October 2016 Online Income Report: $11,343.32

Full disclosure – I totally thought that October was going to be a down month for the site and my income in general. Going over $10,000 for the first time in September felt really surreal, and I still can’t believe I’m making this kind of income less than two years into blogging!

With that said, October turned out to be great and I was able to bring in more revenue than last month. As the site gets more consistent I’m sure I’ll start to trust the income side of things a little more than I do right now.

Now if you are wondering…no. We aren’t going crazy with our spending just because I make more money now! Coral and I are actually living on less than her school district salary and putting as much money away as possible.

Before I go on to the report, I have to say this:

If you have thought about starting a blog or making money online…you need to freaking try it! I would have never imagined that M$M would turn into a full-time gig when I started it. Never. If you feel like you have something to say through a blog, you should give it a shot.

The start-up costs on a blog are laughably low compared to the majority of business models. If it fails…so what? All you lost was $50-70 and some spare time. However, it’s not ALL about the money. Blogging is legitimately fun and there is so much room for new bloggers and ideas!

If you want to learn how to make your own blog in 15 minutes or less, check out my blog setup guide here! I also suggest signing up for my free blogging course below.

Let’s look at October’s online income!

This past month was awesome. Like I mentioned above, I was a little concerned about 2 weeks into October, but things really came together near the end of the month (obviously).

Remember – I’m self employed. That means I have to cover taxes (boooooo), health insurance, and expenses. Also, I won’t see some of this affiliate income pay out until 30-90 days from now.

Digital Marketing Income: $5,129.80

When I first left my job to run M$M (which was crazy BTW – don’t bail from your gig to run a website until you talk to me first), I wasn’t really making much money so I started providing digital marketing services for small businesses.

The skill set you need is unbelievably similar to running a blog, so it was a fairly easy transition for me. All of the services I provide were learned by running M$M.

I actually took on another client this month! I really enjoy doing this kind of work. Blogging is a super isolated business model, so it’s cool to strategize with clients and help their business in an area like content marketing that’s really important right now.

Out of respect for clients’ privacy, I can’t name them on the site or list my specific rates, but you’re always welcome to email me if you are an aspiring digital marketer and want tips or guidance!

MillennialMoneyMan.com Income: $6,213.52

Here is a breakdown of what M$M made in October:

Affiliate income: $4,052.06

LendEDU: $1,725.75 <- LendEDU is my favorite affiliate! Almost 150 readers used this tool last month to find better student loan interest rates for FREE. (Bloggers, I highly recommend that you apply to become a LendEDU affiliate here).Bluehost Blog Hosting: $1,350 (Take a look at my free blog creation guide)Personal Capital: $600 (The free tool Coral and I use to track our net worth…love it!)Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course: $78.80Uber: $80Credit Sesame: $90Thesis (the theme M$M runs on): $65.01Online Surveys: $62.50

If you are a blogger looking to make more online income and haven’t taken the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course, I swear you are leaving money on the table. I took this course back in August, and saw my affiliate income jump from a few hundred dollars to over $4,000 again this month! 

Blog Coaching – $550

This was probably my favorite month of blog coaching!!!! I met so many cool bloggers that have awesome stories. I had coaching calls with bloggers in New Zealand, the UK, and even Nigeria! They all said that they got about 5 pages of notes from me, so I’m either talking way too much or getting pretty good at this haha.

If you want to set up a coaching session, you can shoot me an email through this link.

It’s an hour long phone call, and I basically spill out all the stuff I’ve learned about making money blogging and growing sites quickly.

Sponsorships/Advertising: $1,611.46

This income includes all sponsorships and sidebar advertising revenue from the site. I signed on with a company called AdThrive in October (which is killer BTW). It’s an advertising solution for blogs that bring in over 100,000 views/month.

That’s why you’re seeing some different ads on the site now that I haven’t had before. I’m still dialing everything in with AdThrive, but I’m happy with everything so far!

I. Love. My. Business.

I mean seriously…this is cool. I still can’t quite believe that I’m able to make the kind of income from my computer when I would have been on a band podium a little over a year ago. Now I can work from my home, office, coffee shop, whatever.

The best thing is that this is just the beginning for M$M. I truly believe that I can make $1,000,000+ per year with this site and brand in the coming years. If you’re skeptical of that – just keep watching.

Cool things that happened last month

The real reason that I was a little paranoid about October not going too well was that I didn’t get many features. Coral (my wife) and I were featured three times on CNBC and several other sites in September. It was cool as hell, but obviously that was a flash in the pan kind of thing.

Even though I didn’t get a ton of features, this stuff happened:

I’m a Business Insider contributor now

Out of all the sites M$M has been on – this was by far the one I wanted the most! I wrote an article about strategies for paying off student loans on Business Insider. So so cool.

Coral is KILLING IT on our Pinterest account

My wife is 100% my ride or die – and she is really helping me out with Pinterest. I feel like I’ve done really well on Twitter and Facebook lately, but Pinterest is a pretty intimidating animal since I’ve never really used it before now.

Follow the M$M Pinterest account here!

She has single-handedly taken over the Pinterest account, and it’s turning out great! I can’t wait to see what type of traffic and affiliate sales it generates for the site in the coming year. I keep telling her to be patient – everything in blogging (or business in general) is about the long term results. Same for personal finance 🙂

I got tons of emails and messages

I’m really just using this space to let you know that if you have emailed me – I promise I will get to you if I haven’t already. Responding to every comment, message, and email is a goal of mine…but it is seriously hard AF.

M$M has helped people this month (which is all that matters)

That’s the goal, right? I can honestly say that I’ve been able to help a lot of people get motivated about paying off debt (and avoid buying new cars!), which has always been my mission. I’ll continue to keep all of my readers at the forefront of every decision I make for the site, and the rest will take care of itself hopefully.

As always – thank you so much for following this site, listening to my personal finance messages, and just being awesome. I can’t wait to see how far we take this thing.

You can take a look at my past income reports below:

September 2016 Online Income Report: $10,127.27

August 2016 Online Income Report: $6,196.71

Live differently. Your bank accounts will thank me later. ~M$M