March 2021 Blogging Income Report

Welcome to my very first blogging income report. I’ve decided to share these for a few reasons, even though I find the whole thing a bit weird. They were super popular a few years ago and then seemed to die down (or maybe I just stopped reading them). Anyway, here’s mine.

First, I found them inspiring when I decided to start a blog. I read so, so many of them, and most of them weren’t that great. I couldn’t tell exactly how the person writing them was making money, despite the promise of transparency. They seemed to be mostly selling blogging products. It was weird.

So I thought it might be helpful to record my income here, which has no “blogging about blogging” income, so you can see that it is possible to make money with a blog that’s just food and lifestyle.

Also, I have big plans for myself. I want to grow my income a lot this year. I figured it might be fun to be open and hold myself accountable, share what growth strategies worked, and hopefully be able to look back here and see how far I’ve come.

I do not have a team of assistants helping me, I homeschool my three girls, and I go to bed at a decent hour every night. Yes, I feel like I work hard, but not more than 20 hours/ week. Making a nice amount of “side money” blogging is attainable for you!

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.

If this blogging income report sucks, I’m sorry. My first blog post was terrible too. I’ll get better.

My goal here is to be totally open with my ups and downs, my struggles and my successes. Sometimes it’s really hard.

Stats:

• Pageviews: 158,657
• Instagram followers: 1936
• Email Subscribers: 3529
• Youtube Subscribers: 22,890

income

(This is income that I have earned for the month of March. In some cases, I will receive it later. But it is clearer to show it here and how it corresponds with pageviews, even if I haven’t been paid it yet.)

• Adthrive: $3,132
• Youtube Ads: $508.92
• Amazon affiliates: $293.34
• Printable and e-book sales: $221
• Soap Affiliates (supplies + courses): $148
• Reward Style: $8
• Total: $4310

Expenses

• Adobe Illustrator: $21
• Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom: $10
• Monthly Tech Support: $29
• Shopify Fees: $59
• Social Sharing Plugin (Social Warfare, annual renewal): $35
• Surfer SEO: $49
• Slickstream: $23
• Amy’s Circle Membership Group: $39
• Instagram Scheduler (Tailwind): $15
• Grammar Checking Software: $15
• Content Writing: $200

What Worked

I’ve gotten into an okay routine that allows me to publish 3/ week (this is a lot for me), manage my own social media, and keep up with the house and homeschooling.

Overall, my traffic is down from January and February. However, my income stayed largely the same.

I felt great about how much content I published this month: 15 posts in total, a blend of recipes, printables, and homemaking tips. As always, the benefit from new content comes months down the road as posts pick up traction from social media shares and Google search results.

Every now and then a brand new post will get picked up fast, either by going viral on social media (this has literally never happened to me), or getting featured in Google Discover. But typically, traffic comes later and that’s okay.

My most Popular Posts This Month

• Easy French Bread
• Bread Machine Sourdough
• Sourdough Lemon Cake
• Crusty Sourdough Rolls
• Cold Process Baby Soap

These are all over a year old. The lemon cake pictures are terrible. Easy French Bread doesn’t even rank in Google for anything! A successful post is a mystery sometimes.

What Didn’t

Honestly, this whole month I felt a bit down. My traffic was down despite a lot of hard work. I had to keep telling myself that my work was setting me up for future success.

I intended to focus on my email list and marketing paid printables. I didn’t do any of this! I was so busy on content and social media that all else got pushed to the side.

I am the type of person who likes to procrastinate and I need hard rules to follow. So if there are things that I didn’t get done (making products, emailing my list), I need to set reminders for myself and set a time to do it.

Also, my Instagram and Facebook account are growing sooooo slowly. I promised myself I would learn how to do Reels and I haven’t done that either.

Looking forward + Goals

My goal is to start making $10,000/ month. Soon.

My plan for this is:

• 6000/ month in ads (I’ll need to double my traffic)
• 1000/ month in Youtube ads (I’ll need to double my Youtube views)
• 1000/ month in product sales (I’ll need to quadruple my product sales)
• 1000/ month in affiliate sales (You get the idea. I have a lot of work to do.)

To get traffic up, it’s basically content + Pinterest for me. Some people get great traffic from Facebook. (I don’t!). But I’m working on growing my page, creating content, and pinning more.

Youtube, I think, is the future. So even though I find the comments pretty mean I’ll keep on going with it. I’m going to try to do more lifestyle/ chatty/ day-in-the-life videos. They are easy to make and watchable. Just SUPER embarrassing. (You’ll love this Youtube course if you need help getting started with this + video ideas.)

Product sales, even though I have to quadruple them, is what I feel most confident about. I’m planning to make more products and sell them regularly to my email list. $33 dollars a day feels realistic for me.

Affiliate sales will naturally increase as traffic increases. I’ve also started a Facebook group for homesteading deals. I have sold precisely ZERO items in it. But hey, it’s easy!

And that’s it

I hope you found this report somewhat helpful. You can see that behind the super small social media accounts, I am actually making a good income for the amount of hours I work. If you have any questions, leave me a comment!

Good luck.