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If you’re new to Finsavvy Panda blog, you may be wondering what this blog income is about and why I publish these reports.
I was skeptical about the idea of making money online and thought it sounded too good to be true but I kept an open mind and tried it out myself, which I’m very glad I did!
My blog income reports are a true reflection of the journey and progress of a brand new blogger, me, who started with no experience – you’ll know that I’m not lying or exaggerating when you read through my blogging archive. I’m a very emotional and highly sensitive person so I wrote things that truly reflect how I felt and what I did as a beginner.
UPDATE: As a brand new blogger, I started with $0 but with patience, I was able to make my first $100 blogging in a few months. After six months, I made my first $1,000 and within my first year of blogging, I exceeded my goal of earning $5,000 per month. Eventually, in my second year, I was able to earn over $100,000 a year with this small and personal blog, which really surprises me!
Quick story of how I earn a full-time income online with no experience
If you’re someone who feels trapped at a job you dislike or you’re unsure of what you want in life, then you and I have something in common.
I was very unhappy and I DREADED going to work every day. I did not want to see or interact with anyone and it was very hard to get through the day.
To make things worse, I’m an extremely introverted and quiet person who had to put on an extroverted mask at work just to not feel like an oddball, or in a worst-case scenario, get let go in times of a company restructuring because I didn’t “fit” in.
I hated my job so much (actually all the jobs I’ve ever had) to the point where I was desperate enough to save as much money as I could and look for different ways to earn a full-time income online.
Working another job for another company wasn’t going to solve the problem either because I knew that I wanted to work on my own terms without having to deal with gossip and political BS.
Just like you, I was looking for ways to earn extra cash so I could increase my savings and hopefully quit my job one day.
Within one year of starting this blog, I made it happen. I reached my goal of earning a full-time income as a full-time blogger from home and I left my job.
Whether you want to earn money from home as a stay-at-home mom, quit the job you hate, or just want to make extra on the side to help you pay off debt and increase your savings, I want to help you achieve your financial goals.
I’ll be honest. When I first started this blog, I was confused and didn’t know what my goal was.
I just thought of giving it a shot to see if I could earn an extra $100 to $500 a month. I was already working on other side hustles to distract me from going nuts at work. 🙂
That’s why I started this blog income report series to keep track of my blogging journey and to show you that earning a full-time income online from home is possible.
It’s my way to have fun testing, experimenting, and sharing live with you on what worked and what didn’t work.
I’m very happy with my blogging progress and I would love to help beginners like you!
How to start a profitable blog: Many readers e-mailed me and asked me what I did to get the results I get. To help you, I created this FREE 7-day e-mail course below that teaches you how to start your blog without having to be an expert at what you blog about. There has been a lot of positive feedback from many readers so I highly encourage you to sign up for my free course below if you want to learn how to start a blog and make money.
September Blog Income Report
Welcome to my September blog income report!
I want to start off by saying this:
For those of you who are making less than $1,000 or even close to $0, please don’t feel discouraged. I was in the exact same position as you not too long ago! Just keep at it and focus on learning because you won’t know when you’ll start seeing results. The secret to seeing results is not giving up!
Please head over to my July blog income report where I made $703.57. I will tell you that I was making ~$0 and struggling for over 6 months in my blogging journey! And to be very honest, I’m still struggling. Believe me, you just don’t see what happens behind the scenes.
I want this blog income report to be as real and authentic as possible. I’ve put in a lot of hours into this blog and most of those hours are spent tweaking older posts to see what affiliate marketing strategy works. That also includes making a lot of new pins for Pinterest using Canva so that I can promote them. Both my daily traffic and earnings have been extremely bipolar so I can’t predict what will happen next. For example, a lot of my affiliate earnings came in during the last week of September and that’s what drove my blog income to increase. This blogging journey has been a crazy roller coaster ride and I want you to be aware of that!
I’ve also been debating whether or not I should share my blog income reports because I am afraid of coming off as bragging or lying — or even both! I don’t want to come off as either because my sincere hope is to show others that it is possible to earn extra money on top of their full-time jobs. This includes helping stay-at-home parents who are seeking work from home jobs.
Before I started a blog, I was skeptical about the idea of working from home and making money online. But after seeing other bloggers’ income reports and testing it myself, I realized that it is possible!
Be realistic about your blog income results:
I remember saying exactly this in my first blog income report:
“I’m definitely not making a lot compared to other bloggers who are pulling in over $1,000 every month. But despite how little or much I make, I believe that everyone can learn from each other!”
For me to write this, it means that I was not expecting to make over $1,000 per month blogging.
I was shocked that I made $2,797.64 last month and now really shocked that I made $4,509.50 in September. As I said earlier, most of my affiliate earnings decided to come in at the last week. My goal was to maintain it or improve it by $100 to $200 because I still consider myself new to the blogging world.
If you’ve read my previous income reports (or my blog in general), you’ll know that I don’t set unrealistic expectations for myself.
I’m not a competitive person because competition and aggressiveness are too overwhelming and stressful for me. That’s not to say that competition is bad. Just that it doesn’t work well for my personality type. Overall, I’m more focused on learning at my own pace and comparing myself only to me and not others.
Learn from course instructors
I never compare my beginning to another blogger’s middle because that does more harm than good. Instead, I always tell my readers to be inspired and learn from them!
I started reading more into other bloggers’ income reports and invested in blogging resources for help and some clues.
I don’t know what to expect next month because blogging isn’t a walk in the park. To be honest, I am nervous and scared that I won’t be able to beat my August and September blog income results, but that doesn’t stop me from learning from other bloggers. 🙂
Related blog income posts that show you how to make money blogging:
- February Blog Income Report: $7,498.94
- January Blog Income Report: $6,790.93
- December Blog Income Report: $6,840.01
- November Blog Income Report: $5,532.13
- October Blog Income Report: How I Made $4,798.01 Blogging
- July Blog Income Report: How I Made $703.57 Blogging
- How To Make Money on Pinterest by Starting a Blog
If you like the idea of making an extra $1,000+ per month or even turning it into a full-time income, you can start your blog for cheap with my easy step-by-step tutorial. There’s also a low-pricing offer exclusive to through my tutorial when you sign up. On top of getting the low price deal, you’ll receive a free website domain name for the first year (a $15 value) when you purchase, at least, 12 months of blog hosting.
So many people asked me if you can making money blogging without going self-hosted. In other words, can you make money by signing up for a free blog.
I NEVER recommend you going towards the “free blogging” route. Instead, I always highly recommend investing in the basic hosting plan with Bluehost, which is exactly what I did as a brand new blogger, because 1) it’s very affordable to get started and 2) your blog will look more professional, welcoming and polished. Many blogging experts always emphasize that these factors will definitely help your blog make money!
Without further ado, let’s take a look at my blog income for September.
September Blog Income
In September, I earned $4,509.50. Please note that this is in Canadian dollars before any expenses or fees. Payouts occur 30-45 days.
Affiliate income – $2,719.60
- Money-saving resources (Checkout 51, OhmConnect, Ebates, $5 Meal Plan, survey companies, etc.) – $1,730.01
- Amazon – $65.11
- Blue Host – $225 USD ($288 CAD)
- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – $399.20 USD ($510.98 CAD)
- Pinterest ebook – $12.80 USD ($16.38 CAD)
- Tailwind – $15 USD (19.20 CAD)
- ebook sales – $70.25 USD ($89.92 CAD)
Total display advertising – $1,789.90
Mediavine – $1,398.36 USD (~$1,789.90 CAD)
Total blog income = $4,509.50
Blog Expenses:
I don’t have any blog expenses for this month.
I would like to invest the money I made back into this blog. It’s been on my mind but I was too focused on testing different affiliate marketing strategies and going through a few courses. That said, I didn’t have the time to look into ConvertKit nor the time to purchase a new blog theme. I will look into this once I find the time. It’s important to take things one step at a time without rushing!
Blog income after expenses = $4,509.50
Now that you know my blog income, let’s talk about what happened in September.
How I increased my blog income:
My blog income increased despite a traffic drop for this month. My traffic dipped from over 88,000 (71,415 sessions) in August to 84,225 (65,884 sessions) pageviews in September which I will discuss later.
So, how did my blog income increase from $2,797.64 in August to $4,509.50 in September?
1. Earnings in Affiliate Marketing
If you remember from my last month’s income report, I mentioned that I referred back to the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course and implemented some of the course strategies to my top-performing posts. Those posts continued to be my top-performing this month and that’s why my Awin earnings remained pretty consistent at $939.40 USD ($1,202.43 CAD) in September. For all the juicy details of how I increased my Awin earnings from $120 to over $1,000 per month, please head over to my August Blog Income Report.
Spoiler alert: my top performing posts are all related to saving money and personal finance! Not about blogging!
Similar to what I did last month, I continued to implement more affiliate marketing strategies and made tweaks to my older posts and promoted them on Pinterest.
For example, I’ve neglected a few of my budgeting and money-saving posts (which had no affiliate links) for the longest time but I finally spent some time to improve them. To be honest, I never really promoted those posts in the past. I went ahead and made a new pin and promoted it on Pinterest after making changes.
For this month, I’ll be paying closer attention to Michelle’s module, How I’ve Earned Over $300,000 From One Affiliate Product, so that I can implement her tips to my older posts that need some love!
One thing I’ve learned is that less is more! When I have some time, I will be removing some affiliate programs that haven’t been working for me so that I can focus my time and effort on only a few.
My overall blog income results
Before implementing affiliate marketing strategies to my blog, I was making between $20 to $50 in blog income each month.
When I learned about affiliate marketing, I was very intrigued by the idea! I seriously had no idea what affiliate marketing was but I was really eager to learn more about it.
For a couple of months, I was researching for a top-notch course for beginners and I had stumbled upon Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Initially, I was skeptical about the course but Michelle offers a 30-day money back guarantee so I took the plunge and enrolled.
I went from making $0 in affiliate marketing to $400-$500 USD consistently from April to July after implementing Michelle’s strategies.
And in August, I made over $1,500 USD in affiliate marketing. September was my highest affiliate earnings to date at over $2,000 USD!
UPDATE: Below is a screenshot of my blog income where affiliate marketing and display advertising are my only sources.
MY FREE GIFT TO YOU: If you decide to purchase this course using my link, send me an e-mail at [email protected] with a screenshot of your purchase and I’ll send you my Affiliate Marketing printable binder for FREE!
Many people have e-mailed me and told me that my binder has helped them organize their affiliate strategies to reach their blog income goals within 3 months of following Michelle’s strategies. 🙂
2. Ad Earnings
I became an official member of Mediavine on August 17th so you’ll see in my last blog income report that my ad earnings from Mediavine only covered the period from August 17th to August 30th.
Having that said, September is my first month where all of my ad earnings ($1,398.36 USD, ~$1,789.90 CAD) came from Mediavine!
Once you hit 25,000 monthly sessions (~30,000 monthly pageviews), you can immediately apply to Mediavine and improve your ad earnings significantly! I used to make on average $50 to $100 CAD per month under Google Adsense with roughly 15,000 to 24,000 pageviews. With Mediavine, you can increase your earnings by 3X to 5X (or more) given the same amount of pageviews!
On top of that, Mediavine provides exceptional customer service! They are there to help you optimize your ad earnings and are quick at responding to e-mails. The team has even mentioned that they will be there to assist me with my new blog theme to ensure a smooth transition!
Blog traffic results:
Blog traffic for September – 84,225 pageviews (65,884 sessions)
I want to first mention that my blog traffic was only 3,773 pageviews (1,059 sessions) back in November. Then I was always stuck at under 20,000 pageviews (~15,000 sessions) for over 8 months! 🙁
Great things happened after I spent my time learning how to use Pinterest along with joining Tailwind.
You can also learn how I get a lot of traffic on Pinterest with my blog post guide here.
My blog traffic in August was higher at over 88,000 pageviews (71,000 sessions). But to be honest, I’m extremely happy with 84,225 pageviews (65,884 sessions) for September!
I don’t mind at all that it fell slightly. If anything, I’m glad that it remained pretty consistent! Plus, I was still able to increase my blog income by over 60% despite the traffic dip! Having that said, I will be focusing on Michelle’s affiliate marketing strategies while trying to maintain a good amount of pageviews. I am eager to learn and test more of her strategies so that I can improve my conversions rather than focusing on pageviews.
Don’t get me wrong, having higher traffic is great (and you’ll need it) because that will provide you with more earning opportunities! But I’ve stumbled upon a few bloggers who are able to earn an amazing amount of income with less pageviews. I am really looking forward to learning from them!
For example, I stumbled upon a blog post and read how a woman who uses Pinterest to market her blog was able to earn over $1,000 per month from Amazon Affiliates with just 10,000 monthly page views! The post was truly amazing and inspiring!
How I increased my blog traffic significantly:
If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you’ll know that I was super depressed about my low traffic.
To put things into perspective, I went from 3,773 pageviews in November to over 80,000 monthly pageviews today (10 to 11 months later).
In the past: blog traffic for November
Here is how my monthly pageviews look after implementing Pinterest strategies onto my blog during the May-June period.
| Sessions | Pageviews | |
| Feb-18 | 6,643 | 9,333 |
| Mar-18 | 20,370 | 26,685 |
| Apr-18 | 18,956 | 24,573 |
| May-18 | 11,133 | 19,599 |
| Jun-18 | 13,325 | 17,307 |
| Jul-18 | 34,426 | 43,226 |
| Aug-18 | 71,415 | 88,536 |
| Sep-18 | 65,884 | 84,225 |
I know it’s discouraging to hear how other bloggers are able to generate 50,000 monthly pageviews within their first few months of blogging. I definitely wasn’t one of them! It took me over 8-9 months just to hit my first 40,000 monthly pageviews.
After learning as much as I could about Pinterest (you can check out my recommendations here) and signing up for Tailwind, everything just started falling into place (unexpectedly):
1. My traffic improved and I was able to apply to Mediavine which increased my ad earnings by over 300%!
2. A few companies reached out to me and asked whether I wanted to become their affiliate. These same companies rejected me or ignored me many months ago when I reached out to them!
3. More traffic gave me more opportunity to test and apply Michelle’s affiliate marketing strategies. This allowed me to see what works and what doesn’t work with my top-performing posts!
Before I let you go, I want to mention one thing that really helped me last month and you shouldn’t underestimate its power…
Focus and say no to everything else!
It’s tough to manage a blog when you have a full-time job. So, I really believe that focusing on ONE thing at a time goes a long way! For the last month, that meant focusing my efforts only on affiliate marketing strategies, making new pins and promoting them, along with learning some Google SEO strategies.
NOT obsessing over minor details on my blog, sending e-mails to my subscribers, looking for the best blog theme or the next best social share plugin, logging onto Facebook to see what’s new, making new freebies, or writing a new post every day. Though these are things I’d like to do with the blog, they weren’t my first priority given such little time. ONE step at a time!
I don’t want to bore you to tears so I will end it here.
Over to you — How has your blogging journey been? Do you share your blog income report? If you’re looking into starting a blog, don’t forget to sign up for my FREE 7-day course below where I provide you with epic and valuable information! 🙂
Enjoyed this post? Don’t forget to pin it and follow me on Pinterest! 🙂
Realistic posts like yours make starting the blogging journey seem doable! Not easy, but doable.
Thank you for sharing your most valuable tools so others may succeed. I’ve bookmarked, and will begin to apply to my journey.
Hi Risa,
I’m glad you find this helpful. It’s definitely doable as long as you stick to it and keep applying what you’ve learned. I’m really happy to hear that you’re ready to begin your journey! I am wishing you the best!
Just keep swimming like Dory 😀
Thanks Panda. Looking forward to your PM.
Just a quick question about re working older posts. Do you republish them with a new date or keep them with the original date?
Thanks!
Original date. I heard it’s not good for Google SEO to change the publish date. Not sure but I just keep it safe.
Congrats on your continued success!! These results are amazing.
As you know, I’ve been blogging a few months longer than you have and I’ve gotten nowhere near what you’ve accomplished. I’ve purchased Michelle’s course and I’ve purchased The She Approach Pinterest course and still my traffic and affiliate marketing numbers are in the toilet.
I’m just wondering when is a good time to quit this whole blogging business? I’ve been at it for over a year. Putting a lot of hours, publishing 2 times a week and learning as much as I can. Listening to podcasts on blogging almost everyday. And still I don’t see any results.
It’s like being on a diet and seeing zero results.
Not sure what else to do.
Thanks CJ!
Everyone’s approach will be different. I had a whole period where I didn’t even know what I was going to do. I kept making new pins, pinning and pinning over again — I know it’s really frustrating! But what I found most helpful was when I actually spent time digging my head and learning from PAID courses (re-reading and applying them which takes A LOT of time). I personally almost ignore all free information.
To be honest, I still struggle to keep my head above water because I’ll never know when my traffic from Pinterest plummets or even disappears.
I just took a quick look at your Pinterest profile and there are areas you could improve on. I’ll PM you this weekend about them because it’s too long to type here.
By the way, you don’t need to publish that many new posts every week. I have a feeling you have TONS of content by now. You can definitely try spending time making more and different pins and promoting them on Pinterest and Tailwind — hit the right keywords and long-tail keywords that people actually search for.
20% (or even less) writing. 80% (or even more) promoting, learning and tweaking older blog posts to see what works. You will likely find that there are only a few EVERGREEN posts that will give you the most traffic and it may help when you spend your time promoting and maintaining those.
To put things into perspective, I have probably a total of 60 blog posts published by now, but only 3-5 (maybe even less) are driving almost all of my traffic…most of the other ones are pretty much dead in the grave.
I’d love to encourage you to keep going! You will never know when you start seeing results kicking in!
Loved reading your post and really appreciate all the details you went through! Very encouraging as I am on a similar journey, started out at zero traffic. But I already landed my first affiliate sale only a month in because I focused on it, just like you did. Keep going strong! Thank you 🙂
Wow for cool Ms. Panda! You are rocking it!!! Pretty soon you will be parting ways with the day job and focusing all of your time to blogging. 🙂 All the best to you!
Thanks Mrs. DS!
I miss having you and Mr. DS around! I really hope all is doing well for you two!
And no, I am not thinking about parting ways with the day job. I am just doing whatever I can to learn, and not letting the job affect me. Thanks for stopping by!
I really hope you two come back to blogging when you are free!
Wow, FSP…that MediaVine income is looking pretty sweet! I have been focusing so much on pageviews and neglecting affiliate marketing; now that I have my MV application in (wish me luck) I am going to start working on my affiliates more. I actually wasn’t able to finish this all at once (kids), so I am pinning for later. I love reading your reports because you are so thorough…and the actual screenshots are great too!
Thanks Marissa!
Congrats on hitting over 25k sessions and applying to Mediavine! I am sure you won’t need luck. Your results are amazing for a new blog. There was no way I was near your results when I first started so you’re doing really well — congrats on that too!
Yes, affiliate marketing can be so powerful when used correctly. I’m still learning and I KNOW that I’m making a ton of mistakes. There are A LOT of blog posts I need to change and tweak because they’re not using proper strategies and they’re just REALLY BAD, but we all learn as we go 🙂
I am looking forward to learning from you too. Your writing style is amazing. I just love how you write – it’s so far from boring!!!!
This is amazing and inspiring Panda. So excited after seeing your progress. Time to take action. I have just started with Pinterest a few weeks back. Following the pinterest e-book you recommended.
Hi Sundar!
Thanks for your comment!
I really hope the Pinterest e-book helps you! I had some bloggers tell me that they are seeing progress so I am really glad to hear that. For me, it took about 2-3 months to see improvements.
Keep it up and just remember to not give up! 🙂
Hey ling, I’m glad to know about your journey. I could relate to you on a much deeper level as I’m too of an hardcore introvert. I started my blog after graduation in 2019,and I’m still making under 100 dollars a month. I wasn’t focussed at all, but now, after reading your post, I’m encouraged to work even more harder. Thanks for the transparency you showed in this blog post
Hi Palash!
I’m excited to hear that you are motivated and ready to focus on your blog again!! 🙂
Let me know how it all goes. I look forward to seeing your reach your goals! You can do this! 😊
Oh wow Panda!! Your monthly income reports keep getting better especially these last few months. Very inspirational to read and know that once you have a commitment to achieve your goals then it can happen. The traffic you have on the blog has really jumped a lot within these last 2-3 months. So nice to see that!
I’ve had Tailwind for three months now and I really love the convenience to scheduling posts and not worrying to doing them manually.
Thanks Kris!
Thanks for your kind words! I am going to have to keep pushing through regardless of any drop in traffic or earnings going forward. I’m really curious to learn how bloggers convert with very little traffic!
As for Tailwind, yes, it’s been less frustrating to have to pin manually but I still pin manually once a week or so because it feels really odd for me to not do any of it by hand lol.
These blog income reports are seriously so helpful and hopeful as a newbie blogger! Thank you so much =) I’m excited to see my blog grow and it’s good to hear from someone at the beginning of the journey who is doing so well now!
Hi Jacqueline!
I’m glad to hear that you find them helpful! I have to admit that I feel like I’m having trouble maintaining what I have now, but despite the downs, I will still try my best and keep going! I am wishing you the best on your blogging journey! Just remember to keep going despite the roadblocks 🙂
Great job Panda! Very inspiring and motivating:)
I know Tom also has increased his traffic drastically with the Pinterest book.
My traffic is the way yours used to be but at least I know there is hope.
Thanks for the detailed breakdown too.
To the next Michelle!:)
Hi Caroline.
I’m so happy to hear that Tom is seeing results with the Pinterest book! That is great news!
And yes, there is always hope. You just need to believe it’s possible!
And no, definitely NOT next Michelle. There’s so much to learn and TBH, I’m still facing a lot of struggles and challenges myself (I hope readers know that).
I try to write in a way to let people know that I find blogging is difficult too (they including you are not alone). Just trying my best to keep my head above water too!!!
This is so inspirational! Thank you for sharing these with us. They keep me focused on my journey. I’m just starting my journey. How many posts should I have on my blog before I start promoting and monetizing? I’m hoping to launch my blog on the 14th of October. Also, if you only had to get one, would you get the she approach pinterest book or Carlys pinterest strategy book? Thank you for your inspiration. Sarah
Hi Sarah.
I’m glad you find this inspirational!
Yes, definitely only focus on YOUR journey.
I’ve read from some bloggers that they have at least 5-10 posts ready so that readers can navigate around and not leave your site too soon.
When I launched my blog, I had written and published my posts one by one (never though of signing up for Pinterest or any social media yet bc I was nervous of sharing to the world). I was also just writing to get familiar with WordPress and trying to navigate around the system. By that time, I think I already had at least 5-7 posts.
It took me about 2-3 months before signing up for Pinterest and to finally “start blogging” which I think I dragged on too long just because I was still iffy and nervous about starting a blog and going public, lol.
But I’d say at least 5-10 is a good start!
I would definitely recommend Making Pinterest Possible for beginners and new bloggers because it’s jam packed with LOADS of info about Pinterest from the beginning to end. Perfect for beginners!
Carly’s book is really great too but I’d say it’s more for intermediary bloggers who are already familiar with Pinterest and looking for a good manual pinning strategy. I took it as a beginner but I wish I took a Pinterest for dummies book BEFORE taking Carly’s!
Both are really helpful resources, but in your case, I’d say go for Making Pinterest Possible.
I hope this helps!