Income Report April 2021
Welcome to my second blogging income report. I was thinking of an exclamation point there, but it’s just not exciting enough.

Lesson of the Month…Boundaries
Chatting with some blogging friends I’ve realized that I, like many bloggers, am a complete workaholic.
Once my family went camping without me and I spend the whole time on this here laptop, doing who knows what.
I post at least 3 times a week, and the reason i do this is because I KNOW i will spend all my free time doing something blogging related, so it might as well be productive instead of endlessly checking my analytics.
This month i’ve realized I need boundaries. I should have known this long ago, as a person who constantly overspends, overeats, and generally lacks self control.
I’ve set a rule of no blog work after 8 pm. We’ll see.
But another boundary i need is with my… I don’t know how to explain it… emotions? I am sooo wrapped up in this blog. My traffic stats for the day have a shocking effect on my mood. And since blog traffic is, in the shot term, totally out of my control, this is not exactly healthy. I’ve also maintained this level of obsession for 2 years and it’s making me a little bit nuts.
I feel like I am wasting so much of my children’s youngest years clacking away on my computer trying to get more people to my blog all for the privilege of 2 cents per pageview.
It’s time to chill out. Just a little.
My stats this month
- Pageviews: 131,947
- Instagram followers: 1994
- Email Subscribers: 3705
- Youtube Subscribers: 22,820 (This actually went down. I had a new video do well, so it gets shown to more people who think WHO IS THIS PERSON and unsubscribe. This actually doesn’t bother me because I, too, think my videos are dumb.)
My most popular posts
- The Best Cold Process Soap Recipe
- Bread Machine Sourdough
- Sourdough Lemon Cake
- Easy French Bread
- How to Make Your Home Cozy on a Budget
Interestingly, posts 4 and 5 get no Google traffic but do well on Pinterest. I thought Pinterest traffic was tanking for me, but old pins are still driving traffic to them which I appreciate.
The soap recipe does very well on Google which I’m not sure I understand but I will take.
On to the income report
Part of my obsession and frustration comes from the fact that I just can’t get my income much above this level, no matter what I do. It’s like I’m programmed to receive the same number every month.
But also saying that seems quite destructive, so let’s just say I continue to choose to believe I am on a cusp of a breakthrough. Next month.
Expenses, and what changed
- Tech Support: $27
- Domain email/ Gsuite: $72 (annual renewal of the most boring expense ever.)
- Lightroom & Photoshop: $10
- Adobe Illustrator: $21
- Shopify Fees: $29
- Sendowl: $15
- Grammar Checking Software: $15
- Slickstream: $21
- Amy’s Circle Membership Group: $39
- Content Writing: $200
- Total: About $470 (math is hard)
Changes to expenses
I cancelled my Tailwind subscription for Instagram scheduling. Instagram isn’t something I am particularly great at. (To put it mildly) So I am taking the pressure off myself to grow and just posting like a normal person. I changed my bio to reflect my weird humor. If I have something to post, great. If not, fine. It has never made me one cent so I’m not going to worry about a scheduler.
I also reduced my Shopify plan to the basic plan. I was paying extra for a plan that allowed me to bundle digital products to sell as tripwires. Turns out it’s cheaper to do through SendOwl and it converts better because customers don’t have to enter a shipping address.
I will keep my “shop” open through Shopify as another way to purchase items as long as it continues to pay for itself, which it barely manages to every month. (By this I mean: people go straight to the shop, add things to a cart, and check out, rather than being directed to a specific product via Leadpages.). Last month it cost me $29 and made me $36. WOOHOO.
If you want to sell digital products and need an affordable option, check out Send Owl here.
Income
- Adthrive: $3135
- Youtube Ads: $452
- Amazon: $255
- RewardStyle: $23
- Other affiliates (Nurture Soap): $70
- Printable Sales: $335
Total: $4200
Changes in income
Amazon a bit down and printables a bit up. But the total almost exactly the same. I would probably make the same amount if I took a month off.
Moving on to next month
YOU GUYS. I just don’t know what to do here. In the month of April I published FIFTEEN posts. I made a bunch of pins, took a million photos, and posted to my Facebook page… are you ready… TWELVE TIMES A DAY.
I want to be grateful for where I am, but I am so anxious to get to the next level and I…just.. can’t.
My Facebook page is growing, and I am getting a little trickle of traffic to my own content (I mostly share other’s popular food content, with one or two of my own photos per day). It’s enough to show me that it’s worth the effort, so I will keep it up.
I think for now on, I just keep on keeping on. A lot of people are saying their traffic from Pinterest is going way down as stories and videos are favored more. I make both of those, but they don’t lead to traffic for me.
I still believe I can get my printable sales up to $1000 in the near future, so my focus for May will be to create a SUPER enticing pop-up specific to each category that leads to a tripwire.
I need to focus back on YouTube and get at least 2 videos out in May, at the BARE minimum (I found a great affordable video editor so there’s really NO excuse.)
I have a few summer posts that do well (refrigerator pickles and dill relish), so I’ll do some more canning content this month and hope for the best.
And really, what is there to do other than create content, promote it, and tweak sales pages? In blogging, that is. Obviously there are other things to do in life. I think.
Curious About Blogging?
(Probably not, after this rant! But anyway.)
If you’re new to the idea of blogging, I highly, highly recommend this course for absolute beginners that walks you through starting your blog from scratch + building traffic + making video + growing social media.
I love blogging talk and am happy to chat with you in the comments or via email. Wishing you the best.

By Katie Shaw
Katie lives in Virginia with her husband, three daughters, a chocolate lab, and over thirty chickens. She loves creating simple tutorials for sourdough, bread, and soap. Her recipes, articles, and YouTube videos reach millions of people per year.