Quick review since I know some of you only tune in for this monthly peek, lol. I started Budgeting in the Fun Stuff in February 2010, started Crystal-For-Hire Blog Advertising Services in April 2011, started working from home in July 2011, and Mr. BFS joined me at home in January 2012. WOOT!!! I have never worked harder in my life, but WOOT!!!
Yep, it’s been crazy busy here. Hubby and I need at least $8000 a month to cover expenses, basic savings, and taxes. But we are aiming for $15,000 a month so we can pay off our mortgage by June 2012, build up our emergency fund even more, and invest lots and lots for our future since I have no idea how long this can really last.
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.
Here the goals for January 2012 followed by the results:
- Alexa Ranking: 35,000 / 37,095
- Visits: 19,000 / 20,235
- Unique Visitors: 15,000 / 15,218
- Pageviews: 30,000 / 36,379
- RSS subscribers: 800 / 1004
- Twitter followers: 1250 / 1159
- Traffic breakdown: 7000 from Referring Sites (5785), 3000 from Direct Traffic (3314), 8000 from Search Engines (9962), 1000 from Other (1174)
- Blogging Income: $10,000 / $20,280.12
Monthly Income Breakdown
- Advertising on BFS: $3101.91
- Advertising on My Other Blogs: $1060.00
- Writing (Staff Writing and Freelancing): $175.00
- Blogging Services (Running advertising on other sites and freelance tasks): $15,943.21
I had $2301.08 in expenses as well which included $807.91 in Paypal fees, my basic expenses, and blog empire expansion. That came to 11.35% in expenses. If you’d like to see my exact blogging expenses breakdown for this month, check out How I Make Money Blogging. I have been attempting to keep them at 15% or less of my overall income. That said, my net profit this month before a third goes to taxes was $17,979.04. WHOO-HOO!!!
Goals for February:
- Alexa Ranking: 36,000
- Visits: 22,000
- Unique Visitors: 16,000
- Pageviews: 38,000
- RSS subscribers: 1050
- Twitter followers: 1250
- Traffic breakdown: 7000 from Referring Sites, 4000 from Direct Traffic, 10,000 from Search Engines, 1000 from Other
- Blogging Income: $15,000
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!!!
Keep up the great work Crystal! You truly are killing it.
You’re a huge inspiration. Even if you are just receiving the $4100 from your blogs, i would be impressed. Congrats on another great month.
WOOT indeed! That is amazing.
Completely agree with Funancials. Your marketing business aside, the income on advertising just from your own blogs is impressive. I know it is a little easier to place ads on your own sites when you have more contact with advertisers..but still, impressive!
I hope you keep soaring with your monetary goals (and that you keep getting great ad partners for my site, too – haha).
Wow you’re doing great!
Looks like the new year is starting off great for you two. You are doing a great job keeping up with ads, the blog and hopefully enjoying time with your husband now that you work together(that can be tough). Congrats on a great Jan!
Congrats!
How have your expenses and budget changed since Mr. BFS started working from home too?
Wow! Thats really great, you should be so proud of your hard work earning you so much! Keep up the good work! You’re an inspiration
It’s crazy. All these numbers. Wow.
Impressive! You are at a new stage in a small business. Keeping the income consistent is key now.
WTGo Crystal. WooooHooo.
congrats on another great month crystal!
this is amazing Crystal. congrats to you and hubby. curious however, how much time do you spend on your business overall in a given week / month?
Amazing! However, I am wondering why do you still keep your staff writing positions? It seems that the amount you make from it is quite irrelevant comapring to everything else?
WOAH! Congrats! Here’s to February being just as successful (even with two less days!)
Thank you for continuing to be so transparent with your finances. You are an inspiration to us all.
This is so informative! With people generally being a bit hush-hush about money, I love that you provide us with these details! Really helps give a sense of how it all goes down
THANKS
This is amazing to see. Glad to see the hard work is paying off!
Activity Breeds Productivity! Crystal is a perfect example of this.
Keep up the success, Crystal!
Fabulous Crystal! Am I reading this correctly that you think you blogging incmome will go down in February?
Thanks for sharing!
That’s awesome Crystal. In 2 months you’re made more than most people’s entire salary.
awesome!
Awesome job Crystal! You are such an inspiration
It is very nice to read about your success. Motivating to say the least. Congratulations on your hard work. Keep it going. Nice to see you are planning well.
Thanks for all of the support and kind words!!! Please know I receive and read every one of these comments in my main email, so you all made me smile alot yesterday. Now on to any questions…
@Courtney, our expenses have actually gone down a little thanks to very few toll roads now (he was taking them daily for his commute) and our gas prices dropped way low. We have gone a little nuts with food, but we are working on it.
@Sunil, before Mr. BFS started helping full time, my hours were creeping up to 70-90 per week…now it seems like I am back down to 50-60 per week and Mr. BFS is putting in 30-ish so far, but that is increasing as he learns.
@Aloysa, I have given up staff writing. But I still get paid for one or two ghost posts a month from an old contact. It’s easy money so I take it.
@Steve, I make a big chunk of change the last few days of any month, so yes, I think February will be a bad month. I really dislike that it is 2 days shorter.
@Marissa, I know! I made my entire annual salary of before in about 40 days…so weird, but awesome!
Again, thank you to everyone for the support!
HOLY COW! thats incredible! CONGRATULATIONS!
thanks for putting things in perspective Crystal. you work hard and the results are showing!
Have you thought about writing an e-book about how you are doing this?? or offering videos on ‘how I make money blogging’? You rock!
Absolutely fantastic! Congratulations!
Thanks for the good info. This is very useful to us. Keep going on.
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You are so cool.
Congratulations Crystal! I am learning about blogging now and your stats and sites have been incredibly useful. Thank you for sharing.
Great Numbers, congrats =))
Hey, best wishes from good old germany. Reading HIMMB too. Must say that you achieved really respecful numbers these days. Very interesting to read, and as Bryan said, inspiring for myself. So thank you an keep on rockin’
great stats and motivating one too… thanks for sharing this.. it really inspired me
goodluck with your goals! hope you make it this 2012, best of luck.
I can only echo other people’s comments that your blog is truly inspirational.
As traffic is the lifeblood of any site can I ask how you go about the SEO side of things as there’s very little if anything on your blog about how you get your traffic ?
Thanks
Hi,
Hi just stumbled to your site by “error”. So now you can say that are gaining visitors by error. I love the site: it is simple, no bells and whistle and all the junk they suggest you should have on a blog, yet you are making a nice income.
I played with a food bog for a year, until I realized that that will leave me hungry. I am starting a new blog and I have the following questions:
I saw that you are outsourcing social media. Are you outsourcing everything? like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn? If yes, are you outsourcing these to one person (organization) or divide them among different organizations?
How are the charges for these services? by the hour? by the project? and how much?
I am also seeking good writers. What can be considered reasonable fee for this service?
I’ll appreciate it very much if you will help me out by answering to the questions to the following e-mail address:
[email protected]
Best regards,
Jayne Georgette
@Jayne, Jesse Michelsen runs my Twitter, Facebook, and Stumble Upon accounts – I only answer direct messages to me. He also writes my weekly newsletter except for the Ask Crystal section and Crystal Shards section. I am about to hire my new blogger MIL, Charlotte at Out on the Veranda, to run my commenting for my other site, How I Make Money Blogging. Normally, everyone charges by the service. By the hour would be too hard to keep up with. I will send you my staff writer recommendations and a general idea of pricing to the email you listed.
@david, I built up my readership by guest posting all over the place and commenting on over 20 blogs a day for about a year. Now it’s word of mouth and through Google search.
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