Hey everyone! If you’re new around here, I started tracking my blogging income through these online income reports mid-2016. This is a great way for me to keep track of how I make money through M$M, and it’s also a cool way for you to follow along as well! I can’t wait to look back on these several years from now and see the progress that the site has made.
On a personal level – life is pretty freaking awesome right now. I’ve really started to streamline a lot of my business, and I’m learning new things every month that I can use to grow the site. I couldn’t be happier that I found the perfect business and lifestyle for me and my wife.
I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately now that the site just turned two years old. I can’t even imagine where I’d be or if I’d own a business at all if I hadn’t started M$M. If you’re interested in starting a blog, I truly believe you should at least take a shot because it’s such a cheap business to try out. You’ll meet a lot of great people online, and you never know what it can turn into later down the road!
Take a look at my free blog setup tutorial. If you use my exclusive link in the guide you’ll get a domain name for free! I also suggest signing up for my free blogging course below.
Something to remember when you look at this report, I’m self employed and have to cover expenses and taxes. I decided to do some extra experimenting with Facebook ads this month since I knew how well the site was doing (around $2,000 total) and also had a very unusual $3,000 in expenses for my marketing work.
Here’s how I made money online in January:
Digital Marketing Income: $7,550.00
If you’re new to M$M, I’ll just catch you up really quickly! When I left my job a year and a half ago to start working for myself, I wasn’t making much money at all. The site itself had made around $3 when I took the leap of faith.
A reader really liked my story and work on the site and became my first marketing client! This is a great way to make money when you first start blogging because the skill-set is identical to what you do with your own site.
I highly recommend that anyone who spends time blogging go out and try to find some marketing clients. It’s been a great experience for me so far.
Out of respect for clients’ privacy, I can’t name them on the site or list my rates for specific projects, but you’re always welcome to email me if you are an aspiring digital marketer and want tips or guidance!
MillennialMoneyMan.com Income: $9,133.77
This is the money that I made directly from the blog, and January was my best month ever for M$M! My affiliate income was also the highest it has been since I was featured on CNBC a few months back, so I was very excited about that. I made more affiliate income in January than I took home in a month as a teacher before. Very surreal.
Affiliate income: $4,006.65
Bluehost Blog Hosting: $1,700 (Take a look at my free blog creation guide to set up your own site in 15 minutes or less!)LendEDU: $1,337.25 <- Over 700 M$M readers have used this tool so far to research better student loan interest rates for FREE. (Bloggers, I highly recommend that you apply to become a LendEDU affiliate here)Personal Capital: $600 (The free tool Coral and I use to track our net worth…love it! Check out my review here)Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: $146.40Thesis: $65Uber: $32Online Surveys: $126
If you are a blogger and want to figure out how to make affiliate income, you need to take the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course. This is THE most comprehensive affiliate course out there. I took this course back in August, and saw my affiliate income jump from a few hundred dollars to several thousand per month.
Blog coaching: $300
Again another slow month for blog coaching, but I haven’t been pushing it nearly as hard as I did a few months ago. As much as I love helping other bloggers, this is literally the least efficient way that I make money. I have several more people that have requested coaching over the next few months, but I doubt I’ll be offering this service for much longer after that.
Sidebar Advertising/Sponsorships: $1,861.62
January was pretty decent for sponsorships and sidebar ad revenue, but definitely not as good as last month. I usually just wait for sponsorships to roll in, but I may start being more proactive and contacting these companies first. We’ll see what happens!
Staff Writing: $2,965.50
I managed to pick up a really great staff writing gig back in December. I’ll be doing more writing with this particular client over the next few months, and it’s awesome because they just want me to write about $$$ and student loan debt.
If anyone is reading this that needs an additional staff writer, shoot me an email and let me know! I really enjoy doing this type of work and have room for 1 or two more clients: Bobby @ millennialmoneyman.com
New Site Design
I am so excited about this!!!!! The new M$M site will be unveiled the third week of February (if all goes well). I think this will take my business to the next level, since a lot of things about this site need to be updated/optimized.
But, for a site that I built on my own with Thesis for less than $200…I’ve been VERY happy with it. If I told you that you could spend $200 and make tens of thousands from it, I think you would probably take that deal! I’m just at the point where I need to step up what I’m doing to capture more emails and boost my affiliate income.
I picked what I feel like is the best personal finance/online entrepreneur designer out there to redesign M$M. He isn’t cheap to work with, but I know that this will be a great investment for hopefully years to come.
SEO Coaching
I’ll be dropping some serious money into SEO (search engine optimization) coaching sessions with one of the top SEO experts in the industry this coming month as well. This will take my skills to the next level, which is great for both my site and my marketing clients.
I’m a firm believer of putting money back into the company and educating myself (former teacher after all), which is one of the reasons I’ve been able to grow this thing pretty quickly. I don’t feel like waiting around for a long time to grow the business haha.
Taxes
Well…I’ve got to do them, which sucks. I’m not sure what kind of a hit I’ll be taking, but fortunately I have been letting money pile up in my business account so I can be ready for anything. I think that 2016 will not be too bad, but I’m already preparing for what I think could be a pretty big check to write during/after 2017.
But if you’re paying more in taxes, it usually means you’re making more money. What a problem to have, right?
If you are looking for an online solution for your own taxes, take a look at my review of 1040.com. I’ve been working with them for two years now, and they have a nice, easy tax program and also donate money to charity with every tax return. Very cool company.
Finally – thank you all so much!
Whether you’ve been with me from the beginning or just now found M$M – thank you! I wouldn’t be able to do this without all of the awesome (almost 100,000) monthly readers for the site. I’m really looking forward to what we can do in the coming months!
I love reading these reports. Thanks for sharing them! Keep up the good work!
No problem, thank you!
Wow you had a great start for 2017. I love reading your income report, thanks for sharing.
Thank you, no problem!
An increasing trend, steadily going up and up! Great source of motivation, nice job.
Thank you Mike! I’m sure I’ll have some down months along the way. Trying not to get too high or too low. 🙂
Wowza, bravo on picking up that staff writing gig! Taht’s awesome. 🙂 And I can’t wait to see the new site design! I know how much freakin’ work it is, so good on you for taking on such an undertaking!
I don’t know if this helps, but my mom was self-employed and she would do taxes quarterly instead of once a year. It meant taking less of a mondo-giant hit once a year and spacing it out. Just a thought!
Thanks! Yes it is going to be a ton of work, but it will be worth it!
I actually do make quarterly payments, I didn’t really make that clear enough the way I wrote it
Awesome job as usual Bobby! You really know how to hustle!
Thank you!
Great post and a big inspiration to me since I found your site back in December of 2016. Since the beginning of 2017 I decided to take the leap and start side hustling on my own. I started my first blog just about 10 days ago and am slowing getting into it on nights and the weekend. I’ve also been procrastinating on learning SEO and your guest post last week from Claudia was the nudge I needed to finally start learning it and hopefully creating a new income source.
Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing how the site grows in 2017!
Thanks Darko! SEO was honestly what kept me afloat my first year in business. If I hadn’t worked on learning that skill set, I don’t think I’d be seeing the kind of gross income that I’m seeing currently. Just remember it’s a slow process, and that most of your money in the beginning will be from services that you provide rather than affiliate income or sponsorships!
I really appreciate these posts. My wife and I are in the process of starting a blog with a focus on personal finance. Now we have ideas on how to make our passion generate income. Thank you!
Sure no problem! It was a little strange putting out the income reports at first, but they seem to have helped a lot of people as well as grow the business. Definitely worth it.
That’s an impressive start to the year, and continues a nice growth trend for you. Have you written an article on how to find staff writing gigs? Do organizations just reach out to you? A lot of side hustles focus on freelance or staff writing – but I’m not sure who to approach or where to look for such a opportunity. Thanks,
Hey there! In this case, I was contacted for the writing gig. I’ve never really reached out to a company/organization for writing before, but I’m definitely considering it this year. It is a nice way to diversify my income a little bit. I’ll put out more content on it as I figure it out too!
Awesome! These reports are fun to look at and inspiring. Keep up the great work man. If you had to start over, would you do income reports from the beginning? Even if you made $20 in a month, in the first couple months? *asking for a friend LOL. Thanks Bobby!
Thanks Kyle – the answer is definitely yes! I wish I had started mine earlier regardless of how much I made, because I think it gives a better picture of how to grow a business from scratch. I think it would also help show the evolution of a site over time.
Woah, this is awesome! Congrats on such a great month! You took a leap of faith with only $3 earned and now look. This is such a great inspiration!
Thank you so much Chonce!
Bobby, you mentioned that you recommend anyone who spends time blogging to go out and find marketing clients. How would one start doing that? Do you have any articles on this topic that I missed? If you don’t, I would love to learn more about it.
Thanks for sharing these reports they are informative and inspiring and congratulations on your success.
I think the easiest way is to get a good amount of content on your site and then add a “hire me” page with a list of services that you provide. You’ll want to find small businesses in your area and identify if you can help them grow their online presence or not. After that – just email them and see if you can set up a meeting. The worst they will say is no, and if they say they’ll meet with you then you can use your blog as a portfolio.
Thanks for the awesome advice. I will do this and report back!
You are an inspiration Bobby! I had set myself a deadline of getting my blog up this weekend and I intend to adhere to it:)
Thank you! That’s awesome – let me know if you get stuck!
I will Bobby! Thank you so much! You’re really kind:)
Congratulations on the upward trending digital marketing and blogging income! I recently started a blog and consulting business and will take your advice on learning more about SEO. Like you, I have a passion for simply sharing info helping others with their finances. As far as taxes on self-employment income go, I’ve always advised clients to set aside roughly 25% of their gross income as a general rule of thumb so hopefully you’ve done that at the minimum. I’m very excited to check out your new site this month and look forward to your future posts!
That’s awesome! SEO is a great way to make money with your site.
On the taxes – yes I’m good in that area. We live on my wife’s salary, so I haven’t really pulled out any significant money from the business. That might change this year after I have a better idea of what to do with this level of income! 🙂
Wow, this is incredible. I can’t even fathom how great it must feel to work for yourself. I just started my own blog (although I have a job, so it wasn’t really a huge leap of faith as it was for you). I just can’t imagine how cool it would be to do this for a living. You are a huge source of inspiration for me as I start this journey for myself. Thank you for another great post!
You’re welcome!