change a person’s life. There are many different ways to make money online, and I like to share my story each month to help motivate others to improve their financial situation by making more money.
2. Secondly, I like to publish my income reports because it’s a way for me to look back, learn from my mistakes and actually see what areas need improvement. I use my monthly income reports as a way to track how I’ve done and I treat it sort of like a journal.
3. Lastly, I like to show others that making side money is possible and that there are many legitimate ways to make money from your home. If you are looking for information on the many ways to make money online, I published the article Monthly Income Report Roundup that showcases many successful bloggers who are kind enough to share their income with the public each month.

I know I say this every month, but it’s the truth. Life is great now that I’m my own boss and a full-time blogger. I look forward to each and every day and it’s a wonderful feeling. I truly love waking up every single morning.

Above are just a few of the reasons for why I enjoy publishing my monthly income reports. I like to show others that you don’t have to hate your job and hate your life. You can make changes to your life and make money in a way that allows you to truly enjoy the life you are living. I’m not saying that you have to LOVE your job, I’m just saying that your job should, at least, allow you to do what you like to do outside of work (whether that be spending time with loved ones, painting, hiking, etc.).

 

How was business income in April of 2018?

I earned $104,065 blogging and online in April of 2018, before expenses.

April was a normal month for Making Sense of Cents. It was a big drop in income from the previous month due to me not taking part in any affiliate launches. But, the income drop was expected. It was definitely still a great month!

I think the next few months will most likely see an income level around this same amount, and then it should pick up again sometime around September. This is for many reasons such as me just being busier over the next few months as well as the summer months usually just being a little bit slower for personal finance websites, in general.

My biggest goal for the year is to still improve my work-life balance. I’m getting better and better, but I’m still nowhere near perfect. My goal is to work less than 10 hours a week over the spring and summer months.

Currently, I am working on creating my next blogging-related product to sell, which will be about how to earn money through sponsored posts on a blog. You can sign up for the waitlist here.

EDIT: November 23, 2018 – Making Sense of Sponsored Posts is available! Learn how I made my first blogging income, and how I’m now making $10,000-$20,000 a month with sponsored partnerships!

Anyway, to get back to my monthly income…

I never thought that I would ever earn over $100,000 a month, especially with a blogging business.

While my income levels are high, I do want everyone to remember that I started at $0 a month and have grown my income to where it’s at now through a lot of hard work.

Before you think that $100 or even $1,000 is out of your league, you should remember that it is not!

I, myself, used to think that it would be great to one day earn $1,000 online and through my blog. I looked up to many bloggers who were earning over $10,000 a month, and I thought it was impossible.

Now, I’m here to show everyone that it is possible! Through hard work and dedication, you never know where life may lead you.

As you can see, April was another great month. It was great on all fronts – blogging, course-wise, life, and everything else. The business is doing well and I’m very happy with it. I’ve been catching myself saying “Life is really good” a LOT. And, I truly mean it. Life is really good!

My business is growing, income is increasing, I have tons of amazing ideas for this year, and I am very excited about everything. I really love my business and I don’t know where I would be without it.

My Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course is still doing very well as I had many new students join the course last month. It’s still not showing any signs of slowing down – and this is still without any guest posts, webinars, etc.

If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $2.75 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free website domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase, at least, 12 months of blog hosting. FYI, if you are asking yourself “can you make money blogging?” – my top tip is to be self-hosted. This is essential if you want to monetize your blog as you will appear more professional and this will help you monetize your blog tremendously. My blogging income did not take off until after I switched to self-hosted WordPress.

 

Blog news 

Making Sense of Cents is doing very well and I’m happy with everything.

In April, we spent most of the month leisurely driving from Arizona to Florida, making multiple stops along to way to see friends and family. We also found our dream boat, entered a contract on it (we move in this month!), and sold the RV. It was a crazy month, which meant that not much work was done on the business.

And, I know that the craziness of living on a boat has only just started. Due to this, I’m working on getting further ahead with more content. I realize that we will be extremely busy moving aboard and getting the hang of everything, so being ahead in content is key right now so that I can focus as much time as I can towards #boatlife.

Overall, traffic for the month was around 400,000 page views.

Below are several other business and blog-related updates:

• My sister started as my virtual assistant in July of 2017. It is going very well. Some of the tasks she is in charge of include adding Pinterest photos to both new and old blog posts here on Making Sense of Cents, helping manage the Facebook groups I run, scheduling social media posts, and more. This helps free up more of my time so that I can create more products, reach more readers, and most of all, have an even better work-life balance.
• I am thinking about adding some sort of group coaching session to my business sometime in the future. While I used to do individual coaching, my time was limited. Group coaching would allow me to help more people and to also create a great support group for bloggers.
• My community group for Making Sense of Cents is continuing to grow. This is a Facebook group in which you can seek advice from other readers on all sorts of topics such as finance, blogging, travel, running a business, and so on. There are already over 10,000 members!
• I created a new series on my blog where I interview extraordinary people who are doing interesting things in life. First, I interviewed JP, who retired at the age of 28 with a net worth over $2,000,000. I’m extremely excited about this new interview series! If there’s anyone you would like me to interview, please leave a comment and let me know.
• I released my How To Start A Blog FREE Course. If you’ve been wanting to start a blog, then check this out. I created this email course for those who are interested in starting a blog, but haven’t done so yet. The course is free, and over 40,000 people have already signed up. Thank you, everyone, for the kind emails about how great the course is. Glad everyone is enjoying it!
• Due to how well my first free course went, I also created the free Master Your Money email course. It’s full of great money management lessons and financial worksheets (such as a free budget template), and I’m loving the positive response from this email course as well.

Just a quick note before we continue. I created a time-saving cheat sheet that can help you increase your affiliate income. Sign up below!

Popular new posts on Making Sense of Cents last month:

• Is Making Money From A Blog Actually Possible? Your Top 21 Questions Answered
• I Thought I Was Too Good For Community College
• 10 Statistics About The Money Habits Of The Average American
• How This Couple Retired In Their 30s and Now Travel Around The World: An Interview With Go Curry Cracker
• How I Paid Off Over $42,000 in Student Loans in 34 Months (Earning $36,000 Per Year)
• One Year Later: My Extraordinary Interview Series Roundup
• 7 Ways My Relationship With Money Has Changed
• How We Paid Off $100,000 in Debt in 40 Months: Marriage and the Military

 

Featured Question: How can I learn how to use social media for my blog?

I feature one question from a reader in each monthly income report. Please leave a comment below if you have a question that you would like me to answer. 

Social media is very important for the average blogger. It can help you to engage with your readers on a closer level so that they can get to know you better, improve your traffic levels, grow your audience, and more.

There are just so many different ways that social media can help you and your blog. However, I also understand that it can be time-consuming to master just one of them, let alone trying to master them all!

It is well worth it, though, and it gets easier. Plus, you can automate a lot as well as schedule posts in advance when it comes to social media.

Below are my favorite social media resources. I check these resources often for new articles, I read their emails, listen to their podcast episodes, and more, so that I can stay updated.

• My favorite Pinterest course is Pinterest Traffic Avalanche. This course shows you how to get free traffic from Pinterest to your blog. You’ll learn about Pinterest SEO, how to set up Rich Pins, how to create viral content, how to make Pinterest images, all about group boards, and many other valuable Pinterest strategies.
• If you’re looking for great free Pinterest advice, that would definitely be Simple Pin Media. This website publishes high-quality articles on the topic of Pinterest as well as highly informative podcast episodes. They also have several great Pinterest courses.
• My favorite overall business-related podcast would have to be Amy Porterfield’s podcast. Some examples of great past episodes include How to Engage Your Small Facebook Group When You’re Just Starting Out, All About Instagram Ads, and How to Create a 5-Day Social Media Video Series for Rapid List Growth.
• My favorite Facebook page resource is Facebook Strategies Worth Sharing – I started with just around 6,500 Facebook followers when I first read this resource, and currently have over 90,000. I owe a lot of that to the ebook Facebook Strategies Worth Sharing. Growing my Facebook page has allowed me to reach new readers, improve my blogging income, grow my email list, and more.
• My favorite Facebook ads course is Flourish with Monica Louie. If you’re wanting to master Facebook ads, which can be a great way to attract readers to a blog, this course is something you will want to check out. In this course, Monica teaches how to get webinar registrations through Facebook ads, improve email sign-ups, increase page views through traffic campaigns, and more.
• My favorite overall guide that covers many different social media strategies is 21 Strategies I Used to Increase My Monthly Page Views from 17k to 400k+ in 10 Months – Lena Gott’s guide is full of great information on how to increase your blog’s page views. If you are feeling stuck or if you are a new blogger, check out this resource! Lena went from 17,000 monthly page views to 400,000 and shares all of her best tips in this resource.
• My favorite overall free resource would be Social Media Examiner. This is a great website that shares tons of great updates that happen on the various social media websites. If there’s some rumor going around about social media, I usually check this website first to see what they have to say about it.

As you can see, there are a TON of great resources for any social media help that you may need. There are plenty of other websites I regularly read and listen to as well.

Past featured questions:

• Is 2018 too late to start a website/blog?
• How much does it cost to start a blog?
• How do I increase my affiliate income?
• Do I need millions of page views a month in order to make money blogging?
• How do you build websites up to sell them?
• Do only celebrities make money through owning websites?
• How much money can a person make blogging?
• Where does blog income come from?
• Is there enough room for new bloggers to make money?
• How can a blogger increase their page views?
• Should my blog be self-hosted?
• What blogging tools or resources do you recommend?
• What should you do when a blog post goes viral?
• What is affiliate marketing?
• What did I learn from launching my course?
• What should you do when you’re feeling blogger burnout?
• How can a blogging conference help me?
• Why does a blogger need to have an email list?
• Where do you get your photos from for your blog?
• What are easy affiliate programs for new bloggers?
• What are some affiliate program ideas for different niches?
• What blogging ebooks and courses do you recommend?
• Did you start your blog to make money?
• Do you mind sharing a detailed list of what processes you have with new blog posts?
• How should a person come up with a blog name?
• How can a blogger make more money around the holidays?
• How do you keep track of accounting and taxes for your business?
• What are your biggest blogging mistakes?
• What should I blog about?

 

My plans for my blog and my business.

Plans and goals can help you run a successful business. I believe that working towards a goal can help keep a person motivated too.

Below are some of the areas I am currently working on:

• Get at least three months ahead on Making Sense of Cents posts. I am currently around one month ahead. Being ahead in content makes life much more enjoyable because I can focus on other things knowing that the majority of my writing work is already done.
• Grow Making Sense of Cents to 1,000,000 monthly page views. I would love to help more readers, see even more engagement, have higher traffic, and so on. I love my blog and I would love to see it grow! I’m hoping to see at least 1,000,000 monthly page views by the end of 2018.
• Create two more products to sell. In 2016, I created Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, and that has completely changed my life and my business. I want to create two more products to sell in 2018 so that I can continue to diversify my income. I have some plans in store and I’m excited to finally start creating more products!
• Grow to 150,000 email subscribers. I’m hoping to see at least 150,000 email subscribers by the end of 2018.
• Work less than 20 hours per week. For the most part, I am working less than 40 hours per week. However, there are some weeks when I spend all day and night on the laptop, not even sure where the day went. Due to that, I would like to continue to work on a better work/life balance.
• Have fun. Okay, so this isn’t really a goal that is quantifiable or something that I’ll track, haha, but I am really looking forward to 2018! 🙂

 

Affiliate income results.

In April of 2018, I earned $59,416 in affiliate income, as outlined earlier in this blog income report.

Earning affiliate income is something that I’m extremely grateful for, especially lately. We have been so busy the last several months and I haven’t spent as much time towards the business as I would normally like.

Even though I am spending less time on the business, I am still earning a great income each month and this allows me to focus on a better work-life balance.

I’m a very big fan of affiliate income, of course. It’s something that I enjoy due to how passive it can be. It makes full-time traveling much more enjoyable when I know I can bring in an income while having fun seeing new areas.

As I always say, blogging income is not dependent on page views. Even brand new bloggers can make money through affiliate marketing. If you know the correct way to promote a product, you can succeed at affiliate marketing. This is one of the main things I teach in my Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course.

My affiliate marketing course went live in July of 2016. I’ve already had over 4,800 people enroll in the course, and I’d love to have you as a student as well!

In the course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, there are 6 modules, over 30 lessons, several worksheets, bonuses, an extremely helpful and exclusive Facebook group, and more. I go through everything that you need to know about affiliate marketing, such as:

• A quick introduction to affiliate marketing and how it works
• The benefits of affiliate marketing
• The exact steps I’ve taken to earn over $500,000 from a single blog post
• How to correctly pick affiliate products to promote
• The steps to increase your conversion rate
• 80+ affiliate program ideas for different niches
• How to build trust with your readers (this is a MUST!)
• The required disclosures you need to know about
• The major tool you need for affiliate marketing
• The many different strategies to promote your affiliate links

My course is anything and everything about affiliate marketing. This course is perfect for you whether you are a new blogger or if you’ve been blogging for years, no matter what topic your blog is about, what country you live in, and so on.

I wrote this course so that it would benefit everyone, and there is so much to learn from it.