Hey everyone! If you’re new around here, I started tracking my blogging income through these income reports in mid-2016. This is a great way for me to keep an eye on my progress of doing M$M full-time, and it’s also a great way for you to follow along as well if you’re thinking of starting an online business!

I can’t wait to look back on these several years from now and see how far the site has come. It’s already been surreal to this point.

On a personal level – life is crazy good right now. I’m only about a month away from being self-employed for two years, which blows my mind. This all has gone by REALLY fast.

Typical writing day as a blogger

A lot of you have wanted to start your own blogs after seeing the success that I’m starting to have, and I highly recommend it. If I hadn’t taken a shot on M$M, I would still be stuck in a career I didn’t really enjoy very much.

Just understand – this isn’t easy in any way or for the faint of heart, and definitely not something you should immediately quit your day job for. Most people quit blogging long before they actually “make it.”

It takes time to build a business like this, but if you have talent and a good message/story to tell, it is possible to do well.

Take a look at my free blog setup tutorial. You’ll have your own blog set up in just 10-15 minutes, and will receive a special website hosting price since you’re a M$M reader when you use my exclusive link. As a bonus from my family at Bluehost- you’ll also get a domain name for free ($15 value).

BTW – the M$M Facebook page is lit right now

I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but the engagement from M$M readers on the FB page (you can like it here) is pretty awesome.

One of my goals has been to create a community feel for M$M readers, and it’s finally starting to happen. We’re having some great comment threads on everything from dogs and cats (just trust me it’s cool) to how much money millennials have in their savings accounts.

Have you taken my free blogging course yet?

So far I’ve had over 600 people sign up for my blogging course since I made it in February, and the reviews have been great! Even if you are just thinking about starting a blog or want to figure out how to get more traffic to one you already have, this will be useful for you.

Everything in the course applies to small business websites that have a blog as well, so there is good value for business owners out there that want more engagement on their sites.

I’ve been told I need to charge for this course, but I’m opting to keep it free for now. If you don’t want to pay for it, get in for free while you still can.

Let’s get to the report…

Something to remember when you look at this income report – I’m self-employed and have to cover expenses, my terrible health insurance policy (sadly I’m not joking), and taxes. Surprisingly, I got a very unexpected $500 back from the IRS for last year (not included in this report). I don’t think that will happen next year haha.

Here’s how I made money online in March:

MillennialMoneyMan.com Income: $10,117.87

This is the money that I made directly from the blog through affiliates, sponsorships, and staff writing gigs that I’ve picked up through the site.

I remember when I was totally happy making $6,000 from my entire business, so I try to keep that with me to stay grounded and realize how much progress I’ve made so far.

But, one of my big goals is to make $10,000 a month with affiliate income this year! I think I can get there, just gotta get some different products that I feel good about on the site.

Affiliate income: $4,644.85

Bluehost Blog Hosting: $2,405.00 (Take a look at my free blog starter guide to set up your own site in 15 minutes or less!)LendEDU: $1,719.75 <- Well over 1,000 M$M readers have used this free rate finder tool so far to search for better student loan interest rates. (Bloggers, I highly recommend that you apply to become a LendEDU affiliate here)Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: $236.40Online Surveys: $143.00Personal Capital: $100.00ConvertKit: $8.70

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 of 2016, and saw my affiliate income jump from a few hundred dollars to several thousand per month.

Blog coaching: $250.00

Well…I wasn’t planning on doing any coaching in April, but I had a reader that reached out and I couldn’t turn him down because of some special circumstances. So, I guess I came out of early blog coaching retirement haha.

I don’t mind doing one or two of these sessions a month if people really want one, but back when I was doing several a month it got to be a little too much on my plate.

My time is certainly not cheap, but I’m also one of the very very few people in the world that legitimately does this for a living…so I don’t have to be. 🙂

Sidebar Advertising/Sponsorships: $2,224.52

April was pretty solid – but I do feel like I turned down a ton of sponsorship offers. If the product isn’t a great fit for the readers, what’s the point in having it on the site?

Thankfully I’ve gotten past the point where I feel like sponsorship income is necessary to run the site. I do really well on just the display ads.

Staff Writing: $2,998.50

I managed to pick up a really great staff writing gig back in December. I’m excited that 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 money.

A lot of you have asked me about this gig – it really just came to me randomly one day because of how big the site is, so I can’t give you sage advice for how to get one that pays quite this much unfortunately.

BUT, a ton of readers have recommended Upwork.com for freelance writing gigs, so if you’re interested I would check it out.

Digital Marketing Income: $6,889.90

If you’re new to M$M, I’ll just catch you up really quick! When I left my job almost two years 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 (please don’t do what I did).

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!

Facebook ad services: $3,500.00

Well the first month of offering FB ad services was pretty successful! Just like you need to do with your blog when you first start, I niched down as much as possible to find clients I could immediately provide value for with Facebook ads.

Are you ready? Here was the niche: People that write the formations (aka “drill”) for marching bands.

I used to be a band director, so I know exactly what band directors are looking for with drill writers. That paired with the fact that I know I can do Facebook ads better than anyone else in that industry gave me an immediate advantage I could use to sell clients.

I also leveraged the fact that I built one of the biggest Millennial blogs in the country using Facebook ads, and boom. Money.

The trick is that you have to actually be good at what you say you are – or else clients don’t get what they paid for and you come off as a jerk.

I’m not sure how much of this type of work I’ll end up doing, because I am bumping up against the need to hire someone to help me run some aspects of my business.

EVERY person I’ve talked to that has scaled up their marketing services has told me not to and keep my services as boutique as possible. Not totally sure what I’ll do quite yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Cool stuff for M$M:

Salesforce Toronto

Salesforce (a big software company) flew me out to Toronto for a few days to do a chat on reaching millennials.

I had never been to Canada before – it was great! The people there are as nice as you hear about haha.

However, their money is weird and fake feeling (just kidding Canada peeps).

Anyways, it was super interesting to talk to some people from Toronto and get a feel of the differences between the US millennials and Canadian millennials!

Higher Income

Obviously, this month was best month my business has ever had. I know I’ll have ups and downs, but generally the income for the site and my marketing efforts are trending up over time.

I did have some big marketing projects that won’t come up again this year, but at the same time I also did more traditional sales with my Facebook services.

Before this month I really didn’t feel too comfortable jumping on the phone and selling something, but I’ve found that if you are selling from a position of not really needing the money, it’s WAY easier.

Anyways, I’m just trying to stay in the moment as much as possible and enjoy that I can make money the way I do. Most people never take the chance on this opportunity, so I am very grateful that everything has worked out so far.

Broke Millennial

My friend Erin from BrokeMillennial.com just launched her new book Broke Millennial. I did a book giveaway the other day for it on Facebook that went really well!  I’m super happy for her because she’s a baller, and this is just the beginning in an epic money expert career to come.

I really believe that every M$M reader would like this book. It’s not a get rich quick story or something lame like that. It’s a book for real people that just want to get their money right with real-world examples.

Drop whatever you’re doing for a few minutes and go pick up her book through the picture below (it’s only like $10):

You guys rock!

Thanks so much for checking out my April 2017 income report. As always, thank you for reading and please please please reach out and let me know what cool stuff is going on with you!

Whether it’s student loan payoff stories, accomplishments with your business or blog, or anything else…I love to be a part of it. Without all of you, I wouldn’t have a job. I consider every one of you as family because of that. 🙂

You can take a look at all of my income reports here or check out the latest ones below:

March 2017 Online Income Report: $15,539.59

February 2017 Online Income Report: $13,453.34

January 2017 Online Income Report: $16,683.77

December 2016 Online Income Report: $12,581.87

November 2016 Online Income Report: $11,173.63

Comments

  1. Proud of you, Bobby, It’s inspiring to watch your blog grow, while you also continue to provide extreme value with the articles you publish. Keep up the good work.

    It sounds like you are scaling back on the coaching, but I’ll throw a plug for you. We had our coaching session back in November – since then, I’ve doubled my blog traffic each month by implementing and continuously reviewing the strategies we discussed. THANK YOU!

    1. Thanks so much! I’m so glad to hear that the coaching went well for you and you’ve doubled traffic! That’s freaking awesome.

      I have cut back on it for sure. I enjoy it a ton, but there are a lot of plates spinning right now so I just had to prioritize other ones first.

  2. You’re killin’ it, M$M! Way to hustle and make that great income! 🙂 I do freelance projects through UpWork and it’s overall been a great experience. I do marketing and freelance writing there; if any of y’all want to try it out, it’s a safe platform to use.

    1. You’re actually the reason that I suggest it to people – you mentioned it in a comment one time so I went and checked it out!

  3. Holy crap this is impressive. You’ve put in a ton of hard work and it shows. Keep it up and enjoy the ride!

    1. Thanks! Dude this month was crazy haha. Everyone just assumes that bloggers make all their income passively, but especially where my blog is right now it’s just not the case. This month was by far the most time I’ve put in so far!

  4. Man we love reading these!

    The best part about running website are the possibilities are literally endless.

    Congrats on your continued success.

    The Facebook niche ads are interested. Being a formal jail deputy maybe I can find some clients looking to market law enforcement products?! ?

    1. That’s actually not a bad idea – military surplus stores, gun stores/shooting ranges, or even holster companies would be a good fit.

      1. Do you have any good resources you used to learn how to run effective facebook ads?

        Knowing your audience is HUGE in marketing as you know. Maybe Brittany can dive into the teaching niche this summer with me =).

  5. You’re doing great! Way to keep going up in income! Sorry, I had you come out of retirement 🙂 But I learned so much from that hour and have grown as a blog so much from it!

    I look forward to seeing if you can keep offering the service of facebook ads to customers as small businesses in general need that service so badly! I know around here people love paying for that service, but then again you are dealing with customers.

    Keep up the great work!

    1. I’m glad to hear it helped! Yeah we’ll see on the FB ads. It was definitely fun to provide the service, but I do think I’m going to move to a “consulting” role so I can teach people how to do it and then they just run the ads themselves. Maybe charge hourly to make changes to their audiences or something. Who knows!

  6. Woah! Incredible man! You’re totally killing it. Love reading through your blog and appreciate your insights. Keep it up.

  7. You’re killin it bro. Keep up the awesome work.

    P.S. Having spoken with you, here’s a potential product idea for you (one that I’d gladly pay for)

    Finding quality writing/blogging/content marketing gigs.

    You seem to have stumbled into a few because of your talent (inbound), but I’d otherwise love tips regarding that entire process.

    How’d you determine what to charge?
    What do the contracts look like? (if they exist?)
    How do bill them? (monthly, per article?)
    How have you found/pitched additional clients?

    Just sayin. You seem to have worked that out fairly well, and I’d be interested to know more 😉

    1. Yeah I think that’s a good point – I’ve been really struggling with a course because I have different segments of readers. I do think a comprehensive course on how to run a marketing business based on your blog would be pretty cool. It’s definitely a faster way to become profitable with your site than just sitting around and waiting for affiliate income.

  8. Goodness you have a lot of hustle going on! One thing I love about your income reports is that you show all the ways you put work in to earn that money. But you are in a great season of life to ride that wave and just build like crazy!

    1. Haha yeah I have things happening all over the place right now. I’m doing well with managing it, just takes more hours of the day!

  9. You are crushing it. It’s crazy how companies will start paying to learn from you, as you’ve built authenticity and trust with millennials. So cool.

    1. I think it’s just the beginning for that honestly. The business of teaching companies how to reach millennials is just getting started!

  10. The Digital Marketing seems to be the foundation for you. I have to comb through more of your blog, but is there anywhere that you go deeper into that subject?

    Thanks! And congratulations, what a great month of income!
    -The Tepid Tamale

    1. It definitely was the foundation for me. A lot of people think you can just magically make money in the beginning with your site, but it just doesn’t work that way! Based on requests from a lot of other bloggers, I think I will create a course for using your blog to make money marketing.

  11. Another successful month! Good work!

    I recently just landed my first freelance gig by way of cold calling. I would suggest others give that a try! They’ve got nothing to lose!

    1. Exactly! The worst thing that can happen is that someone says no.

  12. Amazing! And very inspirational! You should go buy yourself a brand new car or something. . . kidding, haha!!

    Just wondering, did you purchase the basic Facebook strategies ebook or one of the larger packages? I recently got my Pinterest traffic mostly humming along on autopilot and am ready to start expanding my reach on Facebook. This week I ran a sample ad campaign and saw my cost per click hover around $.42 – which isn’t awful, but it’s not nearly as good as the $.03-.04 you’ve averaged.

    Also, it’s kinda ironic that you published your income report on the same that I pushed out my first ever income report.

    1. I picked up the $50 package on the eBook, which I feel like was a good call so far. Just keep experimenting with the FB ads – takes a good amount of trial and error.

  13. YES!! Congrats on a killer month. I love that you’ve been so successful with Facebook ads and can leverage your knowledge to help out specific folks in your band niche. I’ve tried a few ads for fun but haven’t received a great return on them just yet. Need to experiment more in the coming weeks. Keep up the great work & inspiration!

  14. Wow! This is seriously impressive! Your leap of faith on the blog is definitely paying off. We haven’t earned a cent yet, but I’m definitely motivated to try some different things out.

    1. That’s what it’s all about – just keep experimenting and find out what’s best for you.

  15. Thanks so much for the kind words about my book (Facebook Strategies Worth Sharing)! I’m so glad to hear that it’s really working out for you!

  16. Wow! What a difference a year makes Bobby! Fantastic income!

    Quick question? What kind of page views do you get each month?

    Loving your income reports! Definitely motivated me to put myself out there. Can’t wait to share the good news (once it happens).

    1. Right now I get about 200,000 views/month. Hoping to get that closer to 400k later in the year after the summer slump

  17. Awesome job Bobby! You are an inspiration to many people. Always a leader, never a follower! Everything you do is way over my head, but congratulations for being able to actually enjoy your job and to be able to reach out to so many people.

  18. Flat out killing it. That’s what your doing my friend. Congrats on the best month ever! I signed up to become a LendEDU affiliate. Great recommendation.

  19. Wow that’s really impressive. Congrats on a great month of passive income! 🙂

  20. Always nice to read a success story, keep up the great work! Thank you M$M!

  21. Great read thank you! I came across you on Michelles affiliate marketing facebook page and its really cool to see how well you are doing. I have been self-employed for 2 years now as well and it is amazing how fast it goes! Thanks for the interesting read and looking forward to reading the rest of your site!

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