one year of blogging

Thank you to everyone who has told me they enjoy reading this blog. Because of you, I have officially stuck with it for a YEAR!

There was technically that little hiatus…summertime is busy! But, I got back to it in October and I have had fun trying to learn how to be a better blogger and how to (maybe!) succeed in goal of creating a stream of side income.

I am in a few Facebook groups with other bloggers and it’s really amazing to hear success stories of some (real) people who are so successful they start earning $1000+ a month relatively quickly. Can you imagine what that would do for a college savings fund?!

While I don’t know if that will ever be in the cards for my little piece of the internet, I have started to see a few dollars, and it’s encouraging! We’re talking a best month yet of around $20. But, that at least covering my blogging expenses and then some.

This post isn’t really about dollars earned, but about the little successes I thought you may be interested in hearing about. So many people ask me how bloggers make money anyway, so here are the details.

1. Amazon affiliates.

This was the first thing I tried and back in the spring of last year I got accepted for a trial run, earned somewhere around $5-$8 in a few months, and then got denied for lack of original content and my measly earnings went away with it. Sad day! Since October, I am back at it. My account was not denied after the trial period this time. I have been seeing roughly $8- $20/month for a few months. The commissions roll in a few pennies at a time, so let’s not count on this for college, but this is for sure a blog success compared to this time last year.

2. Google Adsense.

I was accepted! Some of you may notice my site has started running a few ads. I know that’s not anyone’s favorite thing, but if I’m going to pay to keep this blog up and running, it was a goal of mine to hopefully start some passive ad income. This also rolls in a few pennies at a time with nothing notable yet, but being accepted was a nice feeling and I’m counting it as another success.

3. Freelance writing.

I have learned than many new bloggers dip their feet into the freelance world while waiting on their own blog to take off. I started looking into that this month, with only my own blog to show for writing examples. Most of my cold emails went unanswered. One got a very polite, “check back in August” reply which I took as a positive (any response is better than none, right?). And most importantly, one blog agreed to hire me to write a post! We’ll see how freelancing goes but I am so excited to have landed even that one gig.

4. Sponsored content.

I was randomly approached back in the fall to write a review of a product in exchange for one product to keep and one product to give away. So I have technically done this once before–just for product instead of cash payment. This month, I decided to focus on pursuing a few paid sponsored posts for brands/products that I LOVE and would sing the praises of because I love it. A dream example would be Aldi 🙂 This is a brand new endeavor so no results here yet, but I am excited to start working towards it.

None of these things would be possible without engaged readers. Here is a look of how my page view numbers have grown:

Not shown are the dead summer months and last spring which looked similar to Oct/Nov. I think there is enough of March left to keep on trending upward!

Thank you SO much to anyone who has read, commented, shared, Pinned. You are making this fun and giving me hope for my “side hustle” blogger dream to become a reality.

With all that being said, I am curious what all you like to read.

I know my Mid Century posts have fallen by the wayside because my home tours didn’t last long..I only have so much house! I am always trying to think of a way to get more MCM content in and have some plans for this eventually.

My Curly Girl posts were a shocking hit on Pinterest. So much so that I wonder if that’s all I should be focusing on…but I like being random too much to do that.

So what’s your favorite thing to read about? My kids? My Amazon hauls? Saving money? DIY projects? New ideas? Let me know in the comments!