Well, if you read the title of this article you can probably guess we had a pretty BIG month for our blog.
To say we are over-the-moon excited, thrilled, and grateful would be a complete understatement.
It’s really hard to put into words what it is like to have a huge month like this.
In this blogging income report, I am going to break down absolutely everything from income, expenses, taxes, what we focused on, our highest ROI tasks, how many hours we worked, and more!
Quick Thoughts on Making Over $25,000 in a Single Month
This might sound strange, but Brittany and I both feel “numb” about it. In a good way.
Blogging is one hell of a journey and sometimes it is hard to even put the feelings into words. I’m going to be completely honest with you for a second. And it might sound a little weird.
I envisioned this coming; I knew this would happen. I knew this was God’s plan when I quit my job to become a full-time blogger.
I knew that if I put my faith in the Lord, He would continue to bless us in ways unimaginable.
And here we are making over $27,000 in a single month from our blog. One that we started just two and a half years ago!
I have never in my life felt so blessed, grateful, confident, humble, excited, hungry, and motivated.
It’s crazy to think just two months ago I was super down on myself for us having a “slow” month, making $8,900 from our blog. Looking back that was so dumb. I learned a lot from going through that and having those doubts creep up again.
The ONE thing I want everyone that reads this to do (if you have started a blog) is: TRUST THE PROCESS!
You are not going to be an overnight success. It takes time and a lot of hard work…a lot of hard work.
But if you truly BELIEVE it, you will ACHIEVE it.
It’s not even about the money anymore.
Yes, of course, it’s nice and it is going to provide us a ton of freedom in life. However, I am more excited about the IMPACT we can have on others through our blog.
I said we feel “numb” about this because we know it’s not going to change us.
We are always going to be The Savvy Couple. Very frugal and smart with our money.
My Epiphany This Month
If you have been following us for a while you know our backstory.
You know I was a Jail Deputy for almost three years and fell into a very dark depression.
When I realized the dream I had my entire life of being in law enforcement was nothing like I envisioned I felt broken.
The hours, stress, work environment wore on me quickly and I lost complete control of who I was and why I was even on this earth. It was the scariest time of my life. I was completely lost – feeling worthless – and I did not even want to be alive anymore.
I had to wait patiently for Brittany to land a teaching job so I could quit and find myself again.
Even though I completely turned my back to God and blamed him for everything, He stuck by my side and showed me the only way to true happiness is through Him.
This month I had a huge realization.
I knew God put me through this experience for a reason, but I never understood exactly why.
God’s plan for me all along was to give me the ability to help others find their happiness in life.
Our blog is just the tool or platform for us to use to help do this.
My entire life all I have ever wanted to do is IMPACT people.
Now that I know my calling and purpose once again….watch out!
Our Blogging Journey So Far
It’s always fun looking back on our journey and see just how far we have come.
Our first year when we started our blog as a part-time side hustle we made ZERO money until our ninth month in.
After we earned our first $50, I went to Brittany and told her that I wanted to quit my job and become a full-time blogger.
Looking at the growth we have had and the freedom we have created starting our blog has been one of the most incredible and impactful decisions in our life.
Here are a few of our previous blog income reports if you want to follow our journey a little closer.
- How We Made $11,358 In One Month From Our Blog
- How We Made $8,900 Last Month From Our Blog
- How We Made $4,089 in November Blogging
- How We Made $2,412 in January 2018 Blogging
Reason for Sharing Our Blog Income
We absolutely LOVE our savvy readers! Since you all support us so much it only feels right to be transparent and share our blogging journey with you.
If we did not find others blogging income reports at the beginning of our own journey, chances are that we would have never started our blog.
They opened our eyes to the dream of “making money online” and motivated us to create the life we wanted to live.
If you are interested in starting your own blog, we put together a new and improved in-depth step-by-step tutorial that will teach you absolutely everything you need to know.
Main reasons we share our blogging income:
- To motivate others to go after their dreams. We are firm believers that life is very precious and wasting time is not an option. God put each and every one of us on this earth for a reason. Find your calling and just GO FOR IT!
- Keeping track of our monthly blog traffic and income is a great way for us to see the progression of our business. It really helps us figure out what is working well and what still needs improvement. It is also a great way to keep track of our goals and stay motivated.
- Being transparent with our readers has always been a #1 priority. We feel that publishing income reports is a great way to really open up and build trust with our readers.
- When we first came into the blogging world we had no idea there were so many ways to make money online. Our income reports are a great way to help our readers follow how we built our online business from the ground up.
- To provide an overall summary of what we have accomplished and have been working on over the last few months.
Want to learn all of our blogging secrets to use for yourself? Check out our course Bloggers’ Secrets now.
February 2019 Blogging Business Breakdown
This month we did a pretty good job of diversifying our income. We landed a massive sponsorship that accounted for more than 60% of our income. But even if you take that out of the equation we are still well over the five-figure mark.
I mentioned at the top that we have been hard at work creating our first online course for bloggers.
Getting this course created, beta-tested, and ready for launch has been our sole focus since the start of the year.
So being able to still have our blog run on autopilot while we focus on course creation is incredible.
February Traffic Breakdown
Another awesome month for blog traffic! We had over 290,000 page views in February.
The good thing is more than 90% of that traffic is free organic traffic from Google and Pinterest.
In fact, our SEO traffic has more than 10x since taking the course Stupid Simple SEO.
And of course, we are still rocking an easy to use Pinterest strategy.
February Blog Income Breakdown
Ads: $4,206
Affiliate Sales: $5,257
Sponsorships: $16,650
Products: $1,330
TOTAL: $27,443
It is always an amazing feeling to land a big sponsorship with a company you trust, that brings value to your readers, and that you have worked with before.
I always get a little nervous that these sponsorships are “one and done” type of deals, but we have proven time and time again they are not.
We had a great month with affiliate marketing. We earned over $5,000 and a majority of it was made through our email list using ConvertKit.
Here are some “show me the money” screenshots for some proof of our earnings.
Sponsorship Check
Mediavine Earnings
Bluehost Earnings
Blogging Course Teachable Earnings
Shopify Store Earnings
Blogging Legal Bundle Earnings
Here are some of our top affiliate programs:
- Bluehost
- Stupid Simple SEO
- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
- Six Figure Blogger
- Blogging Legal Bundle
- Ibotta
- Ebates
- CIT Bank
- Amazon
Our income strategy/goal is to continue to grow our income from products and courses we create to be our #1 income stream from our blog.
We want to be in complete control over our business and also be as diversified as possible as we continue to grow.
Here is an incredible blogging income case study by Brandon Gaille. Our blogging journey has aligned very closely to his findings in this study.
February Blog Expenses Breakdown
Freelancers: $689
Facebook Ads: $706
Email Marketing: $112
Education: $29
Internet: $55
BigScoots Hosting: $35
Tools & Software: $74
Shopify Shop: $30
Misc: $475
TOTAL: $2,205
Our blogging expenses have grown quite a bit since starting our blog. When we first started all we paid for was $2.95/month for hosting from Bluehost.
But like all businesses you need to invest money into them to continue to grow.
Our three big expenses this month were Facebook ads, Team Savvy freelancers, and Brittany’s ticket to FinCon 2019 (Financial Conference).
Beyond excited to BOTH be finally making it to the biggest blogging conference around this year.
My favorite expense every month is paying our Team Savvy freelancers. I love having the ability to help others earn money online and grow their own businesses in the process.
Blogging is a very nice business to be in because the monthly expenses are extremely low, ranging anywhere from 10%-20% of your revenue. This leaves you with an outstanding 80%-90% profit margin.
But of course, you have to plan on good old Uncle Sam taking another ~30% for taxes.
Let’s Run the Numbers
February Income: $27,443
February Expenses: $2,205
February Net Profit: $25,238
We, like other self-employed business owners, hold approximately 30% for state and federal taxes and take out a livable salary.
Quick side note about these figures. We use two methods of accounting for our business.
Accrual Accounting:
To calculate our income as it is earned in real time. We feel it is important to always have a close pulse on the business and how it is performing “right now”.
We use the Digital Monthly Blogging Income Tracker we created to do our tracking and make it as easy as possible.
Cash Flow Accounting:
This method is tracking cash flow when it actually moves from one account to another.
Most companies we get paid from have a “net 30, 60, or 90-day payout.” Meaning we earn the money and we won’t see it for another 1 to 3 months until it clears.
The delay in payments is the reason I like having two methods of accounting that work hand in hand.
To stay compliant and make tax season as easy as possible we use Quickbooks to track everything.
What’s Happened the Last Two Months
A bunch of things!
Here are the big projects we are working on.
- Finish creating and beta testing our own blogging course
- Focused on high ROI (return on investment) tasks
- Outsource as much as possible (writing, editing, small tasks, emails, etc.)
We knew going into “creation mode” with our course would make our time more limited than ever before.
So, we made sure to focus on our high ROI tasks. We talk a lot about this is our upcoming course ?.
But I would highly recommend purchasing the book Work Less Make More and implementing the Eisenhower chart into your blogging business ASAP.
Since I know landing sponsorships has the highest ROI on my time, like over $1,000 per hour, I focused on it.
It worked out perfectly because within a couple of weeks we landed our biggest sponsorship yet.
Being strategic with your blogging business is a MUST if you want to grow.
Just like our blogging Facebook group’s name – Blogging With Purpose – everything you do with your blog should be done with a purpose.
Time Management is a Must
We all have super busy lives so making sure we are using our time efficiently and not wasting it is so important.
I have become absolutely obsessed with protecting my time and making the most use of it. It is our most valuable asset we have in life. As a business owner, you have to be smart with it.
Over the last year, I have been able to take my effective hourly rate from $20/hour to well over $100/hour.
My average estimated hourly rate last year was $60/hour. That’s a 3X increase in my hourly earnings in just one year.
What other jobs can you do that with? I would argue there isn’t one.
Here is what February looked like after tracking my time with an app called Be Focused.
I only worked for about 75 hours. That means I was making over to $370/hour!
If you are not tracking the hours you work and what you are spending your time on every month, you need to be. When it comes down to it, our effective hourly rate (EHR) is the only metric that really matters as business owners.
Increasing your EHR is what will unlock the freedom and power you want in life.
Final Thoughts
Blogging is freaking awesome!
I never in my wildest dreams thought we would have this much freedom in life and accomplish it by starting a blog.
I mean I have dyslexia, terrible ADD, hate writing, and have very limited time being a stay-at-home dad. Luckily, Brittany has always been super supportive and willing to help on the blog as much as her time allows being a full-time teacher.
I have no doubt this is going to be our “breakout” year with our blog.
I can just sense everything coming together and I know we are just getting started.
So, if you already have a blog or thinking about starting one this year, let’s do this!
Life is short…..really short!
We are SO passionate about helping you make your dreams come true.
This is the year YOU are going to take complete control over your life and make it everything you want it to be.