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$32,474 in April – My Monthly Online Income Report

Last Updated: November 6, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 122 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

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Find out how I made over $30,000 in one month blogging!

Welcome to April’s online income report where I show you how I make money online. It’s time to look at this month’s update and track how I did.

If you are new here, you might be wondering why I would want to publish my online income reports each month. If you are not new here, you can just skip to the next section 🙂

This all started out as my side income report because in the beginning it was all about the money I was earning from my side jobs. In my side income reports from the beginning, I included all of the income I made except for what I made at my day job (that was a fixed amount and boring anyways).

However, I left my day job as a financial analyst towards the end of 2013 and now my monthly income reports consist of the several different ways I bring in an income each month.

Many people have asked why I would ever want to publicly post my income each month. Some think I’m crazy, and some are glad I am open about what I’m doing. Whatever you think, I enjoy publishing my monthly online income reports and I share them publicly for three main reasons:

  • Before I started blogging, I knew nothing about side hustling and making money online. I didn’t think side jobs were worth the effort, and I thought the only way to significantly increase your income was through raises and promotions at your full-time job. If it weren’t for others publishing their monthly income reports each month, I don’t know if I would have ever tried side hustling. This is why I like to publish my income reports. I want to help others see the positives in side hustling and how it can change a person’s life. There are many different ways to make money online, and I like to share my story each month to help motivate others to improve their financial situation by making more money.
  • Secondly, I like to publish my income reports because it’s a way for me to look back, learn from my mistakes and see what areas need improvement. It’s also entertaining to go back to older income updates and read about the interesting things I did to make money. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?
  • Lastly, I like to show others that making side money is possible, and that there are many legitimate ways to make money from your home. If you are looking for information on the many ways to make money online, I published the article Monthly Income Report Roundup – My Favorite Income Bloggers that showcases many awesome bloggers who are kind enough to share their income with the public each month. Just a few years ago, I didn’t think making money online was possible at all. Now, I realize that it is possible!

I know I say this every month, but it is the truth. Life is great now that I’m my own boss. I look forward to each and every work day and it is an amazing thing. Work and life balance is a real thing for me now and I truly love waking up each morning.

Above is exactly why I enjoy publishing my monthly income reports. I like to show others that you don’t have to hate your job and hate your life. You can make changes to your life and make money in a way that allows you to truly enjoy the life you are living. I’m not saying that you have to LOVE your job, I’m just saying that your job should at least allow you to do what you like to do outside of work (whether that be spending time with loved ones, painting, hiking, etc.).

Also, if you have any questions about making money online, you can always send me an email and I always reply back. If I haven’t covered something in this income report, I highly suggest you check out my other reports as well because I have covered A LOT of topics, including reader questions I have received. I am unable to put everything in this single post because this would then become one messy whale of a post.

 

How was my online income in April?

April was a great online income month for me and it was by far my best month ever. This was mainly due to the fact that I sold two more websites of mine and I was able to generate a nice profit from them.

I also had a great month for affiliate income, I worked ahead a decent amount, and more. April was a great month and I really enjoyed working on my online business.

I’ve always been excited about what I do, but I am more excited than ever for the future. I have so many plans and everything is going very well.

Anyway, in April I made $34,174 in business income, before expenses.

If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.49 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free blog domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting. FYI, you want to be self-hosted. This is essential if you want to monetize your blog as you will appear more professional and this will help you monetize your blog tremendously. 

Related articles:

  • How To Make Money Blogging
  • How I Make Working From Home Work For Me
  • How To Become Financially Stable and Keep The Job You Love
  • Becoming a Work-Life Balancing Master

 

April Income

The number above is for the month of April and before any fees and expenses (some fees and expenses that lower the amount above total around $1,700, which includes virtual assistants/staff writers for my other websites, technical assistance on my websites, PayPal fees, etc., however, this does not include taxes) being taken out. After expenses and fees, I made approximately $32,474. 

Below are some of my other monthly side income reports. I publish an online income update every month but only included some of them below as it would be a very long list. If you head on over to my extra income page you can find all of my monthly income reports from the past few years.

  • $672 extra in May (2012)
  • $1,425 extra in July
  • $6,523 in January Extra Income (2013)
  • $11,927 in October Income – I Finally Left My Job
  • $12,640 in January Income (2014)
  • $23,758 in February Income – My Monthly Online Income Report (2015)
  • $15,151 in March – My Monthly Online Income Report Plus Traffic Stats

 

Blog news.

Ever since selling three of my websites, I’ve been able to use my time much more wisely. It’s nice to be able to focus on what is especially important to me (such as Making Sense of Cents) and brainstorm new ideas for my main blog.

I still need to go through many, many of my posts here on Making Sense of Cents and fix the formatting, change the pictures to Pinterest-worthy images, and more. I have probably only done 15% of my posts so that means I still have a lot more to go! I actually didn’t work towards any of this in April as I forgot, so I plan on adding this to my to-do list so that I won’t forget this time around.

Top new posts on Making Sense of Cents last month:

  • Important Money Lessons My Dad Taught Me – Money Doesn’t Have To Make Your Life Miserable
  • Are You Frugal, Cheap, Or A Thief?
  • 5 Tips To Stop Your Emotional Spending Habit
  • A Complete Guide To Renting A Room For Extra Money
  • Do You Need A Budget?
  • Beginner’s Guide To Earning Passive Income
  • How To Change Your Life And Live Your Dream Today
  • Life Without Cable – Start Saving More Money Today

 

I sold two more websites.

In April, I sold two more websites making for a total of three that I have now sold this year. This will most likely be my last big jump in income as I don’t plan on selling any of the other websites I own.

I am a little sad though because I did sell one of my favorite websites that I own. I decided to sell DiversifiedFinances.com because my heart was just in Making Sense of Cents more and I wasn’t spending the amount of time needed on Diversified Finances. Even though I will miss it, I still believe this was a good decision.

As I mentioned a few months ago, I decided to sell start selling some of my websites so that I can spend more time on Making Sense of Cents. I have many plans for Making Sense of Cents, and owning all of these websites on the side was not exactly at the top of my to-do list. I was being lazy with the other sites and my heart was not in them.

I believe this is the right step for my business.

However, this might mean lower income in future months because I did earn a little bit of income each month from these three websites. I’m hoping to make up for it since I will be devoting more time to Making Sense of Cents, which will hopefully lead to me seeing an increase here.

Like I said above, this is not a normal jump. However, it is nice to know that I was able to flip these three websites for a good profit.

If any of you have questions about selling a website, you can leave them below and I will try to answer your questions as best as I can.

 

My plans for my website, online income, and making money online:

  • Create a product to sell – I am 99% positive I want to create an ebook. I have multiple ideas and right now I am trying to figure out what direction to take.
  • Promote more – Pinterest alone brought around 56,000 clicks to my blog just in the month of April. I have been stuck at this level, but I’m still happy. Just a few months ago I was only receiving a few hundred visits a month from Pinterest, so this is a big jump.
  • Accept more interviews. – I wasn’t too active with interviews in April. I plan on changing this in May!
  • Stop being shy – This is one of my goals for 2015. I am such a shy person, and it’s something I need to work on if I want to grow my business.

 

Staff writing, blog, and social media management.

In April, I worked on a few staff writing jobs.

Blog and social media management is still a service I enjoy providing to my clients. I did lose one client last month because they sold their website to someone else and that company already had a designated manager for all of their websites.

Other than that though, I am trying to focus more on what is currently on my plate so I am no longer actively looking for new website management or staff writing clients.

My goal right now is to further grow the sites I currently manage and own, spend more time on my blog/website coaching service, and grow my income here so that I can be more of my own boss. This will mean that I will be less diversified as most of my income will be coming from this website and related services, but I do think this is what I am truly after with my business.

Related articles:

  • How To Become a Virtual Assistant
  • What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?

 

Affiliate income.

April was another amazing month for affiliate income. I earned around $12,000 in affiliate income just in the month of April.

I still cannot believe how quickly affiliate income has grown for me and I can’t believe I waited until recently to become more active with it.

I won’t see the payments until June and/or July for most of my affiliate payments, so you won’t see those amounts reflected in my monthly income reports until then.

 

April Chart

Breakout of the actual payments I received in April ($34,174, before expenses):

  • Staff writing – $750
  • Managing websites and social media for clients, as well as blog coaching- $2,839
  • Website-related (From the 3 websites I own – advertising and partnerships) – $5,235
  • Affiliate income (from Bluehost, Republic Wireless, etc) – $6,350
  • Sale of two websites – $19,000
  • Selling items from our home – $0
  • Miscellaneous (not related to blogging and online income) – $0
  • Mystery shopping – $0

April Monthly Online Income ReportOne question I am asked nearly every time I publish my monthly online income report is whether or not I can further break down my income. I have never fully broken everything down line by line, and I do this mainly to protect myself and those I provide services to.

Keep in mind that for a long time, a majority of my income came from private clients I worked for so sharing their name and what they paid me wouldn’t be the correct way to run a business. It also wouldn’t help you much either, so there wouldn’t be a point for me just to share someone’s name.

Don’t worry though. I plan on breaking apart my income fully either next month or the month after. Being so open about everything does scare me a little, so I am trying to think about what the best way is to share my income without jeopardizing my business.

Stay tuned!

Also, when you see my monthly income each month please keep in mind that I work for myself. This means I have to cover taxes (which are over 30%), health insurance, and all other benefits/expenses that an employer might provide.

 

Comparisons and 2015 online income total (but before taxes):

  • Total extra income for April: $34,174
  • Income in March: $15,151
  • Difference: +$19,023
  • Total in 2015: $88,479

How did you do in April? What are your extra/business/online income goals? Why do you work towards making extra money?

 

If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.49 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free blog domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting. FYI, you want to be self-hosted. This is essential if you want to monetize your blog as you will appear more professional and this will help you monetize your blog tremendously. 

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122 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Business Income Tagged With: Blog, Extra Money, Self-employment

About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  1. Gen Y Finance Guy says

    May 11, 2015 at 8:55 am

    Hi Michelle,

    How have you gained followers on pinterest? I see from your profile that you have 3,600 followers. Do you have any tips for the rest of us bloggers besides the photos with the interesting text?

    Cheers!

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      May 11, 2015 at 12:47 pm

      Hello!

      Pinning relevant content from other blogs is key as well. That’s pretty much all I’ve done though in order to gain followers.

      Reply
  2. Allison @ Frugal on the Prairie says

    May 12, 2015 at 11:58 am

    I know I’m commenting again but you mentioned that other people post their income reports. Who are your favorites to read? I love reading yours and would also like to look at others. They’re so inspirational! Thanks, Michelle! 🙂

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      May 12, 2015 at 12:59 pm

      This post should help you out! 🙂 https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/2014/11/monthly-income-report-roundup-my-favorite-income-bloggers.html

      Reply
  3. Ellen Oliveira says

    May 14, 2015 at 11:57 am

    Thanks for sharing this. I’ve been blogging for a little over a year, and I haven’t managed to make any money out of it. But I’ve been reading a lot of your posts. Hopefully I will break through. I do have a question… Can you share the links to the websites you’ve sold? what are they about? Thanks

    Reply
  4. Lauren says

    May 26, 2015 at 9:57 am

    That’s amazing! You are truly an inspiration. I’m a hustler at heart, and feel best when I have my hands in multiple projects.

    Reply
  5. Kashif says

    May 30, 2015 at 6:18 am

    Nice and detailed report. Sorry TL;DR 🙂

    I was wondering what site / system you use to sell your websites? I have few web properties that I would like to float in the market.

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      May 31, 2015 at 12:30 pm

      I just went directly through the buyer and we used Escrow.com.

      Reply
  6. Melanie says

    May 31, 2015 at 12:09 pm

    Hello Michelle!

    I am reading through your blog for hours and I am amazed 🙂 It’s unbelieveable and truly admirable what you achieved. I am a journalist/writer in Austria and I am thinking of starting my own blog – not for hobby but as a profession. Reading your articles gave me a lot of new motivation and useful information, but on the other hand a lot of questions came up too. As mentioned, I am a writer for about 15 years and I worked for almost every print-format you can imagine. During the last years I also started to write for blogs, websites and other online-portals. So, writing isn’t the problem. But I don’t have any experience with running my own blog and I don’t have an idea, what I have to do, to earn money with it. Something I noticed in your income report was that you actually earned more money with managing websites, social media for clients and affiliate income than with just (staff) writing. And that’s exactly my problem – I really don’t have a clue, how to generate affiliate income or how to improve my skills to be able to offer a service for others to manage their websites or blogs. So, I just thought I’d give it a shot and ask you…. Maybe you’d like to answer me or help me, if you have time for it. I would be very, very thankful since I really want to go the whole hog this time. All the best from Austria 🙂

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      May 31, 2015 at 12:29 pm

      Hello!

      Sounds like you should start a blog 🙂

      Have you read this post – https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/2013/04/how-to-make-money-blogging.html?

      Reply
      • Melanie says

        May 31, 2015 at 12:49 pm

        Hi 🙂

        And thanks for your fast reply! 🙂 I have read this post. But I will go into it again since I saw that i missed clicking on some links…. And I am pretty sure I will find the answers to my questions there. And if not, I am afraid, I will bother you again. I can’t think of a time I was as motivated of a starting my own thing as I am now – and I don’t want to let the chance passing by 🙂

        All the best from Austria 🙂

        Reply
  7. Joseph Miller says

    June 4, 2015 at 10:04 am

    Very nice advice. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  8. Lara says

    June 9, 2015 at 12:17 pm

    This is so inspiring! Thank you for posting. I’ve only had my blog for a little under a year and finally started to monetize it. I think I might start keeping a personal income report and hopefully when I start making $$$ I’ll but it on my blog.

    Reply
  9. Mr. Enchumbao says

    July 28, 2015 at 2:14 pm

    Hi, your numbers are very impressive. Congratulations.

    Reply
  10. Jake says

    April 28, 2017 at 10:41 am

    I know this is an old post, I’m hoping you still reply to comments on it 🙂 Just curious, how did you sell your blogs? Did you use a service or website to advertise the sale (like flippa for instance), or did you just have someone contact you directly interested in buying it? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      April 28, 2017 at 12:13 pm

      Someone contacted me directly.

      Reply
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My name is Michelle and I'm the author/owner of Making Sense of Cents. Learning how to save money and make more money changed my life. It allowed me to pay off $40,000 in student loans, start my own business, and I now travel full-time.
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