I’m so blogging the easy way? Yes. I’ve only been blogging for little over a year now and it looks as though I’m working full time. In reality, I’ve only been blogging for 10-15 hours a month these past couple of months. This post contains affiliate links/ads. See disclosure policy.

Something is different in this edition of The Practical Saver’s Blog Income Report. This report includes May and June income reports combined into one.

I’ve been busy with family stuff these past couple of weeks or months that I was not able to create my income report when it’s actually due. I know you will ask what I have been doing these past few months that I (unfortunately) forgot to create my income report.

My wife and I just bought a house. Yes, we bought a house. What’s more interesting and fascinating is that we paid the down payment and other fees using my blog money. Yes, my blog paid for the down payment, taxes, PMI, etc.

That’s not all.

My blog pays for all our expenses and even our retirement funds now. In short, we solely rely on my blog income to pay for everything while my wife and I keep all our net salaries from work.

Since we bought our house, I’ve been doing some DIY stuff that my wife wanted me to do. Good thing I’ve made so many posts and scheduled them way ahead of time. That’s why I was able to publish posts even when I was too busy.

That’s the reason I wasn’t able to create my income report for May.

Here are my income reports since I started making money through blogging. I started making money on my 3rd month of blogging, which was around $600. Now, I am making around $8,000/mo. The main difference now and then was the number of hours I put into blogging.

Before, I would spend 40-50 hours a week because I wanted to get everything up and running right. Now, it’s more on maintenance, and it only takes me 10-15 hours a month to get my blog up and updated.

Blogging The Easy Way: What’s New?

While my income report was on a hiatus for a month, I decided to mix up my blog income report format this time and for the next coming blog income reports.

In this income report, I will answer the following questions:

• How much I made?
• Where my blog money went?
• What’s new with my blog?
• What’s in it for you with blogging?
• Are you afraid of blogging?

How much I made?

These past two months (i.e. May and June) I made a total of $16,544.21. I made $8,010.67 in May and $8,533.54. I am so proud of this accomplishment because I didn’t put a lot of time into blogging but was fortunate to have earned such a big amount.

In total, I only spent 30-40 hours (i.e. 15-20 hours per month) blogging these past two months, which were in line with what I have allotted per month for blogging.

Here are the products that helped me improve my revenue numbers these past two months.

Note: There were a lot of products and services that came to my blog for sponsorship, advertisements, etc. but I declined them. I didn’t want to promote something that my wife and I have not personally used before. 

INCOME

AdThrive: $5,289.66

• AdThrive is open to bloggers whose blogs have more than 100,000 page views each month. I am fortunate to get at least 160,000 page views each month. Last May, I had around 187,000 page views. Last June, I had 179,000 page views. If your blog has page views above the minimum requirement, I recommend you contact AdThrive.

Bluehost: $3,825.00

• I have been with Bluehost since day one and haven’t left since then. Thanks to Bluehost I was able to create my blog and start monetizing it. It’s definitely one of the best investments I’ve ever made. If you are looking for a money-making side hustle, blogging is one of the best ways to make money. For a special price of $2.95/mo instead of the regular price of $7.99, you can create and start monetizing your blog. That’s 50% off of the regular price. That’s just a coffee fix.

Budget Printables: $524.65

• My Budget Printable Binder Kit is slowly gaining momentum. I made over $500 in two months. For those who may not know, this was the exact budget printables we used to get out of our $40K debt and save more than $70K in 2.5 years. We still use these printables even up to this day. If you are looking for budgeting worksheets, I highly recommend you grab this binder kit. It’s on sale for only $7.99, which is 65% off of its original price of $19.99

Networks: $3,674.77

• I’m currently an affiliate with IGain ($1,550.25), Share-A-Sale ($210.37), FlexOffers ($708.90) and Panthera Network ($1,205.25). A good portion of my income came from these networks. If you are looking for new affiliate networks, I highly recommend you check out the ones above. IGain is mostly finance-related products while Share-A-Sale and FlexOffers have any products/services you can think of under the sun. As with Panthera Network, it has fewer offers than what Share-A-Sale and FlexOffers but is definitely a great network to be with as it has the highest payout per product (at times, it will match the other competitors’ payout for the same products).

Smart Asset: $2,040.13

• I made some changes on how I presented Smart Asset. Smart Asset is the ad that’s located in the middle of each of my post and at the end of each of my post. I did some A/B testing to find out the best positions of the ads, what targeted-ads go with specific posts, etc. Since I started using Smart Asset and before I made changes to it, I had only been making $70/mo. This May, I made $965.01. This June, I made $1,084.12.

Sponsored Posts: $600.00

• My blog sponsorship took a hit these past two months. I was more focused on buying a house, getting things done in the house, etc. that I didn’t entertain many sponsors during those months. I’m very happy though to make this much.

Tailwind: $600.00

• Tailwind is the main reason for my massive blog traffic. I have only been blogging for a little over a year but my traffic hovers around 180K/month now. If you sign up using my link, you will get $15. There’s a Tailwind FREE Trial, and you can also subscribe for $9.99/month when you sign up for a year. You can always contact me for FREE if you have any Tailwind questions. I don’t charge for helping bloggers, but if you want to donate, you can do that as well. 🙂

Total Income: $16,544.21

EXPENSES

Mangools: $149.00

• Mangools is a miracle SEO worker, and the cost is cheap (i.e. $149/year). With Mangools, I’m able to find the “low competition, high volume, easy search” keywords that I need to get into the first page of Google search. I started using this two months ago and have seen quite an improvement in my traffic from Google. For example, if you type the keyword “Survey Apps“, my blog is top 1 or top 2 in the search. Start for FREE and get 3 FREE searches daily. I highly recommend you get the paid version as Mangools provides you more benefits. Coming from a frugal person like me, this $149/year is absolutely worth it.

Total Expenses: $149.00

Net Income: $16,395.21

Where did my blog money go?

I have decided to include this to detail how I spend my blog money. I like the idea of including this section because it allows me to provide a snapshot to my readers on how blogging really helps improve my family’s financial well-being and other aspects of my family’s life. I honestly didn’t think I would make money from blogging.

I was happy when I saw $0.05 from Google Adsense on my 2nd-month blogging. Little did I know that I would earn as much as I did these past couple of months. You really never know how a side hustle will work out for you until you try it.

If you consider blogging as a way to make additional money on the side or to even replace your day job income, you can start your blog with my special, negotiated price of $2.95/mo versus the regular price of $7.99/mo. This price is 50% off of the regular price. That price can’t be beaten.

Anyhow, here’s where my blog money went these past couple of months:

House: $1,600.00

• My wife and I bought a house back last Mayish to June timeframe. We paid the down payment, taxes, etc. using my blog money. I made a mortgage payment last June (I wanted to pay ahead of time even though the bill was due in July). I paid $1,600, which covered principal, interest, PMI, taxes, home mortgage, and HOA. Click here to find how blogging pays our mortgage and some more.

College education: $600.00

• We put money into our daughter’s 529 plan. We put $300.00/mo using my blog money and an additional $200/mo using our day job money. For the months of May and June, we put a total of $600.00 from my blog money towards our daughter’s college education plan.

Grocery: $600.00

• Our monthly food budget for a family of 5 is $300.00. The members of this family include my wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, our daughter, and me. We spent around $600.00 for the past two months. We eat good food and don’t buy pre-processed, prepacked foods. Every single meal is made from scratch even the pasta noodles. Click here to find out how we are able to eat great on a budget.

Repair and Maintenance: $1,000.00

• We save $500.00/mo for house repair and maintenance. We haven’t really used it but we want to continue saving just in case something needs to be repaired or maintained. We don’t want to fork out money from our checking or savings in case we need something done in our house.

Other monthly expenses: $2,200.00

• Our total monthly expenses are around $3,800.00. The ones noted above are the major ones and are included in our monthly targeted budget. Things that are not noted above are internet, water and sewer, trash, and some other things. These expenses total to $1,100.00/mo.

Retirement: $4,000.00

• We put in a ton of money towards our retirement accounts. We don’t usually include funds allotted towards retirement as expenses. That’s why I didn’t include retirement under “Other Monthly Expenses.” Our budget for retirement funds is $2,000.00/mo. So for two months, we invested $4,000.00.

Rest of the income: The rest of the money

• The rest of my blog money, which is around $6K or $7K, goes to savings and checking accounts. The money goes into those accounts for now until I figure out where I need to put my blog money. I didn’t want to put a ton of money in the stock market because aside from the $2,000 we invest each month, we maximize our 401(k)s, which is around $6,000/mo between my wife and me.

What’s new with my blog?

So, what’s new with my blog? The answer is… there are so many things that happened these past couple of months. Some contributed to the increase in my blog’s income and some didn’t.

Coupon database

• This database has been in the works for a long long time. When I say for a long long time, what I mean by that is that I have always wanted to get a coupon database on my blog. I am an extreme couponer (totally guilty of being one) and there have been a lot of people who asked me when I would have a coupon database. Well, it is now here. Thanks to Savings.com. I’m happy because I see a lot of coupons for products that my readers wanted to get, which they sometimes couldn’t find in other coupon sites. You can find the coupon database here.

Smart Asset ad placement

• I made some tweaks on how I promote Smart Asset and place its ads. From getting $70/mo to $800+/mo, I can say that my efforts are finally working better than I expected.

Blog traffic growth e-book

• I’m in the process of creating an e-book on “15+ Simple and Actionable Strategies I Took to Get from 0 to 170K Page Views in 9 Months”. It will be on introductory sale for just $17.99. If you-preregistered, you will be able to buy the e-book for $15.99 when it’s out. Please sign up here to be informed when the e-book will be out and have the opportunity to buy it before the price goes up by winter time.

Content write-up

• I’m scaling back on writing. I am going to be focusing these next few months on my wife giving birth. I hate to say but I will scale back on publishing posts. Family always comes first on my list. Instead of publishing 3 posts a week, I will do 1 or 2 blog posts per week. It’s only temporary, and I will be back in my groove once everything has settled down. Having said that, most of these blog posts will be epic. When I say epic, I mean that it will contain more information that I typically publish.

What’s in it for you with blogging?

I realized that a lot of the readers of my income reports are those who consider blogging and making money from it. I’ve been asked by a lot of people why I blog. Now, I am returning the question to you. What would blogging do for you?

Blogging is more than just a hobby. You could benefit well from it, seriously.

If you consider creating your own blog and monetizing it, here are some of the benefits:

• Help. As  a blogger, you have the opportunity to help other people with your knowledge and expertise. For example, I was in deep debt before but was able to get out of it quickly. Because I’ve experienced that and some other finance-related experiences, I have been able to share my thoughts and experiences and help others even in the smallest possible ways.
• Authority. When you become a well-known blogger and your blog is the go-to site for a lot of people, you are becoming or become the authority in whatever niche your blog is in.
• Money. You can make full-time money by working part time. I do this now. I only put in roughly 15 hours a month on my blog and still make full-time money. You can even retire, travel the world, and not worry about money because blogging makes money for you. Our blogging pays for everything and we get to keep our day job income. Click here to read the post.
• Network. I can’t tell you enough how blogging is a great way to expand your network. This network will be there for you from personal and professional stand points. I don’t think I’d survive my first year without my fellow bloggers.
• Personal relationship. My relationship with my wife has gone to another level because of blogging. My wife and I work closely with my blog. She’s the brain and I am the writer. We communicate and exchange ideas; we help out each other to make sure I write the best post I could possibly write, and others. Blogging helps us become closer and have better marriage than ever before.
• So many more. There are a ton of other benefits you can gain from blogging.

Are you thinking of starting your own blog but afraid to do it?

I was a new blogger and I felt the same exact feeling that you might be feeling right now. You are not alone in the boat. There are a lot of new bloggers who feel they don’t know where to start, how to start, how to build audience, etc.

I recently created an e-book entitled “15+ Strategies I Applied To Skyrocket My Blog’s Page Views from 0 to 170K in 9 Months“. In this e-book, I detailed the exact strategies I adopted to drastically improve my blog’s page views from 0 to 170K in just 9 months.

If you ask new bloggers, getting 30K page views is hard while getting 170K in such a short time is close to impossible but doable. I discuss the strategies that you can apply right now. Yes, you can apply these strategies without any blogging experience.

Is it only designed for new bloggers? Absolutely not. If you want to increase your blog page views, this is also for you.

You can avail this product for the price of $24.99. The regular price is $39.99. This e-book is your guide to getting the page view your blog deserves.

Final thoughts:

This format will be my format for months to come. My readers would like for me to be more different in how I present my blog income reports. This is how I think it can be different without having to stray away from providing what my readers want, that is, a detailed blog income information.