Blog Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

My Favorite Black Friday Weekend Deals

Last Updated: November 28, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

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.

Hey,

The deals are now over.

I recently published How To Save Money During The Holidays (20+ Ways To Save & Make Money!) if you are looking for ways to save money this holiday season.

Even though the sales have ended, I have other content you may be interested in:

Tip for shopping this holiday season:

There are a few other ways to save this holiday season by using easy cell phone apps! Don’t forget to:

Scan your grocery receipts with Fetch Rewards. Fetch Rewards is a cash back and gift card cell phone app that rewards you for purchases that you’ve already made. With Fetch Rewards, you can earn points by submitting your receipts to the Fetch Rewards app from any grocery store. Yes, ANY! You can sign up for Fetch Rewards here.
Shop with Rakuten and get cash back at online retailers. All you do is click on a store that you want to shop through (they have tons of stores such as Kohls, REI, Toys “R” Us, etc.) and shop just like how you normally would shop online and get cash back. Plus, when you sign up through my link and make a qualifying purchase, you receive a free $40 cash sign-up bonus.
Get cash back at gas stations with Upside. I recently downloaded this and it is very easy to use. GetUpside is a mobile app that helps you find gas stations, groceries, and restaurants where you can earn cash back. You simply sign up for a free account, and then look at the GetUpside app to find places near you. You can earn up to $0.25/gallon cash back at gas stations, up to 30% back on grocery purchases, and up to 45% back at restaurants. You can check out GetUpside here to learn more.

I use all three of these apps and highly recommend them if you are looking for easy ways to save money right now.

Enjoy!

This 33-year-old mom makes $760,000 a year in passive income

Last Updated: November 16, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 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.

Hey,

This article from CNBC has been very popular so far this month, so I just want to say hello to all of my new readers.

If you are a new visitor – welcome to Making Sense of Cents!

Here are some blog posts that you may find helpful and enjoy:

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below or send me an email.

Thanks for stopping by.

-Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

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You can read the CNBC article here – This 33-year-old mom makes $760,000 a year in passive income—and lives on a sailboat: ‘I work just 10 hours a week’

How I Make Over $10,000 Each Month With A Niche Site

Last Updated: November 14, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 4 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.

Are you interested in starting a website? Today, I am interviewing Mike Futia on how you can start a money making niche site.

A niche site is a little different from a traditional blog, and he will be teaching you all about that today.

Mike Futia is the founder of Stupid Simple SEO, where he teaches bloggers how to scale their traffic and income with SEO.

Mike recently sold a niche site for over $100,000, and he has also taken three different niche sites to over $10,000 in monthly earnings each. I have also taken a course of his, and I highly recommend them due to the wealth of knowledge that he shares.

Plus, over 4,000 students have enrolled in his Stupid Simple SEO and Niche Site Academy programs. He’s also the founder of the software NicheFinder.io.

He is an expert on this topic, and I’m excited for you to learn more.

In today’s interview, questions answered include:

What is a niche site? How is this different from a “normal” blog?
How much money can a niche site make?
How can you monetize a niche site?
How long does it take to monetize a niche site?
What are the most profitable niches for blogging?

Mike also has a free webinar – How To Build A Money-Making Niche Site. In this free webinar, you will learn how one of Mike’s students sees 200,000 pageviews per month (in just 8 months), why niche sites are a great way to make money, his 3-step framework for creating your niche site and making money with it, and more. [Read more…]

Blog Income Reports From A Multi-Million Blog (My Real Reports!)

Last Updated: October 26, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 15 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.

If you’ve ever wondered how I make money, then this is for you – it’s dedicated to my blog income reports!

I absolutely love blogging, and I am so glad that I randomly started this site a little over a decade ago. Blogging has taught me so many things, and I have helped countless people improve their finances.

Plus, I have been able to earn a great income doing something I truly love to do!

One of the things I started doing in the early days of Making Sense of Cents was to publish personal finance blog income reports. They were a monthly breakdown of how much money I made and where it came from, such as affiliate income, sponsored posts, etc. I also answered FAQs and talked about different things happening in my life and business.

If you’re interested in blogging or simply want to learn more about my site, my income reports include a ton of information.

I’ll explain more shortly, but I no longer publish my income. However, I still have a lot of people asking where they can find my old income reports. That’s why I decided to put together this page.

My income reports started because I wanted to share how much money I was earning from my side jobs, which included blogging at the time. These reports included all of the income I made outside of my day job. This included income from mystery shopping, answering surveys online, selling items on eBay, and more.

Eventually, I quit all of my side jobs and focused solely on Making Sense of Cents. That’s when my reports really changed, and they became blogging income reports and showed the many different ways that I earned money from this site. [Read more…]

The 25 Most-Asked Blogging Questions To Get You Started Today

Last Updated: October 24, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 4 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.

Do you have questions about making money blogging? Today, I am answering the questions I hear the most about starting a blog.

I receive numerous emails each day with questions about blogging.

And, I completely understand!

After all, I also had no idea what I was doing in the beginning either. I didn’t know that blogs could make money or even how they worked.

Nearly everything I learned about starting a blog was through trial and error, and I have made many, many mistakes over the years.

It’s funny to think about how far I’ve come when it comes to blogging, because in the beginning I barely even knew what a blog was.

I had so many questions when I started my blog.

I know that many new bloggers probably have some of the same questions I had because I receive so many emails every single day from readers asking how to start a blog, how to make a living through blogging, and more.

Today, I’m going to help you by answering some of the most common questions I receive about blogging.

Some of the questions I answer today include:

How do I decide what to blog about?
Do I need to be good with computers to start a blog?
I am afraid to start my blog and put myself out there. How do I get over this fear?
How many page views do you need to make money blogging?
How many blog posts should I have before launching?
How long should a blog post be?
How long does it take for a blog to make money?
Do you have to pay taxes on blogging income?

[Read more…]

How I Get 100,000 Monthly Pageviews With These Pinterest Traffic Tips And Earn Over $200,000 Per Year

Last Updated: September 2, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 27 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.

Hey everyone! Today, I have a great guest post to share on how you can increase your Pinterest traffic to your blog. Ling sees over 100,000 monthly pageviews on her blog from Pinterest and she shares her best tips below, as well as in her new guide The Golden Compass To Pinterest Traffic. Enjoy her article below.

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Hi everyone!

My name is Ling and I created my first blog in the personal finance niche, Finsavvy Panda, along with a Pinterest business account in November 2017 when I was looking for ways to quit my job.

After reaching my first $18,000 monthly affiliate income with my first blog in the summer of 2019, I was beyond excited but nervous at the same time.

Excited because I would have never imagined earning this kind of income from home. But I was also nervous because all my earnings were coming from one blog. That’s when I started an anonymous lifestyle blog so I could diversify my online income and test my Pinterest strategies in different niches.

Today, I earn an annual net income of over $200,000 and it’s mostly thanks to the traffic I get from Pinterest!

Prior to creating a Pinterest business account to drive blog traffic, I used Pinterest like how any regular user would to get inspiration and ideas for home décor, crafty gifts, DIY projects, and healthy recipes.

In fact, I used to flip preloved furniture as a fun hobby for extra money so I could increase my savings.

I remember bingeing content on Pinterest to learn how DIY bloggers would sand, paint, decoupage, and design wooden furniture. Learning from the DIY crafty bloggers on Pinterest helped me earn an extra $500 to $2,000 per month with a flipping hobby!

This hobby allowed me to have fun and unleash my creativity, but I stopped refurbishing small furniture because the income was too active and linear.

Not too long after, I started a personal finance blog, followed by my lifestyle blog, and so far, I’m loving it because it can feel quite passive once you’ve put in the upfront work and effort.

Related content:

[Read more…]

11 Years & $5 Million Later: What I Love & Have Learned About Blogging

Last Updated: October 10, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 14 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.

It’s been 11 years since I started Making Sense of Cents, and I am still completely amazed that this is what I get to do for a living!

In August of 2011, when I opened my laptop and started this blog, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know that blogs could make money.

This blog started as a hobby because I enjoyed reading other personal finance blogs and figured why not start my own.

11 years ago, I had no real dreams or goals for my blog. I was completely anonymous – I wrote with a fake name, and I didn’t even tell my friends or family about my blog.

For the entire first year of blogging, only Wes and my sister knew what I was doing.

A lot has changed since then!

What started as a fun way to share my story has turned into millions of annual readers and lifelong friendships. And, I’ve earned a great income that allows me to retire whenever I want, and I love what I do.

11 years ago, I never would have guessed this for myself!

And, I have never been more grateful, especially lately.

Running my own business and being able to work minimal hours means I can spend as much free time as I want with my husband and our baby girl.

It’s a dream come true. [Read more…]