Hey everyone! Another month has come and gone. Actually, last month was freaking crazy with all of the projects that I had going on (which I’ll talk about below), but overall I was very happy with February.
Fortunately, I was still able to bring in some great money with my online business. If you’re new here, I started these income reports back in mid-2016, and it’s been a total game changer for me!
Once you get past the weirdness of spilling your money guts all over the place, it actually is one of the most enjoyable things I do every month. It also helps that I make pretty good money doing this now haha.
February was a another great month for M$M!
Overall, I think last month was a 100% success. Even though I didn’t bring as much money as I did the previous month (you can see January’s income report here), I am still super grateful for everything.
I would honestly be HAPPY if I even made $3,000/month working from my computer, so to see $10,000+ for the past few months has been a very cool experience so far.
Also, I think it’s actually good to have a little bit of a down swing in terms of revenue for the company. It kinda forces me to reevaluate things and see what other opportunities I can find to make more money!
Things look a little different around here…
I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but the site is completely different than it used to be. I launched the new version of M$M at the end of February, and I can tell by the reaction from the De$troyer community that my guy Zack Swinehart (link at the bottom of the site) knocked it out of the park.
One cool thing – my daily page views have doubled so far! It’s not that more people are just magically showing up to the site or anything, but really that the same people are staying on the site for longer and looking at more pages.
I was averaging 110,000 page views a month, and if I can keep the site on the pace it has been so far this week it could be closer to 250,000. Pretty crazy. We’ll see if it translates into more $$$ over the next few months.
The Free M$M Blogging Course
So…I actually created a free blogging course! I think this is perfect for people who want to get a good start with blogging but don’t necessarily want to pay for one on one time with someone like me yet.
Blogging has completely changed my life, and I never even knew it would be something I was good at. It’s a process, but I think that anyone who can put the time in can get a lot of value out of it. Who knows, it could even turn into a new career like it did for me.
Along with the course, I also negotiated a special rate for M$M readers on blog hosting! When you use my exclusive link in my free blog startup guide, you can get hosting through Bluehost for as low as $2.95/month. That’s insane value, and much cheaper than my hosting costs when I started this site.
If you pair my startup tutorial with the course below, you’ll be a legit blogger in just 8 days. ๐
If you are considering starting a blog, take the course! It’s 7 days (with an 8th bonus day) of free lessonsย by yours truly. You can sign up below.
Anyways, let’s get to the income report! Remember, I’m self-employed and have to cover taxes, expenses, and health insurance. I spent less money on Facebook ads this month (about $1,500) by making my process more efficient and doing less ad experiments, but I DID elect to drop $3,800 on website design.
Totally worth it.
Here’s how I made money online in February:
Digital Marketing Income: $4,900.00
If youโre new to M$M, Iโll just catch you up really quickly! When I left my job a year and a half ago to start working for myself, I wasnโt 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. Itโs been a great experience for me so far.
Out of respect for clientsโ privacy, I canโtย name them on the site or list my rates for specific projects, but youโre alwaysย welcomeย to email me if you are an aspiring digital marketer and want tips or guidance!
MillennialMoneyMan.com Income: $8,553.34
This is the money that I made directly from the blog, andย February was a good month for M$M. My affiliate income was down by a little over $1,000 from January, but I actually attribute that to being so busy with the new site design and other client projects.
I kinda neglected the affiliate income side of things unfortunately.
Contrary to popular belief, AFFILIATE INCOME IS NOT TOTALLY PASSIVE! Sorry to yell at you like that, but it’s just the truth. You do still have toย hustle on social media and with email marketing to get products out in front of people.
Affiliate income: $3,013.06
Bluehost Blog Hosting: $1,435 (Take a look at my free blog creation guideย to set up your own site in 15 minutes or less!)LendEDU:ย $1,009.50 <- Overย 700ย M$M readers haveย used this toolย so far to researchย better student loan interest rates for FREE.ย (Bloggers,ย I highly recommend that youย apply to become a LendEDUย affiliateย here)Personal Capital: $300 (The free tool Coral and I use to track our net worthโฆlove it! Check out my review here)Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: $78.80Thesis: $65.01Motif: $51.75Credit Sesame: $27Online Surveys:ย $46
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 (after writing that, it looks like BS but it’s legitimately true haha).
Blog coaching: $650.00
I had some good blog coaching work this month, but as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t really push this too much. It’s not that it isn’t fun work, but there are just so many more ways to make money without having to actually talk on the phone for an hour.
First world problems, I know. But I am really pushing to automateย more of my money making process with M$M.
Sidebar Advertising/Sponsorships: $699.28
February was WAY down from the last month for ads and sponsorships. With the increased page views coming from the new site design, I have a feeling that my ad revenue will grow pretty well in the coming months. We’ll see!
Staff Writing: $4,191.00
I picked up an awesome staff writing gig almost three months ago, and I really hustled to get some good articles out in February. I don’t think this will be a long term thing, but I’m certainly enjoying the extra $$$ while the work is there.
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.
What’s coming up?
I’m DEFINITELY looking forward to getting back to creating more content for the site. I had to put that on the back burner as I redid the site and worked through some other marketing client projects.
It’s time to finally get way ahead on my writing. It would be so cool to get 3 months of posts in the bank, but that’s so so so much easier said than done!
One of the things I need to do a much better job of is working from different locations again. I was killing it with my writing schedule when I was moving around, but then for whatever reason I started writing from home too much and got bogged down.
Believe it or not, writing blog posts takes a lot of creative energy (for me at least). Working from different places with cool views is one of the bestย ways to keep the ideas fresh. ๐
As always, thank you!
All the emails and words of encouragement are the main reasons I do this as passionately as I do! If I didn’t have all of you to hang out with online, I’d probably own a swimming pool company or something haha.
Blogging is MUCH more fun (in my opinion).
Thanks so much for checking out my online income report! You can take a look at all of my past reports here, or take a look at the most recent ones below:
Hey Bobby another great month here! Keep up the good work it’s definitely starting to pay off!
Thanks! Yes it is! ๐
Another awesome month man! Thanks so much for sharing these. It is a huge motivator for me.
Thanks and no problem! It helps me a lot too when I write them. I generally have an idea of what the numbers are going to be at the end of the month, but putting this together helps me see where I need to focus my energy the most for the next month.
Great month again, and I do like the look of the site redesign. Just curious, have you considered including your monthly expenses that are associated with the site. I imagine you are beyond just the basic blue host level.
I don’t have any blog income, but I have started to share my monthly real estate income after reading yours and some other blog income reports. Its a great motivator to keep my books in order.
Thanks for sharing.
Actually yeah I’ve been thinking about doing that – I was on a basic plan until really this month. Now I pay about $150/month for hosting.
I have been torn on whether to start affiliate marketing on my own site, but I keep seeing people making all this moolah with it! I average about 300 pageviews a day. Do you think that’s even enough to do anything with? Just curious. I am also tempted to buy Michelle’s Affiliate Marketing course, but I have a lot going on right now and don’t know if I’m ready to take that plunge.
Yeah I’d go ahead and get started with affiliate income regardless of traffic just because it takes so much practice to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Her course is great, definitely changed my business.
Liz… If you’re not doing it at all now I’d start out slowly. Be selective in what you choose to promote, start with things you actually use or would use. That way it’s (hopefully) not seen as selling out and it’ll give you some time to gauge your reader’s reactions.
I agree – it’s got to be something you trust and will actually help people. There’s a reason you don’t see personal loans pushed on this site, even though I always get asked to do it (they convert really well for lenders it seems).
I just signed up for your curse. We’re talking about totally different numbers, but if I could increase my monthly page views to around 5k, that would already be awesome for me. Will let you know how it goes ๐ Thanks for making such materials available for everyone!
No problem! 5k is great!
Great choice with the site redesign, M$M. I love all the opt-in incentives too!
I agree; affiliate income isn’t a passive stream of income. You always have to be hustling to bring in the Benjamins. I still prefer it to sitting behind a desk though. ๐
I finally started raking in some decent online income in March. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where I opened a separate checking account just to keep track of it all. My goal is to keep the blog self-funding, and it’s awesome to see it happening. ๐ This is due in part to taking on freelance writing projects online (I use UpWork to find clients). Great find with the staff writing gig! Hopefully I can land a shweet gig as well.
Maybe you can make a blog coaching paid course as an upgrade to your free course? That would be a nice way to make some moolah with blog coaching that doesn’t require phone calls.
Oh that’s a great idea with the upgraded blog coaching course! I’ll definitely keep that one in mind as I create more stuff ๐
I hadn’t heard of Upwork – I’ll have to check that out!
Oh gawwwwwwshhh. I can’t even imagine making that type of income per month. Still in week three of my blog and focusing on gaining readership (I’m so stuck). Anyway, motivating others to become debt free is truly a passion of mine…so if I can make money doing it, that a bonus!
You’ll get there! I looked at these income reports and felt the same way haha. It’s a slow process so just keep going!
Hey man, I love the new design. Been following u for a while. Just got my domain name and and on the path to becoming a blogger. I see you state that you started early on by marketing. And it seems you generate quite a bit of income each month now from marketing clients.
Could you explain what exactly you are doing to make money from the clients. Are you teaching them how to gain views, etc?
Also you make a ton of money staff writing. How on earth does a newbee find staff writing gigs. Is there a site? I’ve heard of upwork, but wasn’t sure of how you found success in that field.
Thanks so much and keep it up!
I manage websites, run Facebook ads, plan out and implement SEO strategy, write content, etc. for my marketing clients.
On the staff writing, when your site gets big enough and you get your name out there, offers tend to come in randomly. I didn’t use upwork to find this particular gig, so I can’t be of too much help there. One thing I would definitely consider is adding a “hire me” or “work with me” tab in your main menu and list out the services that you provide.
That is a goodly chunk of change, nicely done!
I’ve just started with affiliate marketing. And my started I mean I signed up with flexoffers and put one link in one post on my site. I am not, at this rate, destined for financial success : )
It is just so much more fun to focus on the actual writing though. I keep meaning to start on monetizing and just never seem to get around to it.
Haha hey everybody started with one link, right? It’s a little stressful at first, but once you get used to different ways to monetize it gets to be pretty fun! ๐
Congrats on another great month! Do you have any more in-depth material on how you pick up marketing clients/writing gigs? I’m a full time digital marketer for a tech company and I’d like to start doing some freelancing but want some guidance from somebody who has done it.
Summary: make a course and I will buy it.
Haha wow that is so weird – I was just thinking today about what kind of course I could offer. I think that’s a perfect one!
I will start making it ๐
Wow congrats on a great month! Keep it up! I hope to find ways to monetize my blog one day if I continue to get more readers.
-TDM
Thanks! Just gotta keep grinding – we all started with 0 readers ๐
Hey There MMM, Love the new design and I’m glad I found your page. $13k in a single month is nothing to scoff at and I definitely can learn from you.
I’m going to check out LendEDU. Sounds like a great program and is bringing in some good money for you!!
Have a good one.
Thanks! Yeah I enjoy working with them. ๐
I still remember my conversation with you at FinCon. I’m coming up to my decision making point soon and ahhh I’m so tempted to make the plunge! Congrats on an awesome month!
Thanks! I’m so excited for you!!!! You can always email me if you have any questions ๐
Congrats on all the success. Sounds like you are working hard to get it all done.
Always love reading these reports man! You’re killing it!
Thanks!