How I Made $3,016.71 In December 2023 | Income Report

Hi and welcome to my blogging income report for December 2023.

GUYS, I HIT $3,000!

OMG I am freaking out.

Okay, that may be extreme cause I put in the work and spent hundreds of hours to make that income but seriously, I am sooo happy.

However… I am absolutely dreading writing this post.

This month was hard and I realized I was burning myself out. I definitely stretched myself out too thin trying to get on Instagram and scheduling posts a month in advance. Plus with finals and Christmas shopping, I had too much on my mind.

So I decided to take 2 weeks off from posting. I knew I would be fine cause I already had over 160 posts published (I just looked that up and that’s a crazy amount). That’s more than 2 posts a week for 3 years and I’m at a year and a half into the blogging journey.

…. that could be why I felt burned out lol.

HOWEVER… I am back and more motivated than ever so let’s get into this income report.

I was reading my old ones and they don’t go in-depth enough so I’m going to fix that with this one.

Also, I was reading BySophiaLee’s blogging income reports and she starts off by sharing a little about herself so I am going to start that too.

I am currently a junior in college studying Data Science with a minor in Software Development. I’ve always loved writing and computers so when I saw an income report with this girl making 10k a month, I said sign me up. I was 16 at the time and I was wayyyyy out of my element.

I’m pretty sure I started writing about what I did for the day and the restaurants I went to. If you started a blog, you know how badly that failed lol. I also only posted when I felt like it and stopped after a month. Bad right? It gets worse. Guess where it was hosted… Squarespace.

I have nothing against Squarespace but you have no control over the backend of your blog and most affiliants don’t accept you for not having it on WordPress. I guess that’s why people say be careful who you take advice from.

Anyway, in my freshman year, I kept thinking about that blog, and with more research, I was ready to start my blog. In July 2022, the blog was live, and just three months later when that $7.08 hit my account, I knew I was going to stick with it.

Here are my previous income reports:

• How I Made $1,927.55 In November 2023 Blogging | Income Report
• How I Made $2,683.81 In October 2023 Blogging | Income Report
• How I Made $403.47 In July 2023 | Income Report

December 2023 BLOG INCOME REPORT (+ TRAFFIC)

(I am only reporting income that was made in December 2023. Due to most of the programs I am making money from taking around 60-90 days to be deposited into your bank account, I will post the proof of income when it is deposited.)

Proof of income:

In December 2023, I made $3,016.71 from my blog. Here is the breakdown of where that money is coming from.

• Affiliate Income – $981.40
  • Amazon Affiliates: $981.40

• Advertising – $2,035.31
  • Mediavine: $2,035.31

Page Views: 59,177

TOTAL: $3,016.71

For tax purposes, I do not keep all of that money and after some research, I learned most bloggers save 30% so that’s my plan too. I’ll get into this later (spoiler: I filed for an LLC).

I know this may sound crazy but I realized I am embarrassed to post my income this month. Maybe it’s from all of the influencers online telling you how they made $200 then $10,000 and then $50,000. But like I’m not…

So when I realized that, I forced myself to get to the computer and write about this income report. I should not be embarrassed and if you feel this way, you should not be either.

I feel like a lot of bloggers can feel this way so I knew it was important to write about.

Just because your income doesn’t climb exponentially DOES NOT mean you are doing anything wrong or you are “failing.”

Now I just need to turn that into a poster and repeat it 10 times.

I’m kidding but seriously I need to keep that in mind.

As you can tell, my income is solely coming from Amazon and Mediavine right now but I recently got into LTK so I’m curious if any income will come from that. I heard many bloggers talking about how hard they are to get into but I got into it first try so maybe they have loosened their requirements???

As promised last month here is what I’m doing on Pinterest…

I changed my Pinterest strategy to posting less, like a lot less. I am currently scheduling out 5 pins per post and having them scheduled out every day. So if the post goes up on Monday, I’ll schedule them out for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Everything else I have kept the same but my views are rising so fingers crossed.

I also know that I do not have a lot of content for November/December/January so I’m putting a note in my calendar to work on that this year.

But I’m really excited for March/April due to my college content. People start searching then and I’m sooooo excited to see my views/income. If I can make $3,000 in a slow month what does that mean for my popular months?

What am I doing on the blogging side?

Last month I uped it to 3 posts a week and I am continuing that into the new year. I don’t start school till the 10th so I’m really trying to have a full month of content (12 posts) done and scheduled out so I don’t have to stress as much.

If you are curious about what I use to stay on top of my posts and what is scheduled or not, I use a free Excel calendar and just highlight posts that are fully scheduled and posted. I love it and I keep it on my home screen so I can check back when I’m curious. I can also write notes for myself on what I need to post that month or seasonal content in November that I thought about now.

As far as my views go, I had a lower month of around 60,000 but I expected that. I “failed” this last quarter for not having seasonal content up fast enough and not having the right Pinterest strategy. I’ll fix it this year though.

I really want to focus on my email marketing this year. I know how important it is and how it’s the only thing I “own” but I don’t feel confident in it yet. SO I’m thinking about taking a course on it soon.

The business side of the blog:

I filed for an LLC.

I repeat I FILED FOR AN LLC.

I’m honestly debating buying a cake and celebrating because this feels like a huge achievement.

I knew I always wanted to file this as an LLC but didn’t want to until I was making consistent income and I heard online it’s better to do it at the first of the year. So it’s being sent to the secretary of state and I should hear back in the new year.

I’ve never had an LLC so I used Tailor Brands… I heard people liked it so I used it but I’ll let you know later if it was a good decision.

However, that also means my expenses are rising. I haven’t done a breakdown of my expenses in a while so let’s do that now.

(If you’re wondering, I just use Google Excel to keep track of all my business bills and such.)

ActiveCampaign: I spend $588.00 a year and I’m fine with that price. I use this for my email campaign and I love it. I have it all automated so I don’t have to look at it.

Tailwind: I spend $479.88 every year and I plan to change that come August because I am reducing the amount of pins I’m scheduling but I only have good things to say about Tailwind so I’m fine with paying that too.

Bluehost/Wordpress: This one actually surprised me. I pay $179.76 but that includes Bluehost and WordPress. I also had to update it to pay for more space and faster load times so makes sense.

TailorBrands: I paid an upfront fee of $327 to form my LLC and a yearly price of $500. I’ve never made an LLC before so not sure if that’s a good price or not but I did pay them to do almost all the work and make sure my blog is staying “legal.”

Total: $1,673.64

I like to pay for stuff yearly so I can get the best price and “forget” about it.

The price doesn’t really scare me cause I can pay that off in a month but with more growth definitely comes more expenses 😭.

Now let’s get into the benefits of my now legal LLC.

(For legal reasons, this is not advice. I don’t want to get sued.)

I opened up a business bank account so I can fully separate my blogging income from my personal income. I wanted to do this for a couple reasons. The first so I can budget properly and not just spend all of that money on myself when it hits my checking account. Second, I wanted a place to put the tax money so I could “forget” about it. With having a separate bank account, I can just withdraw a certain amount each month into my personal and keep the rest for the business.

I have it set to where I’m taking about 50% and the rest can stay in there but I’m hoping when the income grows, I can take less and hire employees.

The third reason is for lawsuit reasons. I really don’t want to be sued and if it’s separated they can’t go after my personal checking account (or at least that’s what I was told).

I am currently using Grasshopper Bank but I advise you to do your own research and pick for yourself.

Okay, that’s it for my LLC but definitely look into it if you are thinking about it.

Important but often overlooked information:

So in these income reports, I realized I often forget some information that you may like to know so I’m including those here.

I’m still very happy with my SEO plan. I’m growing in the ranks on Google and consistently getting views from there so yay. Honestly, this was the easiest thing for my blog so I often overlook it.

My Pinterest has been sitting around 7 million and 10+ million. That sounds great but it’s not comparing to my outbound clicks so I need to work on that.

I’m still a one-woman show so everything that I’m doing is me and that’s okay but it definitely gets lonely. I hear a lot of bloggers talking about loneliness and I get it. (If you want to be blogging friends, please reach out lol.)

I am still in college so if you think you can’t start a blog without an abundance of time, you can. The key is consistency so do what you can. If you don’t have a lot of time, take courses and get a jump start.

Also, it took me a little over a year to make this money and in that year, I worked my A-$-$ off. So this was not an overnight “success” or a thing that happens overnight.

My Short Term goals:

I really need to get better with “selling.” In my blog posts, I feel like I suck at it so I need to read a book or take a course on getting better at it.

Write 3-4 posts a month. I’m currently doing 3 posts a week but I feel like I can do 4 so I want to try it and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll write as many as I can and see how many that come out to. I’m not really sure, I just need more content out there.

Visualize the future goals of WereAdulting. It can be really easy for me to just think about the present and do the work but I want to set some high goals and see what I come up with.

My Long Term goals:

I’m thinking about hiring someone or a couple people but I can’t afford it until I’m making around $6,000 a month. I really want to pay them well so they care about my blog so I decided on $6,000.

Take the BySophiaLee email course. I really want to get better at it but I want to bring in some more income before I take that next step.

Hit a $10,000 month. I know I can do it and gosh dang it, I am going to. This is a huge milestone but I believe this can happen around July and August so I’m using that to keep me motivated.

Hire a software developer to change the blog layout. Right now if you look at my home page, it is awful. I gave up on it a while ago but I want to spend a good $3k on it. I have a vision in my head of what I want it to look like so I really want to pay someone to change it.

Create an About page with professional photos. Yes, you heard that right. I do not have an About page at all. I’m planning on changing that though and hiring a photographer so they look professional.

Okay that’s it for my December blogging income report! As always comment or email me hello@wereadulting.com if you have any questions. I would love some more blogging friends so don’t hesitate!