I first started blogging as part of a class in college. It was required while we traveled abroad; I assume mostly so none of our parents harassed our teachers about what we were doing or if we were alive. My first experience with weeks of photos (which I was already obsessed with taking) paired with sitting and writing about my travels and I was hooked. I stopped writing as soon as we got back, because naturally college social life took back over, and didn’t start writing again until I graduated college. I was bored, looking for something to occupy my time while job hunting and remembered how much I loved writing. The thought that one day I could make money from it and work from home wasn’t even on my radar until years later.
I thought the only way to make money blogging was being paid by a big company to write a post on a product. I had no idea about side hustles, advertising, or affiliate programs. I thought side hustles were for people really hurting on money or in debt and saw them more as a waste of time. I didn’t even realize I’d been side hustling all through college selling my hand painted wine glasses for extra money to buy clothes. I was always obsessed with having a small business on the side of my classes to keep my hands busy and really that just slowly transitioned into blogging and building my online home goods store Teluna. Now four years later I’m on my way to taking my side hustles, blogging and designing textiles, and making them my full-time job.
I first have to tell you though, quitting your job and working from home sounds great and dandy but unless you can treat your online company like a real business to make an income, it’s just not possible. If you decide to slack off, checks don’t continue to come in like at a regular job. You’re only getting paid for the work you put in and even sometimes those ventures don’t pay out. A lot of planning, time and implementation goes into building a life that you can work from home; especially as a blogger. It’s important to remember how much work and time you’ll need to put into your blog in order to see an income or increase in income. But as a fellow blogger, if there is ever a time I can share business tips with all of you or share what’s worked for me I will. I want to show others the positives of side hustling and that making side money really is possible! That’s why I’m welcoming you to my first reported online income post; what’s been working and the goals I’ve set for the future of One Broads Journey.
I know what you’re thinking, other bloggers are reporting on over $100,000 a month in blog income, why would you record just under $600? Because every little bit counts. And everybody starts somewhere. When I first started thinking of my blog as a business, I spent so much time researching and planning how to do it instead of just doing it. I found the reports on over $100,000 a month in blog income very intimidating and unreachable. I saw my couple dollars here and there as more of a failure than something to be celebrated. BOY WAS I WRONG!
It wasn’t until I stopped focusing on these massive goals, and set and worked on reachable ones, that I started seeing a difference and bringing in money. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is you can read others How To’s and plan until you run out of ink but nothing will start earning you income until you start implementing those plans and find out what specifically works for you. My few dollars in comparison to the highest earning bloggers, of course, seems lame. But instead, I learned what they did, made a plan of my next steps to get to where they were and finally I started making an income! I went from earning .22cents last month to $562.83 just 30 days later. That’s a 99.96% increase in income! If I work hard and continue on this growth, One Broads Journey’s income will be just under $18,000 in 5 months. Think about that. Below is how and where I earned my first $562.83 blogging.
Affiliate and Advertising Income – $17.83 total
- Survey Companies – $8.73
- Media.net – $3.52
- Sovrn – $0.50
- Amazon Associates – $3.04
- Bluehost (check out my tutorial on how to start a blog and make money)- $0
- Miscellaneous Affiliates (MaxBounty, FlexOffers, ShareaSale, Awin) – $2.04
Sponsorships – $545
TOTAL: $562.83
Comparisons of 2017 online income total:
- Total income in December of 2017: $562.83
- Total income in November of 2017: $0.22
- Difference from the previous month: +562.61
- Total in 2017: $563.05
What’s Been Working:
- Joining survey sites
- Applying to Affiliate Programs
- Taking Michelle’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course
- Finding ways to save money
- Connecting with other bloggers and entrepreneurs on Facebook
- Joining group Pinterest boards
2018 Goals:
- $8,000 a month income just from OBJ
- Get Teluna into a minimum of 2 shops
- Take a minimum of 4 business courses
While I’m not sure I’ll make my income reports a regular posting, I will periodically share how everything is going, what worked and what didn’t and how I’m continuing to make money working from home. Always feel free to ask me any questions you may have and check out my resources page for more helpful links on how I make and save my money.
Don’t have a blog yet but looking to get started? Check out How To Build a Money Making Blog in 10 Minutes!
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- How To Build a Money Making Blog in 10 Minutes
- Earn extra money each month with Ebates plus a bonus
- 12 Best Online Survey Sites To Join For Extra Money
- How I Quit My Job and Built Two Businesses
- How to build an online shop in minutes with Shopify
- 14 Ways To Have A Happier Workday When You Work From Home
Thank you for this post! I’ve been procrastinating on Affiliate Marketing for the past year because I was afraid of a potential disappointment since I don’t have a bunch of traffic yet. Also, I’ve been getting confused on the rules around affiliate marketing. This post helped encourage me. I also want to try survey taking, I know it’s not a whole bunch of money in it; but extra cash is always nice lol.
Hi Diana,
Thank you for sharing this advice, I started blogging 3 years ago while I was studying digital marketing, then, I started to be invited in select events and then, be paid for some of my blog post.
I am into the affiliate marketing program too, but I didn’t get paid through this because I don’t have a lot of traffic, so I will continue to keep an eye into your blog post about affiliate marketing program to learn more about it. Feel free to leave a comment on my blog : http://www.katarinasreview.com