October on The Travel Hack – My monthly blogging income report

I follow lots of bloggers who write monthly income reports for their blogs and I love seeing them. It’s partly nosiness but partly a great chance to learn from others and see where their blogging income is coming from. Blogging is so new and we all work so differently, but it’s really interesting to see how many people are making big bucks from what started as an online hobby.

It all started about 7-8 years ago where we were all making it up as we went along, making money where we could, but mostly just being happy to earn enough to cover our blogging expenses. And then ‘influencer marketing’ became a thing and suddenly everyone realised there was money to be made here and blogging went from a passionate hobby to an online business.

There are days when I still feel like I’m making things up as I go along, but most days I try to stick to a strategy I know works for me.

I love reading these monthly blogger income reports so I thought it was finally time to start my own!

From a blogger’s point of view, a monthly income report is a great way to stay accountable. This is one of the problems with blogging; when you have no one to answer to and no one asking the big questions like, ‘how much did you earn this month and what are you doing to improve?’ it can be really easy to bury your head in the sand and pretend you don’t need to worry about it.

I go through phases with tracking my blogging income. For a few months I track every single penny that comes in and out of my bank account. And then for the next few months I’ll barely even check my bank balance and have no idea how much I’ve earned.

So, for me, this is a way to really keep on top of my incomings and outgoings and make plans to improve.

But I also have another reason for wanting to track my blogging income.

You see, a lot of the bloggers who write income reports are at one end of the scale or the other. For example, I love seeing Michelle’s income reports on Making Sense of Cents. She regularly makes over $100,000 a month through her blog and it’s so inspiring to see how well she’s doing. And then I see a lot of new bloggers and they write an income report to prove how quickly you can start earning from your blog, even if it is just $200 a month.

Both of these income report styles are really interesting and inspiring, not matter what stage you’re at in your blogging journey. But one thing I don’t see a lot of is blogger income reports from bloggers who make more of a ‘normal’ wage. Of course, I know ‘normal’ isn’t a great term when it comes to wages, but I’m talking an average UK salary. I’m earning a bit more than the average UK salary through my blog, but I’m definitely nowhere near those six-figure months Michelle reports! I just really want to show people that it really is possible to earn a decent wage from a blog!

And the third and final reason why I want to show my income is because when I tell people that Sam both work part-time, I think they assume we have an ENORMOUS income. Their first reaction is, ‘Wow, you must be doing really well!’ And I am doing well, I’m not denying that, but I’m not making crazy crazy amounts. We just live within our means. Some months that means we’re splashing the cash and other months we’re being really frugal! You don’t need to have loads of money to cut back on how much you work, you just need to cut back on how much you spend!

Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, I’ve started on an unusually good month for my blogging income so this month isn’t a great example of how you can work part time on a modest income!

I won’t be sharing my blogger income reports here on The Travel Hack. Come on, I’m still British and talking about my income is still really weird and feels way too public to put it right out there on the internet. But I will be sharing my monthly blogging income in my blogging newsletter.

I now have two newsletters (just to confuse you!) One is for all things travel related but this one is more for bloggers and is where I’ll be talking about blogging, sharing blogging tips and my e-course more.

So if you’re interested in the blogging newsletter, sign up here or with the form below and you’ll get my blogging income report and monthly blogging tips straight to your inbox.