Do you ever find it crazy to look back on the dreams you had for you life, and realize that you’re living them? I made $5,121 from my online business over the last 3 months. And it honestly feels like a dream come true.
I’ve been doing this blogging thing for a couple years now. Sharing my passion for personal finance with the world. But I’ve been taking it seriously for about 9 months. I remembered thinking last year how amazing it would be if I could make $500 or even $1,000 a month from my business. And now about 6 months later, I’m averaging over $1,500 a month.
It’s taken time, and work, but honestly it’s been a whole lot of fun. I’ve loved getting to grow my business by sharing content I care about. Getting to interact with others in this community and encourage others on their financial journey. And having this side-hustle-turned-business grow is part of my financial journey as well.
If you’re new to blogging, you may not even know the ways you can make money blogging. I remember reading Millennial Money Man’s blog when I was just starting out. And he shared that he had made $3 from his blog before he quit his job to pursue it full time. I know that’s a crazy move! But my biggest question then was “but how do you even make $3…?”
Since then, I’ve learned a lot, and have done a lot of research to learn the ways to make money from my blog. And I’m now seeing the dream become a reality.
My Money-Making Platforms
Besides my blog here, I am also on YouTube and have an Instagram account. Both have grown a lot in recent months and have taken more of my time. I love doing YouTube and Instagram with the more personal interactions part. But my blog has been my first love. And even though having a YouTube channel and Instagram account are great, having a blog is soooo important.
I do not own my platform on YouTube or Instagram. If they went away tomorrow and I didn’t have a blog, you’d never find me… My brand would be gone. Thankfully, I do have a blog and own my platform here. And that is so important for any YouTuber or Instagrammer.
If you’re interested in starting a blog of your own, you can read more here. I host with bluehost and would highly recommend starting a blog with them. It’s only a few dollars a month and you can have your own domain, hosting and professional website. This is a must for starting a blog.
Before you see the breakdown of my online income this quarter, I do want to let you know that I do this on the side. I work a full time 40 hour week as an accounting manager and The Budgeting Wife is my side business. I spend about 20 hours a week in total on everything for my business between nights and weekends. It’s a hustle but I also love it. 🙂
I make money online from my all my platforms including my blog, YouTube and Instagram. They all work together to create my brand and business! So now what you’ve been waiting for this whole time: here’s how I made $5,121 in 3 months with my online business.
Ad Revenue – $968
Ad revenue is an easy way to make money on your blog and YouTube channel. You get paid when people engage with a placed ad on your platform. Usually, the more views you have, the more you make with this revenue stream.
For the last 3 months, I have made $968 from ads on my YouTube channel (these are earnings from December-February). I haven’t had ads on my blog, but I just started placing them on my site this week. I’ll be interested to see how much I receive from ads on my blog. I get paid through Google AdSense for my YouTube ads and I also have AdSense set up for my website.
Thanks to everyone who watches the ads on my videos. haha
Affiliate Revenue – $918
Affiliate income is an easier way to make money from a blog. The way it works is that I have a special link to a product or service and if someone uses my link, then I get a commission back! People find these links on my website or YouTube description box.
I learned about how to do affiliate marketing from the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course. I took this course when I was just starting out with blogging and I’m so thankful I did. It taught me how to do affiliate marketing correctly and how I could best benefit from affiliate marketing as an income stream. Obviously, this course has more than paid for itself. I would highly recommend taking the course to learn more about how to make money blogging! It’s pretty passive and while you can make more money if you have more views, you don’t need a huge audience to make money from affiliate marketing.
The affiliates that I work with, and make up this total income, are Amazon, Bluehost, Ebates and the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course. All are awesome and what I believe offer valuable products and services to my audience.
Product Sales – $1,896
Creating your own products is an amazing income stream for blogging or YouTube. I never thought I could even come up with a product to sell and here I am with my highest revenue stream.
I sell budget templates on my Etsy shop for $5 a piece. I do “budget with me” videos on YouTube and people began reaching out to me asking if they could pay to use my template. So I decided to add it to an Etsy shop and sell them! It is a product that I created once and benefit off of time and time again. It’s a pretty passive income stream for me, and I’ve received amazing feedback from my Etsy store. With my Etsy shop alone, I’ve made $1,344 between January-March 2019.
In January I also launched a full course! It’s called Freedom From Student Loans and it’s an online course to help student loan borrowers with learning how to pay off student loan debt. I created this course because my husband and I paid off $87,000 of student loan debt in 2.5 years. This was something that I felt knowledgable in so I decided to share more in an online self-paced course! Within the first 2 months of the launch, I made $552 from course sales.
Freelance – $1,340
Freelance is something new for me and has honestly fallen into my lap. I’m so thankful for the opportunity that I have to do some freelance work. I currently film and edit some videos for clients and really enjoy the job!
Sponsorships – $0
This is definitely something new that I’m working on with my brand. I haven’t gotten too much into sponsorships yet, but have a few things in the works and it’s definitely an income stream that I want to explore some more.
Quarter Recap
All in all, it’s been an amazing quarter for my business. I still feel like I’m living the dream when I see that I’ve made over $5,000 in the last quarter, and my goal is for continued growth. I’m on track to do $25,000 from my business this year, working at home on my own time and I couldn’t be more grateful.
I’ve always quietly had the lofty goal to be able to do this full time, and it’s crazy to see that it actually could work out that way some day. I’ve caught myself saying “I can actually make this happen” more recently and it honestly blows my mind and gives me chills.
For anyone reading this thinking that you can’t make money online or with blogging, I am here to tell you that it is possible. With some hustle, you really can live out this dream. I’m nothing special. I didn’t go viral. I just put in a little bit of time on the side, and I’m now making a part-time income from my business.
And as always, thanks so much for all your support to me and my business over the last year. I’m thankful for the opportunity that I have to continue to share all things money with you.