Welcome to my first income report! It has been 3 months since I launched My Income Journey and I am hoping one day to look back at these early income reports and see how far I’ve come. Most people are very reserved with talking about their finances so let me explain the reason for these posts.
This post contains affiliate links/ads, see my disclosure for details.
Why I Publish Income Reports
If it weren’t for other bloggers posting their income reports I would have never started this website. I am so grateful for their willingness to be open, honest, transparent, and inspire me to get started blogging. I hope I can do the same for others!
This website is about making money from home. If I am going to write articles about how to make money from home, then I’d better be able to do it myself. I want you to see what works for me and give you ideas of what can work for you too!
I hope to one day look back at this first income report and see how far I’ve come. By posting these reports early in my journey I have a good reference point to track my progress. I also want to give you an idea of what a blog that’s only three months old can do.
Income Breakdown
My number one job right now is being a mom. I have three young kids and summer is filled with activities so making money has not been my focus in July. I’ve only worked a few hours a week and most of it has been blogging. There’s still tons I need to do to get this site where I want it and I am planning on that happening when my kids go back to school in less than a month. Right now my days are spent at the pool, gymnastics, tennis matches, arranging playdates, camping, and that’s the way I want it! I am finding ways to make money from home so I can keep the stay at home mom lifestyle. Most of my income in July was fairly passive. My goal is to create as much passive income as possible so I can keep my schedule flexible while still earning an income to help my family. Here’s how I made money in July:
Photography – $112.04
Shutterstock – $85.70 (300 images on file)
istock – $8.24 (168 images on file)
Bigstock – $4.28 (74 images on file)
Redbubble – $13.82 (15 images on products)
Etsy – $73.90
July Sales: 11
Gross Profit: $73.90
Etsy Fees: $5.57
Products Listed: 35
Piano Lessons – $100
Most my students took July off
Blogging – $144.96
AdSense – $6.72
BlueHost Affiliate – $130.00
Amazon Affiliate – $8.24
Side Hustles – $17.69
ibotta shopping app – $16.50
Amazon Mechanical Turk – $1.09
American Consumer Opinion – $0.10 (just signed up with them and took their welcome survey)
Total Income: $448.59
Income Goals
My main focus right now is to grow this website. I believe it has the most profit potential, I really enjoy doing it, and most importantly I can do it from home and on my own schedule. If you want to start your a blog, read my post about how to do it here. Once school starts I also plan on adding more items to my Etsy shop and giving myself weekly photography goals. The milestone I want to reach with my monthly income is $1,000/month. I’m hoping to get there within a year.
Blogging Stats
Facebook: 467 Followers – I’m so close to 500, I should hit that in August!
Pinterest: 398 Followers – I also want to hit the 500 mark in August. Pinterest is going to be my focus! I am not using a board scheduler yet but am researching them and plan on implementing that tool ASAP!
Twitter: 65 Followes – Obviously Twitter has not been a priority
Website Pageviews: 1,411
Website Users: 833
Since this is a new site I’ve spent a lot of time working on getting the layout the way I want it and getting quality content published. I have not done any advertising, guest posting, or even told my friends and family about my site yet. So pageviews are obviously low, but again, it’s just my 3rd month blogging. Also, I filtered my own IP address out of Google Analytics so I could get an accurate idea of pageviews without myself skewing the data.
Conclusion
I’m quite happy with how this month turned out! I wasn’t expecting to make any money this early from blogging so it was a happy surprise to see it paying off already. Since it’s summer and I’m with my kids all day I know I haven’t invested the time necessary to really grow this to a full time income….yet. I plan on working hard in the coming months and hope my income reports will reflect that hard work. Follow me to find out!
Do you post income reports? If so, I’d love to see them. Feel free to leave your link, advice, or thoughts below!
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That is amazing growth!! My blog just passed the one month mark. This is inspiring progress!
Thanks, McKinzie and congrats on your new blog!
I love hearing how other stay at home women make money! I also just followed you on Twitter and Pinterest!
I love hearing how others make money too. I read lots of blogger’s income reports! Thanks for the follows!!
I love reading income reports. It’s awesome to see other people succeeding and I find it super helpful!
I agree, Joanna. It’s very helpful to read income reports and see what’s really working!
Wow! Good for you! I do the wahm mom thing too and the hustle is hard. My focus is growing the blog too. We can do it!
Thanks for the encouragement, Jenna. I’ll check out your blog!
I was just thinking “Why would anyone publish an income report???” and then you answered my question. Thanks!
Ha ha! I’m glad I answered your question. I remember wondering the same thing when I first saw income reports. Now I read tons of them!
This was so encouraging to read, seeing as I’m only two months in. I’ve been wanting to monetize but I’m nervous. I was originally thinking I should hold off on starting to monetize in a year, but the more research I do I see it’s a gradual growth. Thanks for sharing!
I just checked out your blog, Amaris and I love the quote at the top! If you’re wanting to monetize your blog I don’t see a reason to wait. Like you said, it will probably be gradual growth, but even small amounts can help cover some of the blogging costs.
I love seeing these – it inspires me to keep plugging along at my blogging business! Thank you for being so open and letting us all know!
Thanks, Meagan. I’ll check out your blog right now!
I can’t wait to get my side hustle going. I’m still working on everything and I’m also getting into freelance. You did great!
Thanks, Leslie. I’ve heard a lot of good things about freelance work. I should look into that too!
Nice work! I love how you’ve put it in a pie chart, I wish more bloggers would do that. Maybe I’m just a visual learner but it really helps to see what is contributing the most to your income stream.
I haven’t published any traffic or income reports yet… but plan to start now.
Thanks, Cath. I like the pie chart too. (-: I just looked at your website and I love the colors! I’d love to read some income reports from you!
Thanks for sharing! This is very insightful and seeing the numbers laid out like this is helpful for me! I have goals to make money through my blog eventually…so I really like your blog and will start following through my social media accounts 🙂 – SAHMwhoblogs.com
Thanks, Jenni!
Wow, that’s fantastic! You are well on your way to warning a passive income from your blog. I do have a question, I am not familiar with income from your “Photography” section. Do you submit photos to these sites and they then pay you when people purchase them?
Yes, Sammi. It’s called stock photography. You submit photos to different websites and when people buy your photos you get money. Once the pictures are uploaded and tagged it’s all passive income so I really like it! You can read my posts about it here.
http://www.myincomejourney.com/stock-photography/
You are doing great!
Thanks, Bethany!
Great job! I love seeing these types of reports from bloggers. It’s all about a variety in streams of income, and it looks like you’re doing an awesome job with this so far!
Thanks, Mimi. I am trying to get a variety of streams going, but it can be hard to keep up on all those streams. (-:
Joanna, that’s a great start! Do you boost any of your affiliate links?
awesome progress!
Wow, that’s awesome! I just published my first income and progress report, too. Except my blog was just launched in mid-July (but I wanted to track income, expenses, and progress from the beginning.) Your blog absolutely has big potential for income. Keep up the great work! 😉
Hello!
I found you by chance through a really cool comment you left on abby’s blog. I thought I would check out your site too. I am really glad I did! You made a ton of progress really fast! Congratulations! I think you are 100% right on target with getting income from all different sources. Best Wishes!!
Sincerely Jacqueline recently posted: 3 Minute Shower & Bathtub Cleaning Hack
http://www.sincerelyjacqueline.com
Thank you so much for your candidness! I am on week 3 of my new blog and still feel like I am drowning in all that there is to know! I can’t even get my theme sorted out with WordPress yet! This is such an inspiration!
Thank you!
[…] very happy with the income I made in August. I almost doubled my July income! I have a lot still to do and just need to find the time to do it! Isn’t that always the […]
This is great info! Thanks for posting.
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