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This is my second time sharing my fashion blog income report and I still feel weird about it LOL. I’m a super private person when it comes to a lot of things, particularly finances.
However, I’ve always loved reading other blogger’s income reports and find them so inspiring. I figured I would share mine to hopefully do the same for you.
I’m still not a full-time blogger because I just don’t have the time. I’m a stay at home mom to a 1-year-old and we also have a 5 and a 6-year-old as well. I’m spread thin between taking care of our children and our home and as much as I’d like to work more, it’s simply not in the cards right now.
If you’re in the same boat and feeling frustrated, don’t be. Keep putting in the work and it will come!
Another reason I wanted to share this income report is that I wanted to show you that hard work pays off. In my last income report, I earned $6,685.17, and this month I nearly doubled that (well, close enough).
Trial and error and making mistakes have all helped lead me up to this point and every obstacle has been a lesson in some way.
I didn’t start making 5 figures per month overnight. I’ve worked really hard to get to this point and I put a lot of time into the content I create. I’ve learned what works for my business and what doesn’t, what to spend time on, and what not to and what areas I still need to sharpen (hello, Pinterest & SEO).
UPDATE 8/16/20: I just finished this SEO course and it has doubled my organic traffic within the first month of implementing changes. It is pricey, but I believe in investing in your business, which is exactly why I purchased it myself.
The things I have learned in this course are INCREDIBLY valuable. I’m confident that my passive income will be quadrupling in the next year due to this course.
Anyway – Back to the income report….Just like my last 2 income reports, the money that I mention below is all money that I have already been paid. It is the money that I received between September 1st and September 30th. It doesn’t include anything that’s pending or anything that was paid out prior to September 1st.
Here’s a breakdown of my income and expenses for the month.
September 2019 Blog Income Report
Total Income For September 2019:
Sponsored Posts:$9,500
Contracted Work: $1,636.35
Affiliate Commission: $425.84
Total Income: $11,562.19
Total Expenses For September 2019:
Keyword Tool: $11.90
Adobe: $10.65
Giveaways: $40
Tailwind: $9.99 (I pay yearly but for the sake of showing ALL my expenses, I divided that by 12 months to include it – I pay $119.88 yearly) More on Tailwind below.
Tailwind Tribes: $4.99 (I also pay for this year but broke it down to include it as a monthly expense – I pay $59.98/yearly) More on Tailwind Tribes below.
Total Expenses: $77.53
Total Profit: $11,484.66
Like my last blog income report, the majority of my income still comes from sponsored posts. However, I’ve also started to work on other pieces of content I’ve never worked on before. Under my Income, you’ll see “contracted work”. This is work that I was hired to do for a brand/retailer outside of my personal blog/social media channels.
While this work isn’t necessarily ON my blog, it’s work that I can put on my resume to get me more blog opportunities and it’s a part of my business as a whole. It shows my photography skills and content creation skills and is a great way to show what I can do.
Sponsored posts may not be your goal but there are MANY different avenues of making money if it’s not. There are people like Michelle from Making Sense Of Cents who make over $50,000/month in affiliate income alone. That’s a whooooole lot of money from affiliate sales.
Maybe affiliate sales aren’t your thing but you’re an expert at your trade and want to teach others. You could create a digital product and sell it on your website. Really, there are tons of ways to make an income blogging, you just have to find out what YOUR good at and what YOUR READERS NEED.
If you’re interested in getting started with sponsored posts but don’t know where to start, check out this list below. I’ve listed all of the sponsor networks I use that help to bring in a nice chunk of my income every month.
Click here to see a full list of the sponsor networks I use
If you’re interested in affiliate sales, here’s a list of the ones I use the most. This is nowhere near all the programs out there but it’s a good start if you’re a fashion/lifestyle blogger.
Click here to see a full list of the affiliate programs I use
I still haven’t gotten around to finishing the course I’ll be launching, which has been a goal of mine for a while now. Dedicating the time to it just hasn’t been easy. I’ve seen people say so many times that you can’t make money unless you blog about blogging….and that simply isn’t true.
I don’t blog about blogging and I made over $11,500 last month. In this course, I’ll be sharing exactly how I’ve made this possible.
If you want to know when the course is live, sign up below to be notified.
If you want to start a blog of your own the most important thing to do is sign up with the right host. Here is the host that I use and love (I have used others and this has been the best by far). You can get started at just $3.95/month, way less than you probably spend on coffee 🙂
Tools That Made This Income Possible
Tailwind – If there is 1 tool I recommend all bloggers use, it’s Tailwind. Throughout my blogging journey, I’ve learned that TIME IS MONEY. I don’t have time to sit around pinning on Pinterest and I’m going to guess that you don’t either. Enter Tailwind.
With Tailwind Plus (that’s the plan I have) you can schedule and plan AS MANY pins as you want in advance. I’m telling you, this is a game-changer! Here’s what you get with the Tailwind Plus Plan:
- unlimited pin scheduling
- 5 tribe memberships (more on that below)
- 30 monthly tribe submissions
- 250 active smart loop posts
To put it in simple terms Tailwind is really a “set it and forget it” tool.
Try a month of Tailwind Plus FREE right here!
Tailwind Tribes – Once you have a Tailwind account you can also join Tailwind Tribes. Tailwind “tribes” are groups within tailwind in which you can share your content and have the opportunity to have it re-shared by others in the group.
To maximize your shares/views you want to stick with tribes that fit your niche. Currently, I have the “Tribes Max” Plan which includes unlimited tribes memberships and 200 tribe submissions/month. (I received the promotional price because I was grandfathered in during a promotional period.)
How Many Pageviews Do I Need?
Something that I hear/read often is that people think they have to have 100,000 pageviews to make money. FALSE.
I had roughly 10,000 pageviews in the month of June. Are pageviews really important? Yes! However, there are other things that are equally as important, depending on what your niche/goal is.
For example, while I may not have 100,000 pageviews, I do have a demographic made up of over 95% females with over 80% of all readers being in the US. Not all of the brands I work with care as much about views as they do about WHO is viewing my page. Sure, I could have way more pageviews but if they aren’t who the brand is interested in targeting, it really won’t matter.
With all that said, increasing my pageviews is 100% on my to-do list. It just hasn’t been something I’ve been able to dedicate much time to.
Increasing page views, in my opinion, should always be a goal. With higher page views, you can make a great income with ads alone. My current goal is to hit 25k page views so that I can apply for Mediavine.
Update* Mediavine now requires 50,000 page views per month.
So you can see that I don’t blog about blogging and I don’t sell any personal products, but for a stay at home mom who doesn’t pay for daycare, I make a pretty nice income.
Past Income Reports
June 2019 Blog Income Report
November 2018 Blog Income Report
If you have a blog, chances are you have accompanying social channels. My Instagram is one specifically that works hand in hand with my blog and brings in quite a bit of my income.
I always recommend not putting all your eggs in one basket when it comes to blogging. Multiple revenue streams are the way to go!
I hope you found this income report to be inspirational/informative. I just want others to know that you CAN make a great income by doing something you love. While it still takes a lot of hard work, it is 100% doable!
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