How I Made $1,536,732 In 2017 – My December Online Income Report and Annual Wrap Up

Welcome to December 2017's business income report where I show you how I made money online last month. It's time to look at this month's update and see how I did.

If you're new to Making Sense of Cents, you may be wondering why I would want to publish my income report each month. You can simply skip to the next section if you're not new here.

This all started out as my extra 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.

However, I left my day job as a financial analyst in October of 2013 and now my monthly income reports consist of the many ways I earn a living.

Many have asked why I would ever want to publicly post my income each month. Some think I'm crazy, whereas some are glad I'm 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:

1. 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 at your full-time job. If it weren't for others publishing their monthly income reports, I don't know if I would have ever tried side hustling. I want to help show others 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.
2. Secondly, I like to publish my income reports because it's a way for me to look back, learn from my mistakes and actually see what areas need improvement. I use my monthly income reports as a way to track how I've done and I treat it sort of like a journal.
3. 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 that showcases many successful bloggers who are kind enough to share their income with the public each month.

I know I say this every month, but it's the truth. Life is great now that I'm my own boss and a full-time blogger. I look forward to each and every day and it's a wonderful feeling. I truly love waking up every single morning.

Above are just a few of the reasons for 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.).

2017 Business Year In Review

Before we begin with my monthly business income update, I want to start off with my 2017 wrap up. 2017 was a great year for many reasons and you will read why below.

Two posts that I definitely recommend reading before we begin are:

• How I Successfully Built A $1,000,000+ Blog
• How I’ve Earned $434,698+ From One Online Course

2017 was a huge year for me and my business. Business income grew significantly:

• In 2013, my business income totaled $116,519.
• In 2014, it totaled $163,929.
• In 2015, I made $320,888.
• In 2016, I made $979,321.

In 2017, I earned $1,536,732!

As you can see, I made a huge leap over 2016's income and even beat my annual income goal. Not only that, I also traveled full-time (including a fun sailing trip around the British Virgin Islands!), went on a ton of hikes and bike rides, and more. It was a great year where I finally started to manage a good work-life balance.

I attribute a lot of my business success in 2017 to several specific actions I took.

1. I grew my email list. As you probably all have been experiencing, you can't really count on social media such as Facebook and Pinterest for 100% of your traffic. I highly recommend spending time on your email list as that is YOUR list and it's not impacted by any algorithms or anything like that. Plus, it's easy. I know, I know, managing an email list can seem scary at first, and that is exactly why I put it off for so many years. I didn't start taking my email list seriously until around April of 2016 when I switched to Convertkit. Convertkit makes sending an effective and efficient newsletter so much easier and better. I never really understood email marketing before, but ConvertKit makes it so easy and now I feel like I'm an expert! I now have over 70,000 email subscribers. One of my biggest blogging mistakes was waiting years to start my email list. If you don't have one yet, you should start ASAP! I spent time in 2017 creating new freebie optins, adding email signup forms to my most popular content, changing up the wording for the signup forms, and more, which all helped me to grow my email list.
2. I accepted ALL interview requests. I accepted every single interview request in 2017, which led to probably over 100 interviews throughout the year. While this did impact work-life balance a little, they were all enjoyable and I have actually come to love being on podcasts!
3. I continued to diversify my income. In 2016, I finally created my first for-sale product, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. This helped me to diversify my business and try a new form of income. Now, my business income primarily consists of affiliate marketing, a product, sponsorships, and advertising, which is a mix that I'm very happy with. If you're looking for some easy ways to boost your blogging income, I recommend reading this free ebook – 7 Surefire Ways To Boost Your Blog Income Overnight. While I did not create a new product in 2017, I do have plans to do so in 2018. One thing I did differently in 2017 to diversify further is that I started slowly promoting and adding new products to the mix of my affiliate income stream, which will help me to earn passive income well into the future.
4. I emailed my list about affiliate products more. So, I have always emailed my list, however, it wasn't until 2017 when I did my first major launch for an affiliate product. Instead, I've always just passively emailed my list and occasionally mentioned products. That first major launch was like a lightbulb going off for me, though. I earned five figures from one affiliate launch to my email list and it was just by easily promoting a product that I used and thought was great! While I didn't take part in a lot of affiliate product launches in 2017, I do plan on doing this around once a quarter in 2018.
5. I started posting less but spending more time on promoting and marketing my website. When I first started blogging over 5 years ago, I was publishing a new piece of content every single day and sometimes even twice a day. However, that was super draining. Now, I write just on Monday and Wednesday, and every other Friday is a side hustle interview or debt payoff story. Sometimes, I only write on Monday too – depending on how lengthy that Monday post is and if I really want everyone to read it before it is pushed down (haha, I don't want anyone to miss out!). I found that this schedule works much better, as I can spend more time writing high-quality content and more time promoting that content. Before, I didn't spend much time promoting my blog because I just didn't have the energy to and I didn't fully realize the value in promoting. This is a much better system for me now and I definitely think it's working.
6. I spent time figuring out Facebook. I started 2016 with just around 6,500 Facebook followers and ended 2017 with over 80,000. I owe a lot of that to the ebook Facebook Strategies Worth Sharing. Growing my Facebook page has allowed me to reach new readers, improve my blogging income, grow my email list, and more. I also created a free Facebook group community for the readers of Making Sense of Cents, in order to build more engagement and connect further with my readers.

As you can see, these specific actions all changed my business significantly, and for the better. I've learned a lot over the past year and have been applying everything that I've learned towards my business.

And, I know that 2018 will be even better. I am learning more and more about improving my blogging business, so I have a good feeling that 2018 will be great as well.

My business income goal for 2017 is to earn $2,000,000 from my business, which is an average of $166,666 per month.

I want to thank all of you for making this possible. Without my readers, I don’t know where I would be. Again, thank you!

My business-related goals for 2018:

• Get at least three months ahead on Making Sense of Cents posts. I am currently only one month ahead but I have plans to change that over the next few months. Being ahead in content makes life much more enjoyable because I can focus on other things knowing that the majority of my writing work is already done.
• Grow Making Sense of Cents to 1,000,000 monthly page views. I would love to help more readers, see even more engagement, have higher traffic, and so on. I love my blog and I would love to see it grow! I’m hoping to see at least 1,000,000 monthly page views by the end of 2018.
• Create two more products to sell. In 2016, I created Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, and that has completely changed my life and my business. I want to think about and create another product to sell in 2018 so that I can continue to diversify my income. I have some plans in store and I'm excited to finally start creating more products!
• Grow to 150,000 email subscribers. I'm hoping to see at least 150,000 email subscribers by the end of 2018.
• Work less than 40 hours per week. For the most part, I am working less than 40 hours per week. However, there are some weeks when I spend all day and night on the laptop, not even sure where the day went. Due to that, I would like to continue to work on a better work/life balance.
• Have fun. Okay, so this isn't really a goal that is quantifiable or something that I'll track, haha, but I am really looking forward to 2018! 🙂

Now, here’s my December income report!

How was business income in December of 2017?

I earned $126,260 blogging and online in December of 2017, before expenses.

December was yet another amazing month for the Making Sense of Cents blogging business.

After spending time back “home” visiting friends and family after not seeing loved ones for around one year, we finally head back out west. We're currently in the Tucson, Arizona area soaking up the warmth.

I spent most of the month trying to catch up and work ahead before a busy travel season – such as our trip to the island of Eleuthera.

Currently, I am working on creating my next blogging-related product to sell, which will be about how to earn money through sponsored posts on a blog. You can sign up for the waitlist here.

Anyway, to get back to my monthly income…

This makes December my twelfth consecutive month with income over $100,000. I never thought that I would ever earn over $100,000 a month, especially with a blogging business, and it's crazy to think about how I earned over $100,000 last month alone.

While my income levels are high, I do want everyone to remember that I started at $0 a month and have grown my income to where it's at now through a lot of hard work.

Before you think that $100 or even $1,000 is out of your league, you should remember that it is not!

I, myself, used to think that it would be great to one day earn $1,000 online and through my blog. I looked up to many bloggers who were earning over $10,000 a month, and I thought it was impossible.

Now, I'm here to show everyone that it is possible! Through hard work and dedication, you never know where life may lead you.

As you can see, December was another great month. It was great on all fronts – blogging, course-wise, life, and everything else. The business is doing well and I'm very happy with it. I've been catching myself saying “Life is really good” a LOT. And, I truly mean it. Life is really good!

My business is growing, income is increasing, I have tons of amazing ideas for the next year, and I am very excited about everything. I really love my business and I don't know where I would be without it.

My Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course is still doing very well and I had many new students join the course last month. I think a lot of this has to do with all of the amazing reviews that I'm hearing about my course such as:

“Since taking Michelle's course 5 months ago, my page view average has been 36,715 but my affiliate marketing income has grown from an average of $272.94 per month to $4,400.19 per month. That’s more than 1,500% growth! Within just 5 quick months, I’ve made more than $21,000 directly from the affiliate marketing tips in this course…. I made more than $10,000 in just March 2017 alone! Low page views is not an excuse for low affiliate marketing income. You don’t have to struggle to earn a few dollars a month. Invest in yourself & get educated to start building your business right away. Let Michelle show you how an expert does it!” – Saira Perl, Blogger, MomResource

And these as well:

• One blogger went from $0 in Amazon affiliate income to over $1,500 after taking the course.
• One blogger went from $87 a month in affiliate income before taking the course, to over $1,700 a month after!
• One blogger received their first affiliate sale just two days after taking the course (and they were a brand new blogger too!).
• Another blogger doubled their monthly affiliate income from $2,500 to $5,000.

Plus, I've heard and read many other great reviews about my course.

If you're a blogger, I recommend checking out my blogging course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I share my exact strategy and tips in this very informative online course. If you're a blogger, then you need to check out this course.

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 $2.75 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free website domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase, at least, 12 months of blog hosting. FYI, if you are asking yourself “can you make money blogging?” – my top tip is 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. My blogging income did not take off until after I switched to self-hosted WordPress.

This chart only goes back to May of 2016. You can find all of my income reports here.

Blog news 

Making Sense of Cents is doing very well and I'm happy with everything.

I shared a TON of information in the “2017 Business Year In Review” section above. Much of it could have probably been placed here but please make sure you read that section to see the exciting blog news, including a new blogging course that I will be launching in Q1 of 2017. You can sign up for the waitlist here.

I am currently brainstorming some sort of personal finance product to create and sell on Making Sense of Cents. What would you like to see from me? I have a few products that I've brainstormed on the blogging side, but I'm really wanting my next product that I sell to be on the finance-side. Please leave some comments below to help me brainstorm!

Recently, I made the much-needed switch to HTTPS. Some months ago, I received a message from Google saying that Making Sense of Cents would start showing a “Not Secure” warning on my blog, along with many other websites that aren't running on HTTPS with an SSL certificate. It's a change I've been just passing over and not really thinking about. However, with this new message, I knew I finally just had to get it over with.

So, I hired Grayson (I use this genius to complete all tech-related things for my business). He was able to do it quickly and affordably. I definitely recommend hiring him to complete this very important task for you.

I switched from Shareaholic to Social Warfare Pro due to making the switch to HTTPS, so that I could keep my social media numbers. I don't know why I didn't make that switch sooner because I already like Social Warfare Pro 1,000 times more than what I used to have.

Overall, traffic for the month was around 600,000 page views.

Below are several other business and blog-related updates:

• My sister started as my virtual assistant in July and at the time of this writing, she has now been my assistant for a few months. It is going very well. Some of the tasks she is in charge of are adding Pinterest photos to older blog posts here on Making Sense of Cents, helping manage the Facebook groups I run, scheduling social media posts, and more. This helps free up more of my time so that I can create more products, reach more readers, and most of all, have an even better work-life balance.
• I am thinking about adding some sort of group coaching session to my business sometime in the future. While I used to do individual coaching, my time was limited. Group coaching would allow me to help more people and to also create a great support group for bloggers.
• I finally started a community group for Making Sense of Cents. This is a Facebook group in which you can seek advice from other readers on all sorts of topics such as finance, blogging, travel, running a business, and so on. There are already over 9,000 members!
• I created a new series on my blog where I interview extraordinary people who are doing interesting things in life. First, I interviewed JP, who retired at the age of 28 with a net worth over $2,000,000. I'm extremely excited about this new interview series! If there's anyone you would like me to interview, please leave a comment and let me know.
• I released my How To Start A Blog FREE Course. If you’ve been wanting to start a blog, then check this out. I created this email course for those who are interested in starting a blog, but haven’t done so yet. The course is free, and around 35,000 people have already signed up. Thank you, everyone, for the kind emails about how great the course is. Glad everyone is enjoying it!
• Due to how well my first free course went, I also created the free Master Your Money email course. It's full of great money management lessons and financial worksheets (such as a free budget template), and I'm loving the positive response from this email course as well.
• I have plans for my third free email course and I will most likely put that together sometime in the next month or two.

Just a quick note before we continue. I recently created a time-saving cheat sheet that can help you increase your affiliate income. Sign up below!

Popular new posts on Making Sense of Cents last month:

• Are You Making Your Life Difficult? 18 Ideas To Simplify Your Life in 2018
• Why I’m Not Sad That I’m Frugal – Frugal Doesn’t Mean Boring
• Change Your Life By Saving Just $1 More Each Day – How Much Should A Person Save Each Month?
• How We Paid Off $40,000 of Debt While Saving for a Rainy Day in Less Than Two Years
• How I’ve Paid Off $29,000 In Debt By Living In a Van
• My Favorite Personal Finance Blog Posts From Making Sense of Cents in 2017
• A Student Loan Forgiveness Program Isn’t A Good Strategy
• How To Reach Your 2018 Goals – Setting Goals for 2018
• How To Teach English From Home And Earn $14 to $26 An Hour

Featured Question: Is 2018 too late to start a website/blog?

I feature one question from a reader in each monthly income report. Please leave a comment below if you have a question that you would like me to answer. 

One question I receive often is whether it is too late to start a blog/website.

No, it's not too late at all!

Trust me, people were saying the same thing when I first started Making Sense of Cents – that people who started in 2011 were starting too late and that no one would ever be successful with it.

However, that's definitely not the case.

There is a lot of room for bloggers and there is plenty of room for growth well into the future. I believe that companies and advertisers are only recently starting to realize the value in online influencers, such as bloggers, which means that the blogging world will continue to grow well into the future and that income from blogging will continue to increase.

More and more companies are starting to advertise with online influencers on their blogs, social media accounts, and more, and I expect this to just continue to grow well into the future. Whereas in the past it was mainly celebrities that companies advertised with, it is actually shifting to bloggers and other online influencers (such as Youtubers and Instagrammers!).

The world is a huge place and the online world is just going to keep growing. Every blogger earns a living online in a slightly different way and everyone has a different message/story. Plus, there are TONS of different ways to make money through a blog and I expect this to keep growing.

Of course, blogging is constantly evolving and there are always new things to learn, which will probably always be the case for managing any online business.

So, if you are thinking about starting a blog, today is the day. Don't let your fears hold you back any further! You can find my free How To Start a Blog Course here.

Past featured questions:

• How do I increase my affiliate income?
• Do I need millions of page views a month in order to make money blogging?
• How do you build websites up to sell them?
• Do only celebrities make money through owning websites?
• How much money can a person make blogging?
• Where does blog income come from?
• Is there enough room for new bloggers to make money?
• What should a person blog about?
• How can a blogger increase their page views?
• Should my blog be self-hosted?
• What blogging tools or resources do you recommend?
• What should you do when a blog post goes viral?
• What is affiliate marketing?
• What did I learn from launching my course?
• What should you do when you're feeling blogger burnout?
• How can a blogging conference help me?
• Why does a blogger need to have an email list?
• Where do you get your photos from for your blog?
• What are easy affiliate programs for new bloggers?
• What are some affiliate program ideas for different niches?
• What blogging ebooks and courses do you recommend?
• Did you start your blog to make money?
• Do you mind sharing a detailed list of what processes you have with new blog posts?
• How should a person come up with a blog name?
• How can a blogger make more money around the holidays?
• How do you keep track of accounting and taxes for your business?

My plans for my blog and my business.

Plans and goals can help you run a successful business. I believe that working towards a goal can help keep a person motivated too.

Below are some of the areas I am currently working on (this is just a repeat of the above):

• Get at least three months ahead on Making Sense of Cents posts. I am currently only one month ahead but I have plans to change that over the next few months. Being ahead in content makes life much more enjoyable because I can focus on other things knowing that the majority of my writing work is already done.
• Grow Making Sense of Cents to 1,000,000 monthly page views. I would love to help more readers, see even more engagement, have higher traffic, and so on. I love my blog and I would love to see it grow! I’m hoping to see at least 1,000,000 monthly page views by the end of 2018.
• Create two more products to sell. In 2016, I created Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, and that has completely changed my life and my business. I want to think about and create another product to sell in 2018 so that I can continue to diversify my income. I have some plans in store and I'm excited to finally start creating more products!
• Grow to 150,000 email subscribers. I'm hoping to see at least 150,000 email subscribers by the end of 2018.
• Work less than 40 hours per week. For the most part, I am working less than 40 hours per week. However, there are some weeks when I spend all day and night on the laptop, not even sure where the day went. Due to that, I would like to continue to work on a better work/life balance.
• Have fun. Okay, so this isn't really a goal that is quantifiable or something that I'll track, haha, but I am really looking forward to 2018! 🙂

Affiliate income results.

In December of 2017, I earned $64,828.51 in affiliate income, as outlined earlier in this blog income report.

December was another great month for affiliate income and I didn't spend more than one hour on my affiliate marketing strategies for the whole month. Instead, it was nearly 100% passive affiliate income (which is my favorite form of affiliate income) and reliant on old content here on Making Sense of Cents.

I do have some products that I'm promoting over the next few months that I'm excited about. One is the Work at Home School Summit (a free online event) and the other is Elite Blog Academy (it's not open yet but you can sign up for the waitlist and receive lots of valuable free information from a rockstar blogger).

I'm a very big fan of affiliate income, of course. It's something that I enjoy due to how passive it can be. It makes full-time traveling much more enjoyable when I know I can bring in an income while having fun seeing new areas.

As I always say, blogging income is not dependent on page views. Even brand new bloggers can make money through affiliate marketing. If you know the correct way to promote a product, you can succeed at affiliate marketing. This is one of the main things I teach in my Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course.

My affiliate marketing course went live in July of 2016. I've already had over 3,500 people purchase the course, and I'd love to have you as a student as well!

In the course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, there are 6 modules, over 30 lessons, several worksheets, bonuses, an extremely helpful and exclusive Facebook group, and more. I go through everything that you need to know about affiliate marketing, such as:

• A quick introduction to affiliate marketing and how it works
• The benefits of affiliate marketing
• The exact steps I've taken to earn over $500,000 from a single blog post
• How to correctly pick affiliate products to promote
• The steps to increase your conversion rate
• 80+ Affiliate program ideas for different niches
• How to build trust with your readers (this is a MUST!)
• The required disclosures you need to know about
• The major tool you need for affiliate marketing
• The many different strategies to promote your affiliate links

My course is anything and everything about affiliate marketing. This course is perfect for you whether you are a new blogger or if you've been blogging for years, no matter what topic your blog is about, what country you live in, and so on.

I wrote this course so that it would benefit everyone, and there is so much to learn from it.