How We Made $2,412 in January 2018 Blogging

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What’s going on Savvy Savages! Another month in the books with our blog, which means another blog income report for you guys.

If you are new to our site we started tracking our blogging income a few months back. It’s a great way to track the progress of our blog after I decided to become a full-time blogger.

It’s also a great way to follow along if you are planning on starting your own online business.

So without further ado here is our very transparent January 2018 blogging income report.

I have now officially been self-employed for a little over 8 months. I can honestly say I have never been happier in life. It’s an amazing feeling waking up each and every day excited about “work”.

I can’t explain the feeling of having complete control of your days. Life seems to just “flow” so much better than it use to.

A bunch of you have wanted to start your own blog after seeing the success that we have had, and we highly recommend it! If we had not taken the leap of faith in starting our own blog, I would still be stuck bouncing from job to job trying to find my true happiness.

Blogging is definitely not a get rich quick scheme. It’s a legitimate business that takes a lot of time and effort to turn it profitable. But with that being said, anyone with a little grit and determination can make it happen.

When we first started blogging:

We did not know the difference between a domain name and web hosting.
We had never heard of WordPress.
Affiliate marketing seemed like rocket science.
Writing was not our favorite thing to do, especially with dyslexia!
We only had nights and weekends to work on our blog.

Now after leaving my job, I get to set my own hours, work anywhere I want, and I set myself up to be a stay at home dad (Baby K coming July 2018).

Reason for sharing our blog income

We absolutely LOVE our savvy readers and since you guys support us it’s only right to share our monthly blog income.

We want to share our journey in chasing our dreams and going after what we want in life. We found a TON of value in reading other bloggers income reports so we are very excited to do the same.

If you are interested in starting your own blog we have a FREE 7-day email blogging course that you should totally check out.

Main reasons we share our blog income report:

To motivate others to chase after their dreams.
It will help us set goals and achieve them.
We want to be as transparent with our readers as possible.
To show that making a full-time income from blogging is possible.
To provide an overall summary of what we have accomplished and been working on each month.

Life before blogging

Before we started our blog, I was extremely unhappy where I was at in life. I was always jumping job to job in search for the “perfect one”. I tried being an insurance salesman, office manager, Amazon store owner, UPS driver, and jail deputy before I had finally realized I would never be happy with a “normal job”.

The one thing every job took from me was my FREEDOM. My freedom to be creative, set my own hours, work anywhere, and earn my OWN income. I was sick of feeling suffocated and forced to work for someone else’s money.

This is why I decided to put in my last time off request form I would ever need.

A quote that has always stuck with me, “You either work for an entrepreneur or you become one“.

After leaving my job to run our site full-time, I replaced my income within a couple of months. It was an incredible feeling to have a dream and make it become a reality.

Taking the “leap of faith” was difficult but the decision has changed my life forever!

How we made $2,412 in January 2018

Affiliate Sales: $655

Website Ads: $512

Digital Marketing/Freelancing: $0

E-commerce Sales: $200

Blog Coaching: $95

The Good: This was a much better month than last months let down. A big part of the jump in income was a couple sponsorship opportunities that came through. It was also exciting to get another blog coaching client, we love helping newer bloggers.

Our new website theme is working GREAT! Our bounce rate and time per session have improved significantly.

Our blog traffic is finally back on the uptick after testing our Pinterest strategy the last few months. I think we are on our way with a winning formula but only time will tell. We also started testing out some Facebook ads which are a lot of fun. Now it’s time to optimize them and start driving more traffic.

The Bad: We made $0 with our digital marketing and freelancing. This was known ahead of time as we are focusing on getting our LLC set up before we take on any clients. Hopefully next month this number changes as we onboard a client or two.

I had a few days this month I lost focus. I am easily distracted and when I have an unproductive day I am very harsh on myself. I have found that scheduling out my tasks on our big whiteboard is the best way to ensure I am productive. I will write down three tasks that must be completed the next day. I also set up a weekly schedule and batch work, it’s working great!

Starting your own blog

If you have been thinking about starting a blog there is no better time than the present! Our biggest regret is not starting one sooner.

More than 250 people have taken our FREE 7-day email blogging course and we have received incredible feedback. We go over everything you need to know to start your blog, drive traffic, and earn your first income.

From the bottom of our hearts, we want to help you chase your dreams and succeed in life!

If you are apprehensive and have questions about starting your own blog join our FREE Facebook group. We have an awesome community of bloggers wanting to help each other succeed.

Top affiliate companies

Bluehost (Take a look at our free blog starter guide)
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing (read our review of this course that helped us top $1,000 in monthly income)
ConvertKit
FB Side Hustle
Rakuten
Pinecone Research
Harris Poll Online
Swagbucks
$5 Meal Plan

Blogging courses worth taking!

1. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing ($197) – This was the first course we invested in when we started our blog. It was a big mistake waited to take it. The instructor Michelle from Making Sense of Cents makes well over $100k per month from her blog! This course teaches you everything you need to know about monetizing your blog and driving traffic. We made our money back within a month of taking it. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

2. Facebook Side Hustle Course ($247 currently closed) – Bobby’s second course is for individuals to earn extra money without a blog. In this course, you learn how to run Facebook ads for clients and earn between $1,000-$2,000 per month with minimal time and effort. Totally worth taking if you are interested in making some serious money in your spare time.

3. Flourish With Facebook Ads ($399 – use code “Kelan75” to save $75) – This course is incredible! Designed specifically for bloggers to learn how to create optimized Facebook ads to drive traffic and convert sales. Monica is an absolute expert when it comes to Facebook ads. In our first month using the skills we learned, we had a campaign driving traffic to our site for $0.06 per click. Jump on this course before the price goes up again!

Blog traffic & social media review

We always like to remind our readers that blogging is 20% content creation and 80% marketing it to the right people.

If you are struggling to gain traction with your blog we offer 1-hour blog coaching sessions that are extremely beneficial. Since time is limited we are not cheap ($95 per hour), but we guarantee we will provide an immense amount of value.

Be sure to join our FREE Facebook groups!

Below is our monthly breakdown of our blog traffic and social media growth. This is another great tool we use to analyze our efforts and to ensure we are spending our time effectively. We are always chasing our best ROI.

Blog Traffic: 49.9k page views (24.1% increase from 40.2k)

Facebook: 1,650 page likes (5.9% increase from 1,558)

Twitter: 11,097 followers (1.2% increase from 10,956)

Pinterest: 2,650 followers (4.5% increase from 2,536)

Instagram: 2,444 followers (1.1% increase from 2,417 )

Email List: 1,839 subscribers (2.2% increase from 1,880)

Monthly blog goals

This upcoming month we want to get our first digital marketing client. I plan on spending a good amount of time with client outreach to make sure this happens.

Since Pinterest seems to be working better for us I would really like to see our page views increase a significant amount.

Next months blog goals:

Reach $3,500 in blog income
Grow blog traffic to 70k monthly views
Increase our Pinterest followers to 2,800
Twitter following to 12,000
Grow Facebook page to 2,000 likes
Increase Instagram to 2,500 followers
Grow email list to 2,000 subscribers
Get interviewed on another blog/website
Lock in a paid sponsored post

Life goals & update

We find making personal goals along with our blogging goals has been very beneficial. This section of our income report we like to get a little intimate and share a look at our personal lives.

This month we sold our 2005 Toyota Camry with 154k miles on it for $3,800. Super excited to sell it for so much. It goes to show your best bet is to always go private sale and wait for the right buyer to come along. My sister gave us an incredible deal on their 2012 Nissan Altima (cash purchase). We have never had a car this nice in our life!

Since Baby K is due in July we are in full preparation mode. We have been going to many doctor appointments and everything is going great so far. It’s an unbelievable feeling to know in just a few short months we will be parents. I can honestly say I have never anticipated anything this much in my entire life.

Over the next three months, we have a vacation planned for each month. We would love if you followed our travels to Hilton Head, Colorado, and TBD. All you have to do is follow us on Instagram.

Old income reports

Featured question of the month

We will be featuring one question from a reader in each monthly income report. Please leave a comment below if you have a question that you would like us to answer!

What email marketing service do you use and why?

For the last several months we have been using ConvertKit. They are the best in the business when it comes to email marketing for bloggers. I can’t think of any professional blogger that does not use them for their email marketing.

They are simple to use, have ton’s of features, and have helped us double our email list in a short amount of time.

ConvertKit is not the cheapest service out there, they are actually one of the most expensive. When starting out a great alternative is Mail Chimp. But you will quickly learn that ConvertKit is worth every penny.

You can try ConvertKit out for free using our ConvertKit.

Final thoughts on starting a blog

Just remember a year from now, you’ll wish you started a blog today.

Do you want to be stuck at the 9-5 job you dread going to, a job with little upside, working for someone else’s paycheck?

Or would you rather be making money from multiple income streams working from the comfort of your home? Or traveling full-time with the luxury of being able to work anywhere you want?

Put in the work now so you can enjoy your financial independence in the future.

Instead of going on a Netflix binge tonight why not start your blog?

How We Made $2,412 in January 2018 Blogging

Reason for sharing our blog income

Life before blogging