How I Made $9,349.60 In January 2019 Blogging

Eekkk!! Welcome to my January blogging income report...it's my most exciting one yet!

Every month (well almost...some months I am better at writing these than others) I share how much money I have made through my blog.

Why? Because it's pretty dang impressive that in just over a year I have been able to turn this website into a business that brings me thousands of dollars a month AND that I can do it around my full-time college schedule.

Seriously, all college students should start a blog. It's the best thing I have ever done.

For those of you that are new to By Sophia Lee, I start off every income report telling you a little about myself.

If you don't know much about me, I am a junior in college studying interior architecture. I've had this website since I was 17 but basically restarted the whole website in September 2017 (sophomore in college) in hopes to generate an income from it.

I am completely paying for college on my own and knew I needed to find something that made me money and would work around my college schedule (that changes every semester and stays with me when I live at home during the summer/winter break). Let's just say, it was nearly impossible.

I stumbled upon a blog that posted income reports where the blogger was making over $100,000 A MONTH from her website. Like what?!

I knew I wanted to start a website of my own that would make me money, so that's what I did. I ditched my old blog and created a new one in September 2017.

In just a year, I have increased my income to make $9,349.60 in ONE month while being a full-time student and having a social life.

After semi-figuring out this blogging world and all it entails, I am here to tell you that ANYONE can start and be successful with a blog. It is not hard to do.

However, it took and still takes a lot of work. If you're a hard worker, you can get the same exact results as me.

It took me about 5 months after starting my blog to earn consistent money and those months were really hard.

 I was constantly overwhelmed and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I was so desperate to make it work that I continued to Google everything and anything about blogging.

Once that first $100 dollars hit my bank account, I knew that all the hard work I had been putting in was going to pay off.

Little did I know a year later, I would be making more in one month than I EVER had in a year!

Here are some of my previous income reports:

• How I Made $3,168.17 In October 2018 Blogging
• How I Made $2,149.98 In August 2018 Blogging
• How I Made $788.88 In July 2018 Blogging

By Sophia Lee Income & Traffic Report:

The screenshot below is the exact money deposited into my account (with all the important info blocked off ). Some companies deposit into Paypal and then I transfer into my personal bank account.

Affiliate Income: $5,846.48 total

• Amazon Associates: $3,433.20
• Bluehost (check out my tutorial on how to start a blog): $75.00
• ShopStyle Inc: $60.21
• Shareasale: $69.92
• 17th Avenue Designs: $11.80

Display Advertising (through Mediavine): $5,699.47

Total Income: $9,349.60

My blogging expenses are very small right now and most of them are paid for annually. The only monthly expense I have is Convertkit (email provider) which costs me $49.00 a month. I just started using Convertkit in December and it was a huge decision because of the cost. To make money you gotta spend money!

These expenses come up once a year but I do set aside money for them monthly to prepare for when I have to buy them:

• Bluehost - hosting company I started with!
• Tailwind - the best Pinterest scheduler EVER and how I manage to survive blogging while being a full-time student (they actually gave me a free month to give my readers with this link)

If you haven't started a blog, this blog post will show you the exact way I started and designed my blog (it takes less than 30 minutes).

So, how did I do it?!

The first half of January I spent doing literally nothing for my website and the second half was spent blogging 24/7.

My hometown friends were back from college until January 14th (ish) and I really wanted to spend as much time with them as I could before they left. The nice thing about blogging is that it is almost all passive income so I was still earning money everyday even though I wasn't working.

My college didn't start until January 28th so I spent the rest of January working my butt off to make up for my non-working winter break AND preparing for my crazy school schedule to start once again.

I am trying to ONLY do things that increase my income. 

Here's what I've been focusing on:

• Content Creation 
• Weekly Emails/Opt-Ins
• Products

If you need help getting traffic from Pinterest, I recommend doing the following:

• Buy this course which taught me everything about Pinterest (You can read about it more on my recommendations page)

If you haven't started a blog, this blog post will show you the exact way I started and designed my blog (it takes less than 30 minutes).

Breakdown of what I am doing for my weekly emails/opt-ins:

I have been spending sooo much time making my email list something that actually brings value to my subscribers.

All the biggest bloggers that I look up to say that your email list is the most important part of your blog. After a year, I have finally decided to listen.

Since I just started focusing on email, I am still in the test phase of what I am sending them.

Here's what I have been doing so far:

• Sending weekly emails that are jam-packed with information you can't find on my blog
• Making a video of me talking about the email (youtube style...so they can see what I look like and honestly I prefer talking to them then writing haha)
• Making really valuable opt-ins so my readers want to join my email list.

As of today, I have 2,493 subscribers. By the end of February, my goal is to have 3,700 subscribers.

Breakdown of what I am doing for products:

This is my big project for February and March. I know exactly the products I am making I just have to get started.

If you read my blog, you know I am an organization FREAK! I have created so many blogging organization tools for myself that I carry in a big blue binder (seriously, you can't find me anywhere without this binder). 

It has anything I have ever needed blogging and the only way I've been able to manage blogging and full-time school. Since I already have the sheets created for myself, I just need to put it together in a cute way that my readers can easily download. 

I have something up my sleeve for my college readers as well but I'll announce that one later ;).

Let's Talk About This $9,000 Dollars:

Honestly, the fact that I was able to make $9,000 in one month from my blog is CRAZY! I can't even believe it.

Do I think I will be able to make this much from my blog every month? No. 

Here's what I have learned so far blogging this year. Some months I will make a lot of money and some months I won't make as much. I am basically working on "commission".

Here's how I think my income will go this year: 

BTW, all money I make from blogging gets deposited into my bank account three months after I make it. So, I technically made this $9,000 in October and just got it deposited into my bank account this month (January). I chose for my blog that I only want to tell you guys about income I've earned that has actually been deposited into my bank account.

January: Very high income (at least $12,000 earned that month)

February and March: $4,000 in February and at least $6,000 in March

April and May: Lowest income months of the year (hoping to make at least $2,000 per month) 

June:  Starts to get a little better (would be really happy making $2,500)

July-November: Very high income (goal is to hit at least $5,000 per month with two months hitting at least $15,000 per MONTH!)

December: Not as high as July-November but still decently high (maybe $3,000 earned this month)

If all goes as planned, that would have me making nearly $80,000 in one year. AS A FULL-TIME COLLEGE STUDENT (taking 18 credits per semester).

Just last year I was nannying and only making $300 dollars a month. Even my low blogging income months are more than I could have imagined!! 

My Goals For February:

• Get 9 blog posts published and marketed
• Get 3,700 email subscribers (at 2,493 subscribers on 1/28/2019)
• Grow Pinterest to 8,000 followers (at 7,385 on 1/28/2019)
• Create a product

I hope you enjoyed January's income report!