My First Income Report

Before I get into my first income report I wanted to give you the full story of my blogging adventures.

I never thought of blogging until I had my son. Becoming a mommy I decided I needed to start keeping track of all these silly stories of our life with “Little Guy” so I started “Little Guy’s Journey”.  This first blog made me want to do more blogs. So I started another on the side. Somehow I thought I was super mom and could run two blogs successfully. The “on the side” blog quickly became neglected and was abandoned without me ever sharing a word that I wrote with anyone I knew.

Then we got pregnant with our second baby. So Little Guy’s Journey didn’t seem to fit anymore with a little gal on the way. So instead of transferring over any posts (a smarter blogger would have) I just started over on Updated Mom. The busy life of homeschooling one and having an infant didn’t allow me much time to keep “updated mom” very updated.

So that’s 3 blogs I started and quit.

Then a friend sent me a message asking about my flying with kids blog post. My blog was gone now and while that was always my most popular blog post it was also gone. (Blogs that are self-hosted cost money every year and I am a tight-wad, so I wasn’t going to pay for continued hosting of a blog I didn’t work on anymore.)

So I decided to write an ebook called “Flying with Kids” this way the info would forever be out there for anyone to get.

With the new ebook I thought it would be smart to start a blog. So here you are…. on my 4th blog. I decided this time to stick with my name so that my blog can evolve as my life & interests change… so it’s my name allowing me the freedom to write about whatever I want.

I have been blogging here a year now, but I haven’t been entirely consistent due to LIFE!  I am a mom… when I was potty training my daughter I missed some weeks. I am homeschooling my son… some weeks we get so caught up in telling time and counting by 5s and my blog doesn’t get the attention. We have taken some awesome trips in the last year, I wasn’t too concerned about my blog when I was staring at the Eiffel Tower or while we were building sand castles on the beach. I am currently working hard at making sure I carve out the time to get the posts done. (while I am writing this my kids are playing sweetly with Legos… this was after multiple interruptions to argue over toys… so yes, even though I got this post out to you… it wasn’t written without mom life being right in the middle of it.)

I read a lot of blog posts. If you see me with my phone in my face, you can safely bet I am reading someone’s blog post. And I am just like everyone else. I LOVE to read blog income reports.

I have made some $$ with my ebook, which I now give away for free… so that income source has dried up. I have made a nice payout by tweeting, and some pocket change with affiliate links. (I link to a product, the reader clicks and buys and I get a small payment for driving the business to this company… the product is the same price for the buyer. Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links… any affiliate marketer is REQUIRED by LAW to disclose affiliate links… so if you read my posts you have seen these disclosures and will continue to see them. I will talk about affiliate links a little more in a minute.)

But, the blog has never really even payed for itself. This year I am hoping to change that.

I have some exciting things on the horizon around here, but I think they will be all the more exciting if you are able to watch it happening. So I will share my January income with pride. I am sharing it to show you that while some bloggers make 6 figures in the first 6 weeks of their first blog… we don’t all have that same outcome. (If you don’t believe me, go search “blog” on Pinterest and you will see all the success stories.)

So here I am… one year on this (my 4th) blog.

My income from January 2017:

Izea: 7.00

Flying with Kids book sales: 2.07 (apparently they didn’t know I am giving it away now)

That’s it, 9.00! January was by far one of the worst months I have had in a long time… partly because I am becoming more picky about who I work with. Why do I share this story of my $9? because I want you to know that not every blogger makes 6 figures immediately. Not every blogger has it all together, some weeks I am rushing the night before to try and get my post ready for the next day. Some weeks I have grand plans of taking photos of our awesome homeschool project and blogging about… the reality is I don’t always get to the project, much less get to do it AND blog about it.  So I am just being honest. I am a mom, some days are a struggle. I am a blogger and sometimes it gets neglected. So, my friends… $9 isn’t even enough to buy lunch for my family of 4 but its my story and I want to share it all with you.

Izea (this is an referral link, so if you go on and make tons of money Izea will share a few pennies of their profits with me) has allowed me to work with several brands. I tweet a link to the brand’s content and they pay me. Its a beautiful thing!

Affiliate links are neat. I can write about something and tell you about a product I love or that my kids love you purchase it and pay the same price and Amazon (or other affiliate partner) pays me a percentage. If you do purchase from a affiliate link, take this as a thank you. Amazon doesn’t tell me who made a purchase, so I won’t be able to tell you thank you if you go and purchase a new pool.

So, you bet… $9.  It is not a typical income report, but I am gonna count that $9 as a success.

February saw some great improvement.

Do you have a blog? Find out how to start a blog with iPage. 

Also read my update on income reports.

All the ways I make money on my blog and how you can get started. 

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