Wow, a lot can happen in a month!!!
As I was saying at Crystal Clear Thoughts and How I Make Money Blogging, I wanted to blog full time by 2012. To reach that goal, I thought I needed a bunch of traffic on all of my blogs. Specifically, I was aiming for 25,000 unique visitors a month at BFS by August 2011 and needed to be making $30,000 a year total by 2012.
Well, there was a change of plans. I literally got too busy with my online work to keep my day job, so I quit as of July 15th, 2011! And I can say with certainty that it was a great decision. Self-employment is rocking so far!
I figured the best way to keep my eye on the prize is to hit monthly targets, so I started posting here. Between that and the fact there seems to be major interest in the subject, I started an update around the 1st of every month of my blogging stats and income generated. I’ll also do a huge 1 year update at the beginning of every January.
Here were my goals for August 2011 followed by the results:
- Alexa Ranking: 34,000 / 31,975 (Woot!)
- Visits: 12,000 / 12,703 (Heck yeah!)
- Unique Visitors: 8500 / 9304 (Whoo-hoo!)
- Pageviews: 18,000 / 22,210 (WOOT, WOOT!)
- RSS subscribers: 600 / 642 (Too cool!)
- Twitter followers: 700 / 745 (Go Twitter!)
- Traffic breakdown: 4200 from Referring Sites (3982), 2200 from Direct Traffic(2099), 4700 from Search Engines(5603), 900 from Other (1019)
- Blogging Income: $4000 / $6797.70 (HAPPY DANCE!!!)
Monthly Income Breakdown
- Advertising on My Blogs (90% from BFS): $2000.89
- Writing (Staff Writing and Freelance Posts): $737.77
- Blogging Services (Running advertising on other sites and freelance tasks): $3725.03
I had $334.01 of Paypal fees as well, but WOOT, WOOT!!! If you’d like to see all of my blogging expenses, check out How I Make Money Blogging. I have been keeping them at 15% or less of my overall take.
Seeing that I hit my self-employment goal much earlier than expected, I am now making goals to get my traffic up and my income stabilized. I do not think my current numbers are sustainable and I need to find out what my normal numbers will be. In the meantime, I am paying myself $3575 a month (a third of that goes to taxes…), so I better darn well keep bringing in at least that. 
My goals for September:
- Alexa Ranking: 31,000
- Visits: 13,500
- Unique Visitors: 10,000
- Pageviews: 25,000
- RSS subscribers: 750
- Twitter followers: 850
- Traffic breakdown: 4500 from Referring Sites, 2500 from Direct Traffic, 5500 from Search Engines, 1000 from Other
- Blogging Income: $5000
Any questions, comments, or advice? As I mentioned, I go into more detail with my income and expenses on the 1st of the month at http://howimakemoneyblogging.com/, but feel free to ask anything you’d like at either site!!!
Wow, this looks great! Keep up the great work. You are an inspiration to those just starting out. Keep it up and I will keep reading.
Great stats and another solid month for you. I am sure that you will continue to grow your sites and improve your income.
Nearly 7k is huge! You’re the bomb dot com.
I’m loving how you have made a new career for yourself! I just might have to hire you and help contribute to your goals.
Wow Crystal. What an amazing month. I am so happy for you and I am glad to see everything is working out well.
Congratulations. Your stats illustrate how monitoring your progress helps you meet your goals.
Wow, Crystal! It seems like once all your stats started to go up, the numbers have just been accelerating, too! Congrats!
Very inspirational. I really like your model of helping other blogs run their advertising and other blogging services. This is like a niche within a niche, and it’s pretty cool. Rock on!
I love how you have kept your expenses low! Reap the profits. Congrats
Your income updates are what keeps me going Crystal!
HIGH FIVES to you Crystal, so proud of you and inspired by what you’re doing!
CONGRATS! How have you been growing Twitter followers?
Congrats crystal! Keep up the hard work and you’ll be fine! ARe you excited for FinCON?
Congratulations! This is such an inspiration to those just starting out. Thanks for opening the books. Thanks for sharing how you have kept your expenses low. I hope you are enjoying self-employment!
Amazing month! Like someone mentioned above, I was curious how you grow your RSS subscribers. Continued success!
Thank you all so much!!! All of the congrats and good wishes push me on every day. Thank you.
@Glen, I’d love to run your advertising!
@Jenna and Buck, I grow my Twitter followers and RSS subscribers by reminding everybody about those options every Sunday I think. I don’t do anything else to promote them. Oh, and with Twitter, I follow everybody who follows me. I go down the list of new followers and hit the green button every few weeks. I don’t know how that helps, but it does.
@Jeff, I AM SO EXCITED!!! Now that I am a Plutus Award Nominee, I am even more excited!!! I really would love to receive an award like that in front of all the bloggers I absolutely adore…
@Full Disclosure, I love self-employment. This is my “thang”.
Another great month! I am SO happy for you!! Now the only thing is to get that ebook out and add in some passive income you will be unstoppable.
Fantastic work!
I was wondering what Plutus Awards were so I googled it. And guess what, there’s your name:
………….
…………..
Best Blog Contributor or Freelance Writer:
Emily Guy Birken
Khaleef Crumbley
Donna Freedman
Miranda Marquit
Crystal Stemberger
…………………
……………….
And then further down,
………………
………………
Best Lifestyle Blog:
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
Budgets Are Sexy
Man Vs. Debt
Untemplater
Wise Bread
Plutus Awards
Congratulations on the nominations.
Thought the hyperlink to Plutus Awards would work there. Since it didn’t show up, the Plutus Awards home page is: http://www.plutusawards.com/
@Suba, lol, nag, nag, nag.
You are very right of course. I really need to do some eBook writing…but it sounds like it’ll take forever and be a lot more work…blah…okay, fine.
@Mom, I AM SO EXCITED!!! I am doing a formal announcement on my blog (probably multiple times in the next couple of weeks) and in my newsletter.
It would be awesome to receive one of those awards in front of the bloggers I love at the Financial Blogger Conference 2011!!!
Yeah my husband calls me a nag too
And Crystal, it is awesome your mom reads your blog and comments. While she is voting for you, trick her to vote for me too 
I agree with the comments that you are an inspiration. I’m so very happy for you that you have been able to reach your goals (early even!). When my blog gets some decent traffic, I will for sure have you run my advertising.
Much respect,
Nanci Murdock
It’s really inspiring to read your stats and incomes updates every month. You’re doing awesome.
Congrats! Keep up the good work Crystal!
Great month once again! Congrats. I think this is totally sustainable and you will continue to beat your previous month’s income. Especially since I’ve heard that summer months are slow. As long as you keep putting in 100% you will get out 100%
Sweet stats! I love reading post like this.. its just fun
Anyways I think you should really start to aim higher! You’ll beat your Alexa and Traffic goals easily! As you continue to build your site should start to see explosive growth. Congrats again!
Crystal has started to run my advertising as well, and I can vouch for her! Congrats on all the success.
[...] #6 Budgeting In The Fun Stuff – $6797.70 [...]