July wasn’t a bad month. It seems my income has been hovering around the same amount over the past few months. But July did beat June by a few hundred dollars, so I’m happy.
Like I’ve said before. It’s not so much the amount of money I earn that motivates me as much as it is about growth. It’s like a game almost – I just want to beat the previous month’s numbers, which doesn’t always happen!
If you’re new here I also want to point out that it was a long road getting to this point. When I started trying to make money online I was also working two day jobs just to get by. Then in October of 2013 I made the decision to try and turn my online business into something more. At that time I was only making around $1,800 a month.
After that my income slowly rose and I made around $2,500 a month for what felt like forever. It was only this year that my income quickly went up to what it is now. (And that took a whole lot of hard work!)
Making money online is an awesome thing but it’s not something that happens quickly.
Income Report for July 2015
As a reminder the money I report in income reports is what I actually received in that month. That means that most income was technically earned in June but paid in July.
In July I received $5,716.17.
It came from:
- Freelancing (Writing, Virtual Assistant Work, Blog Management) $2,962.10
- Blogging $2,754.07
To break it down further blogging income came from the following places:
- Ad Networks: $2,022.67
- Affiliates: $256.15
- Sponsored Posts: $376.25
- SEO ebook: $99
I also had expenses of $438.99 making net income before taxes $5,277.18. Then I save 25% of that amount to go toward taxes.
Future Income Goals
I always go back and forth on my income goals. On one hand I feel like I should be working harder and trying to do better and on the other hand I’m currently at the amount of money that feels really comfortable.
Have you ever heard of the happiness number? I’ve heard some people say you reach maximum happiness at $50,000 a year and others say that magic number is $250,000 per year. Honestly, $5,000 a month seems to be doing the trick for me.
I’m able to pay all the bills, have a little fun money, and still have plenty leftover to save and go toward my financial goals.
With that said I still worry all the time about how long this will last. On one side of the equation I feel like I got my skin in the game at the right time and that my future income earning potential will be pretty bright. Plus, if everything tanked I know that I am more than capable of getting freelance clients.
On the other side of the equation the whole make money online thing feels a little surreal. I wonder how I’m actually getting paid to blog and run other blogs? Being able to make money in this way is so incredibly unique. And those thoughts force me to want to go all in while the sun is shining and earn and save as much money as possible!
Honestly, I don’t know if making money blogging will be around forever but I am super confident that through all of this I’ll have in demand skills for whatever the future of the internet looks like.
So for right now I am just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. My short term goal is to reach the $6,000 per month mark. I’ve got a few things I’m going to try out this month so hopefully I’ll get there.
As far as my long term goal I suppose right now it is to keep diversifying in passive ways. (Working on my own projects that repeatedly bring in money for one times worth of work rather than hustling my butt off on other people’s projects and trading time for money.) And to also save as much money as possible!
(See how that inner dialogue affects my goal setting decisions?)
Related Posts on How I Earn Money Online:
- The Ultimate Guide to Finding Freelance Blogging Jobs
- How to Find High Paying Virtual Assistant Jobs
- How to Start a Blog for $12/Year
- How to Make Money with Ad Networks Through Blogging
If you’re a blogger wanting to get more traffic you can also check out my guide:
How was your July? How are your goals going?
Congrats on another great month! At this point I just want to break even on my blogging expenses. 🙂 Although eventually I would like to start making some income, I don’t need/want a lot, just enough to say “hey! I made money from blogging.” 🙂
You can do it!!! It was slow for me. It took a couple years to make it consistently but once it took off it really took off!
Congratulations Alexa! July was OK for me but I have to keep going. I am like you and simply worry about the future. Just today I lost my part-time job taking care of my cousin as the fund ran out. That’s close to $560 bucks a month I won’t have. Hopefully I will get that amount from side jobs and blogging. Reading this inspire me to move forward. Thanks.
Sorry to hear about you losing the income! Keep pushing forward. I think you definitely have the drive to make money online.
Thank you Alexa.
This is awesome! I always appreciate reading your income reports. I’m curious though how many hours you put in each month. I’m trying to reach at least $75,000 per year – but with working no more than 24 hours per week. Do you think in those terms, too?
I absolutely think in those terms too 🙂 I need to keep better track of my time but I’d say, on average I probably work 25-30 hours per week. Sometimes less, sometimes more. (I plan on tracking this so I actually know how much time I’m spending.) But I’d say here lately my time has been feeling more important than money. Time goes by way too quickly!
And since school starts for my kids next week I’d say I’ll have a good solid 25 hours of work time per week if I just work during the day.
Wow, that’s awesome! So encouraging. You are inspiring me to put some work into my blog so that I can utilize ad networks as well. This is very motivating!
I’m glad it helps 🙂 I do want to put out there that I spent a lot of time on everything in the beginning. A year ago I probably worked 40 hours a week to earn 2,500 dollars. The work has been worth it though 🙂
I’m in the process of switching to a new hosting company and a new blog name. I lost my job not too long ago, so this month is the month I start working on my blog. So far, minimum of 25 hours per week is what I am planning.
You can do a lot with 25 hours per week if you use your time right! Not constantly checking email and only using FB for blog related things has tremendously helped my productivity.
I love these posts because I enjoy watching the Passive Income numbers inching up. That’s where I look on everyone’s report. I don’t really have passive income right now but I’m working on it LOL! Great job Alexa 🙂
Yay for passive income 🙂 It is the best. It feels like it takes forever to build up but it’s definitely my favorite. (Although I wouldn’t say its completely passive but still better than trading time for money.) I want to get a lot farther than I am with that it just takes a lot of effort to figure out 🙂
Wow, what a great month! Thanks for sharing the numbers — I love reading income reports, because they help motivate me.
Why are you skeptical about the potential of blogging income being a long-term thing? I suppose if one didn’t change marketing strategies or add additional products it could become stagnant or fade away, but you seem to always be moving up and creating more content that can sell itself over and over!
I suppose the being skeptical about blogging is because the way we use the internet is constantly changing. Will there even be such a thing as blog in ten years? Who knows. Sure there’s a good chance that there could be but who really knows what technology will bring in the future and what people will then consider as entertainment. I just like to think about both sides of the equation. It also just feels really surreal to get paid to blog.
I think the magic happiness number that’s referenced in studies is $75k. I always thought that was silly though because it doesn’t account for debt. I’m certainly not happy at $75k but that’s due to my student loans. If I didn’t have student loans, $75k would keep me very happy.. Anyways, way to go this month. I love reading your income reports and how you’re killing it!!
I think the $75k number makes sense! I live in a low cost area and $60k seems to be my happiness number. But yes that happiness number certainly depends on things like debt and location.
Wow that is amazing money you are making from your ad networks. What kind of page views do you get per month?
I have officially added you to the The Ultimate List of Blogger Incomes and you are in the top 15! Congrats!
Last month I had around 175,000
holy cow! 175k! Im so jealous. 😉 I hope i am at your level someday.
Great job with the online income Alexa! I see you around in the comments section of other PF blogs once in awhile, but I admit I haven’t exactly been a regular reader of your blog. You are killing it online!
Have you considered contacting Matthew Woodward to see about getting added to his monthly income report roundup? I’ve been on there for months and I end up getting a lot of referral traffic from that post each month.
The $2k+ that you earned from ‘Ad Networks’ in July… is that mostly Adsense? Just curious.
Hey Matt. Thanks for stopping by. I’ve visited your blog several times just never left a comment before 🙂
Thanks for the tips with Matthew Woodward!
As far as ad networks the bulk majority comes from Adsense and Media.net. It’s always a race to see which one is higher. I usually do around $800-$1,000 with both Adsense and Media.net and then $200-$300 with the Blogger Network.