Business Income Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

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…]

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…]

10 Best Things I Did To Build A $5 Million Dollar Blog

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 32 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.

One question I receive over and over again is exactly what I’ve done to build a successful blog.

I love sharing this information, but I also want to remind you before we begin that everyone has a different starting place and path to success. Plus, we all have different versions of what success means to us.

Starting a blog, no matter what direction you want to take it, is a lot of hard work! Still, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.

I started Making Sense of Cents entirely as a hobby, and I had no idea that blogs could make money or that this could turn into my full-time job. I actually didn’t even understand what a blog was or how it worked.

Eventually, I learned that you could make money blogging, and because it sounded like a fun way to make extra money, I tried my hardest to make it happen.

The more time I spent on my blog, the more I wanted to pursue making money with it. But honestly, I never had plans of it turning into my full-time career.

When I started, I was simply looking for something to help me pay off my student loans and stop living paycheck to paycheck.

I came to realize that blogging was exactly what I wanted to do with my life and that it was possible for me to make a full-time income from it.

As soon as I committed to working as hard at my blog as I did my full-time job, everything just grew crazily from there!

I have now earned over $5,000,000 blogging over the years, which still seems so unimaginable to me. I never would have expected this for myself all those years ago. [Read more…]

How To Monetize A Blog: How I Grew A $5 Million Blog

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 21 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.

Want to learn how to monetize a blog?

What started as just a hobby turned into one of the most life-changing things I’ve ever done – that’s starting my blog, and learning how to make money with it.

Since learning how to monetize a blog over 10 years ago, I have now earned over $5,000,000 from my site. This is still hard for me to believe, and I’m the one who’s lived it!

I started Making Sense of Cents around 10 years ago, entirely as a hobby.

In the beginning, all I was doing was tracking my own personal finance progress as I finished school and started paying off my student loans. Blogging was a very new concept to me at the time – I heard about it from a magazine – and people were just learning how to monetize blogs back in 2011.

Most bloggers started back then with display ads and sponsored posts, but the options have only increased.

Because of all of the new ways to make money blogging, like affiliate income and selling your own products, you can make somewhat passive income as a blogger.

Passive income is my favorite way to make money because it makes blogging even more flexible and something I can do as I work from home, travel, and work whenever I want.

Blogging has changed my life for the better, and I’m now earning thousands of dollars a month doing something I love.

Learning how to monetize a blog takes work and time, but it’s 100% possible to do. I started earning money after just six months of blogging, and I didn’t even set out to make money when I created Making Sense of Cents. Just think of the potential if you start out knowing that making money blogging is possible!

Starting my blog is one of the best things I’ve ever done for my work, personal, and financial life. And, I urge anyone who is interested to start a blog and learn how to monetize it.

Today, I’m sharing how I built a blog that has earned me over $5,000,000 over the years and my tips so that you can create a successful blog that you enjoy. [Read more…]

How To Take Maternity Leave When Self-Employed – What You Need To Know

Last Updated: August 1, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 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 self-employed and pregnant? Are you wondering how to handle maternity leave when self-employed?

Big news if you haven’t heard yet – I am pregnant!

When I announced this news, I received many questions, especially ones revolving around what I am going to do for maternity leave since I am self-employed.

I am very grateful for the life that I get to live, and I realize that I run a truly amazing business that will allow me to focus a lot of time on this next exciting part of my life.

That being said, there are so many things about maternity leave when self-employed that I want to talk about!!

One of the first things I thought about when I found out that I was pregnant was what am I going to do when it comes to running my business?

As a self-employed person who is currently pregnant, I am in charge of my own maternity leave – there’s no official blogger maternity leave, haha!

Yes, the Family Medical Leave Act gives employees in the United States up to 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave.

However, that doesn’t exactly apply to me, as I want to take a self-employed maternity leave (there are a couple of states that do offer paid leave for self-employed workers, but that’s not the norm). [Read more…]

Best Blogging Courses & Resources That Helped Me Make $100,000+

Last Updated: January 1, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 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 looking to grow your blog and make more money blogging? Then you need to check out the best blogging courses and resources to grow your traffic and income.

Since I started my blog 10 years ago, I have earned over $5,000,000. I have also helped countless people improve their financial situation, make extra money, travel more, pay off their debt, and more.

Blogging changed my life for the better, and it allows me to earn thousands of dollars a month, all by doing something that I love.

The funny thing is that I created my blog on a whim after reading about a personal finance website in a magazine.

At first, my blog was just a hobby to track my own personal finance progress.

I honestly didn’t even know that people could make money blogging when I first started this site back in 2011.

My interest in blogging quickly grew, but like I said it was all just a hobby. I wanted a space to write about my financial situation, have a support group, to keep track of how I was doing, and more. [Read more…]

10+ Of The Best Free Blogging Resources

Last Updated: January 1, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 10 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 looking for the best free blogging resources?

If so, then you’ve come to the right place!

Maybe you are thinking about starting a blog, or maybe you want to work on growing the blog you already have.

I love to help people start and grow their blogs because starting my blog is something that truly changed my life for the better, and I now love what I do.

I started Making Sense of Cents and have built a great business with it. It has allowed me and my husband to leave the day jobs we disliked to pursue something that we love.

Now, we travel full-time, make a great living, have a flexible schedule, have more time to spend with loved ones, and we are able to retire early.

But, it definitely didn’t start out that way.

I randomly started my blog and had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know how to make money blogging, how to get traffic to my site, what SEO was, and more. My blog started as a hobby, and I was completely clueless. [Read more…]