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February Online Income Report

Another month, another income report!

If you read last month’s income report, you’ll notice that it was one of my lowest month’s ever. This month, sadly, is even lower. (What’s going on?! Isn’t my income supposed to be increasing month over month?)

But wait…

In January, I brought in $846 in online income. $550 was freelancing; $296 was blogging. As of the New Year, one of my resolutions was to quit almost all of my freelancing jobs so I could focus more on my blog (and, let’s be real, to free up some of my time). For new readers, I have a full-time job and am a mama to two toddler girls. For a while, I juggled working full-time with freelancing and blogging. But, it was too much. I was stressed out and wasn’t able to enjoy time with my babies – time that I will never get back. Now, I work full-time and blog when I can 🙂 Life is so much better, and my blogging income has increased as a result 🙂

January Online Income Report

I have now been publishing my online income reports for a solid one and half years. To be completely honest, I debated skipping this month’s report. But, in an effort to be extremely real and open here on the blog, I knew I needed to publish this.

When you work for yourself, you’re going to have slower months. I’m hoping this report is encouraging to those of you who may be experiencing a downswing or are “stuck” at a certain number. I typically bring in between $1200-$2200 per month in side income, which includes both freelance writing and blogging. Last month, however, I decided to eliminate most of my freelancing clients so I could focus more on my blog. The results are not good, which you’ll see below:

Six Figure Business Ideas: How to Start a Six Figure Business

Are you ready to start a six figure business? Do you dream of one day working for yourself and bringing in more than enough income to support your entire family? If so, now’s your chance. Don’t wait any longer; instead, let 2016 be the year you decided to make a change. Below are top six figure business ideas that you can do from home.

Six Figure Business Ideas

I’m first going to share my two favorite ways of making money: freelance writing and blogging. I don’t make six figures (yet), but I also don’t work full-time on my side hustles. They’re merely a fun hobby of mine that just so happen to bring in a few hundred to a few thousand extra dollars each month. You can view all of my income reports here.

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing can be an incredibly lucrative career. I started out making $25 per post and now make almost $300 per post. That adds up big time. I can spend just a few hours per week writing and make well over $1,000 per month on my efforts. Holly Johnson, who blogs at Club Thrifty with her husband, will invoice more than $225,000 this year in freelance writing. She recently created a course to help those that want to become a freelancer called Earn More Writing. Her course is packed full of information on how to get started freelancing, where to find jobs, how to raise your rates, and more!

Blogging

This is where I plan on building my own six-figure business. I love, love, love blogging. I started this blog in 2014 and am now making over $2,000 per month blogging. Growing a blog and earning a full-time income from it takes serious time, but it can be extremely lucrative for those that work hard and keep at. If you love writing, I highly encourage you to start your own blog. If you do so through my Bluehost link, you’ll receive an exclusive discount, a free domain name, and I’ll give you a copy of my book – The Beginner’s Guide to Blogging – for free!

Have an idea for a blog name?! You can check available domain names here:

And, if you’re not sure how to make money blogging, I created a very specific course on how you can make money as a web hosting affiliate. I use and love Bluehost, so that’s what I recommend to readers looking to start a blog. When they make a purchase, I get a kickback at no extra cost to them.

My course – How to Make Money as a Web Hosting Affiliate – will show you exactly how you can make thousands per month helping other people start a blog! It’s super fun and has been very lucrative for my family and I.

Publishing

Nowadays, you can write and self-publish your own books on platforms like Amazon Kindle or Gumroad. I used Gumroad for my book, but have heard wonderful things about Amazon Kindle. Writing and uploading is the easy part; it’s the marketing and promoting of your book(s) that will take time. However, if you’re a good author and you know how to market yourself, you could easily make six figures per year from book sales.

Don’t believe you can really make that much self-publishing your books? Check out this story in Forbes featuring a writer who made $450,000 from Amazon publishing in one year.

Buy, Refurbish, Sell

Do you love garage sale-ing, shopping for antiques or fixing up older appliances/furniture and making it like new? If so, why not start a business doing what you love? An old boss of mine made $800 per month re-selling items she found at garage sales. She spent roughly 15-20 hours per month finding old items and then listing them on eBay for a profit. By scaling the business and investing more time into it, one could reach the six-figure income level in no time.

The same goes for refurbishing furniture. I repainted a dresser I bought off of Craigslist for $15 and could have sold it for $200. I’ve also repainted our $100 Craigslist kitchen table and am about to start on a heavy-duty dresser for my daughter’s room that we got for free. Between Craigslist and Goodwill, there are gobs of stuff people are looking to get rid of for little to no money. Make it your job to fancy it up and sell it for a profit!

Make Money Doing What You Love

We all have different passions and hobbies. If you want to make big money, you have to figure out a way to leverage your talents so you can earn a six-figure income. My husband, for example, works in construction. He loves fixing up houses and making them custom. There are many routes that he could go – he could flip properties, manage his own rental properties, be a licensed contractor and hire subcontractors to do the labor, start a blog on renovating homes and make money via advertising and affiliates, or a combination of the above.

Or, perhaps you like doing a bunch of different things but don’t want to be tied down to one field. You could freelance write and bring in $2,500 per month, create and sell items on Etsy for $1,000 a month, run your own blog for $3,000 a month, manage rentals for $1,000 a month, walk your neighbors dog during the day for $500 a month, and refurbish furniture for $1,500 per month. Before you know it, you’re making six figures a year by doing what you love. (I know all of this would require a decent amount of time on your part and that everyone’s circumstances vary; these are merely ideas.)

Do you run a six figure business? If not, what type of business would you start?!

December Online Income Report [and Charleston Trip Recap!]

Hi everyone!

Did everyone enjoy their holidays?! We ended up having a really nice time, despite me being homesick the weekend of Christmas. So, for New Years, instead of sitting around sulking, we decided to head out of town to Charleston for one night. We just got back, and it was such a blast! I was actually born in Charleston but we moved to AZ when I was two, so of course I have no memories of it. Charleston is comprised of eight different islands all connected by big bridges. We explored a few of the islands, stayed in the historic downtown area, went to the beach, ate lots of yummy food, looked at some neighborhoods, and just enjoyed getting out of town for the night. The girls didn’t do that well in the hotel room, so luckily it was just one night!! At this point, day trips are probably the best type of vacation because we can all sleep in our own beds 🙂

November Income

This post is a little late, but better late than never, right?

First off, I wanted to check in with everyone who is joining me on my $10K per month in one year challenge. If this is your first time hearing about this challenge, it’s something I started to motivate myself and others to increase our income within a year! My end date is October 2016, but you can totally still hop on board and set your own goals! I have people joining me on this exact challenge and others who are doing the challenge but have their own income goals and end dates. It’s not about the actual number, but rather about supporting each other. I really believe that we are all in this together. I saw a quote on Instagram the other day that said “Supporting Another’s Success Won’t Ever Dampen Yours.” How true is that?!

So, I’ll go first. I’m pretty much maintaining (as you’ll see below), even though I picked up two new freelancing positions. One is ongoing and the other I’ve completed, but won’t see the income from until January. My goal in 2016 is to really be intentional with what projects I’m choosing. If you read my last post, you saw that I’m wanting to take it a little easy this next year and focus more on my family and doing things that I enjoy. I want to work on high-paying assignments that bring me joy, rather than just trying to crank out article after article.

I’m also in the midst of writing my first book, which is going to be released on Jan. 12, 2016. As a reminder, if you start a blog through my Bluehost link, you’ll receive a copy of my book for free! I would love it if most of my income could come from my blog, and use freelancing as something to fall back on. Now it’s your turn – how are you doing on the challenge?!

Now, onto my November income.

How to Be a Freelance Writer

Do you want to be a freelance writer?! I have been freelancing for more than four years as a side gig and consistently make over $1,000 per month. You can see my income reports here! I have FT job, two toddler little girls, another girl on the way, a husband and a big house I take care of. I love my life and love having extra spending money each month!

There are many ways to get your foot in the door when it comes to freelancing. I first recommend you start your own blog to develop contacts, guest post and use your blog as writing samples for when you apply for freelance writing positions or work for a content mill (like Demand Media) to get your feet wet. Content mills usually will hire inexperienced writers because they typically pay less than most other clients, so it’s a good place to start and gain experience. You can pitch article ideas to print and online magazines. You can search websites like oDesk or Elance and so on and so forth.

October Freelance & Blogging Income

Welcome to my monthly income report! You’ll notice I changed the name from “XX Freelance Income” to “XX Freelance & Blogging Income.” I finally made some money from my blog and I hope to see that number only increase over the next few months!

As many of you know, I have a goal to make $10K per month within one year, or by October 2016. I have some ideas on how I plan to increase my income via the blog and I plan on finding a few more freelancing jobs, too. However, $10K per month is a hefty goal especially considering I work full-time and have two toddlers. I’m going to try my best to meet this goal without running myself into the ground!

So, on to my income for October!

Three Simple Ways I Make Money Blogging

I’ve been very transparent around here lately regarding blogging and my hopes for the future (if you’re new, I have a goal to make $10K per month within one year, and I’d like most of that income to be through blogging). I’ve been at this blogging thing for a little over a year now, and it seems like I’m finally starting to make a little headway in this whole income thing.

A little background: I started my blog to make money; I did not start it just as a hobby. If you’re looking to do the same, I have an eBook coming out in January that will help you set up your own blog that you can use as a business to make money. I’m so excited about it, and I hope you are too!

I took my blog very seriously at first, and then I sort of fell off the bandwagon a few months in. I didn’t stop blogging, but I stopped trying to monetize, I didn’t have an editorial plan, and I just didn’t have a general direction at all. My book can help you make sure you don’t fall into the same rut.

So, I didn’t really begin taking my blog seriously again until September of this year. This month, I made $380 from my blog which will be reflected in my next income report. That’s not much, but it’s something. Today I wanted to share the three simple ways in which I’m monetizing my blog.

My Bills Went Up, Now What?

Have your bills recently increased and you’re wondering how you’re going to make ends meet? Though it’s good to be working our way OUT of debt, sometimes life happens and we end up getting more into debt or our bills increase for some other reasons (such as sending your little one to preschool or dance class).

In the past year since moving from Arizona to North Carolina, our bills have increased significantly. Our mortgage has more than doubled, our utility bills are higher thanks to said mortgage, and we’ve added full-time daycare for our girls to the mix now that I’m back to working full-time. Between those three things, it’s safe to say our bills have increased well over $2,000 per month.

Today, I wanted to share what you can do when your bills increase, whether it’s by $100 per month or thousands per month, like us.

How Blogging Changed My Life

Are you happy?

I would consider myself a pretty happy person. While I’ve had struggles just like the next person, I try to focus on the positives in my life. While I’ve always been happy, my happiness has increased significantly over the past few years and I attribute it to a few different reasons.