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I Started a New Blog and $1,258 in Extra Income

Last Updated: August 9, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 65 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! Happy Monday. I hope you all had an awesome weekend. I still can’t believe that it’s June. The year is just flying by.

We didn’t do a whole ton this weekend, just did a lot of relaxing and some side hustle work.

This week I have Thursday off and we are taking our engagement photos. W isn’t too happy because he doesn’t like photos. I honestly just want pictures of us and the dogs haha… I hope they turn out great! I really don’t want the normal cheesy looking photos where everything is posed. I want them as natural looking as possible. I’ll share some photos with you all as soon as I get them.

I wanted to share something funny with you all – well at least it’s funny to me. The other day I received an email from a reader, and she was telling me that my blog is helpful. We then started talking back and forth and she actually went to the same high school as me, and she lives in the same town as me! Small world, right?

Also, don’t forget but Google Reader shuts down in a couple of weeks. Don’t forget to switch your reader over to something else. I’ve come to love Bloglovin, so I recommend trying that out. What are you switching to?

Student Loan Update

My student loans are ALMOST GONE. That’s so nice to say. I will definitely have them paid off by the end of this month. I know that I’ve had some delays, but I am still of course very happy with my progress. Also, not putting thousands of dollars (my minimum payment was less than $500 but I’ve been throwing a lot of extra money towards the loans) towards student loans every single month will feel awesome!

Spending

We did do some spending in the past week. We bought W some new clothes for the engagement photos but I believe that was all. Spent around $200 but he could use the clothes anyway, so it was worth it.

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

Extra income was good last week, but I’m still waiting on quite a few payments. Hopefully these will FINALLY be collected this week because some are so old that they were due when I was on vacation in St. Thomas early last month.

I also finally launched my new blog this weekend. Diversified Finances is live! There isn’t much on it right now. I was going to wait to share it with you all, but I’m not much of a secret keeper and wanted to share it immediately. This blog will be all about how I’m trying to diversify my finances and eventually become financially independent.

Some of you might be wondering WHY I started a second blog. Well, I figured I wanted to bring Making Sense of Cents back to all things personal finance, and not talk 100% about my side hustles.

I went through my past posts recently, and pretty much 99% of them are about my side hustles. I have a ton of ideas for side hustles posts for the future (like over 50), and decided that since I like to talk so much, a second blog would probably be a better idea. I don’t think I will be posting too, too often on Diversified Finances, but maybe 2 to 3 times per week.

So what does this mean for my extra income posts? I’m still not sure. What would you rather I do? Should I post my monthly extra income posts on this blog or the other one? It would fit on the other blog better, but it seems to be such a big staple on Making Sense of Cents! Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Posts from my blog:

$7,641 in Extra Income – Side Hustles! – This is my monthly extra income posts. I answered a lot of reader questions, so I hope you all enjoyed it.
How to prepare for self employment – I plan on making the switch, and there are a lot of things that I need to think about. Thanks everyone for your wonderful suggestions!
Finding time for it all – Summer edition – This is a post by Jordann. Summer always seems to fly by!
Keep driving an old car or buy a new one – This is a post by Gary. We all know that me and W like our cars and have new ones. Go judge me 😛

Link Love

Early Retirement Isn’t Us Evolving PF – This was probably my most favorite post recently. Early retirement isn’t for everyone. I don’t want early retirement either, I want financial independence! I definitely recommend that you read this post, along with the interesting comments.
Can a Masters Degree yield a negative return? Student Debt Survivor – Interesting post! I do think that my Finance MBA was worthwhile.
When Passion Turns Into Work Debt Roundup – Another great post since I am making the switch to self employment. Will my self-employment work just all become “work?”
Baby Fever. Kids are cute but they sure are expensive! Mo Money Mo Houses – I agree, everyone is having kids!
What do you actually want? Cash Rebel – This post is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. Cash Rebel is a great blog and I definitely think everyone should be reading it.
Strategery – Save Time and Money Working From Home Club Thrifty – Haha another one of my favorites. I definitely see us being able to save a lot of money (or at least some), once I make the switch.
Would you take a 10% pay cut to get Fridays off? Budgets are Sexy – YES I WOULD! Three day weekends all the time would be amazing. The pay cut would stink, but I do think the exchange would be worthwhile. Would you take a 10% pay cut?
I was mentioned in a carnival also at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff 🙂

Being healthy

I have actually been doing AWESOME with being more healthy. I did eat unhealthy yesterday, but for the most part I have been eating pretty healthy and working out a good amount.

I’ve been trying to run/walk at least a mile each dog with our dog (the other dog doesn’t go for walks – the joys of having a French Bulldog runt). I’ve also been trying to run around 4 miles every other day along with working out each day. It’s so nice having a gym in our basement and a cute pup to run with. I think I’m going to make it a monthly goal to run/walk at least 100 miles each month. It’s a lot, but I definitely that that it is doable.

Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?

St. Thomas and $3,038 in Extra Income

Last Updated: August 19, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 53 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! Happy Monday. We are leaving St. Thomas today and we had so much fun. I’m sad that my vacation is over, but I’m honestly ready to go home. I miss my dogs, oh yeah and I miss W 🙂 It was a vacation with my sister and it was much needed!

A couple of you have asked me to do a full St. Thomas recap since you will be going on vacation there soon, so look forward to that! We both took tons of pictures. We spent a lot of time at the beach, got really sun burned, SUPed (for the first time!), went kayaking, and went parasailing (first time for this also). We didn’t leave the resort once in the whole 5 days but had tons of fun. Usually I explore the area where I go on a vacation to, but we decided to just stay and have a relaxing time at the resort.

I announced the winner to my Novica giveaway but haven’t heard back yet. If your name is Erika, please check the Facebook post where I announced the giveaway so that you can see if it’s you. I want to give you your certificate code! 🙂

Oh yeah, and go congratulate my sister, she is now a personal trainer! AND this is my birthday month so you all better be super nice to me for the rest of May. I kid, I kid, you should be nice to me all the time 🙂 I definitely know what I want for my birthday, and that is a stand-up paddle board.

Spending

I don’t think we did any spending outside of the vacation budget. Earlier in May, our dryer did break though. Luckily we had a gift card that was good at Lowes which covered the whole purchase. It made having to replace the dryer not hurt our budget at all.

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

Extra income has been good for this month so far. I’m expecting a couple of payments this week. Affiliate income is still doing awesome. It’s nice to know that when I was on vacation, that you awesome readers were still clicking on my affiliate links. Of course I don’t count that as income until I actually receive it (usually 45 to 60 days after you click on the link), but it is still nice to know that future income has been made.

Not sure if this should be included in my Extra Income section, but I did win $85 to Starbucks last week. WOOHOO! I haven’t spent money at Starbucks in what seems like forever because I seem to constantly win Starbucks gift cards from giveaways.

Posts from my blog:

Home Updates – How we Plan on Selling Our House Quickly – We have a tooooonnnn of things that we need to repair/replace/update in our house, but luckily most of it is pretty small.
Why You Should Start a Blog – So Many Positives – In this post, I talk about all of the awesome reasons for why you should start a blog. What are you waiting for?
How Being a Minimalist has Helped my Finances – This is a great post by Jordann. Hope you loved it!
I want to learn more about you – I took an idea from another blogger and asked all of you a few questions. Loved the responses! Looks like W and I need to work on our food budget…

Link Love

Fighting Boredom and Restlessness as you Work on Long-Term Goals The Frugal Farmer
3 Businesses you can run from anywhere in the world Young Adult Money
Why Having Two Jobs Pays off Budget Blonde
Do You Hoard Vacation Days Squirelers
What are you willing to do for money My Shiny Pennies
Pros and Cons of Living in a Smaller Home Retire by 40
Finance Carnival for Young Adults – I was included!

Food – Clean Eating!

We are still doing good with our food spending, but it’s hard to say because I’ve been gone for 5 days and W can’t cook to save his life (I have no idea what/if he’s been eating while I’ve been gone). But this is a new week and I know we will do awesome! What’s on your meal plan? Share any links, recipes, pictures and so on in the comments below.

Being healthy

I’m still doing great with being healthy. Our hotel room was on the 7th floor and we took the stairs nearly every single time (except for when we had luggage), which means something! We also worked out at the gym here. It was only one time, but seriously those stairs killed us. After we went down the 7 floors, it was also another 98 (maybe 96?) steps down to the pool and beach area, and we walked that EVERY single time as well. I should have killer legs now.

Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?

Why You Should Start a Blog – So Many Positives!

Last Updated: October 11, 2016 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 118 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.

Every single day, many, many blogs are started. And it seems like there are more and more new blogs in the personal finance community.

I’ve heard some people say that there are too many new blogs out there, but who cares? I LOVE reading new blogs and hearing what they have to say. Who wants to hear the same ol’ story over and over? I want new and fresh perspectives on everything!

I started my blog in August of 2011 for multiple reasons. I wanted to have a “journal” so that I could go back and track everything that I’ve done. Before I knew it, I got sucked into the community and blogging has become a really fun hobby and side hustle of mine.

When I started my blog almost two years ago, I didn’t really think of the direction that my blog would go in, or where I’d even be with it in the future. I didn’t think I was going to be blogging for a year, or anything related to that. [Read more…]

$7,859 in April Extra Income and Goals

Last Updated: August 3, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 86 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! Happy Tuesday. I changed my mind and decided to post my April goals and extra income update TODAY instead of tomorrow. I figure that there won’t be a huge difference by missing just one day, so why not?! I did receive a couple of payments yesterday that I’ve been waiting on, and that helped increase my extra income for the month.

April was another awesome month. I wasn’t able to crack the $8,000 level of extra income just yet (this is after expenses), and I was actually $3 lower than last month’s amount. Still great to me though 🙂

If you are looking to start a blog, don’t forget to read my post How To Start a Blog. It gives step by step instructions on starting your own. And one of my most popular posts this money was How To Make Money Blogging.

We did some wedding planning last month and booked and paid the deposit for our wedding photographer (she has SUPER cute pictures!) and also chose our wedding date. Our photographer is AWESOME and I’m glad we found her. Check out her website Harper & Brothers. The wedding will be on June 7, 2014. WOOHOO!

Next weekend my sister and I are going to St. Thomas, WOOHOOO! We’re going for 3 days/4 nights for her birthday. It’ll be a fun time and I’m very excited. We haven’t gone on vacation together since we were probably in elementary school, so it’ll be a new experience.

In April, I made $7,859 in extra income, after most expenses. In case you are new to my blog, “Extra Income” consists of all income that I make that does not include my salaried job that I have in the financial services industry. Extra income also does not include any money that W makes, as he doesn’t do anything for extra income and is mostly commission at his work (so it fluctuates every month anyways).

As I say every month in my income update posts: this is not all super easy. None of it is. I spend enough time to make this a full-time job on top of my already full-time job. Luckily, I do enjoy what I’m doing so it’s not like I’m dreading anything. The goals that we have are also a great motivator. I just keep thinking about how badly I want my student loans gone, and also how badly we want a new house next year. Read further on my Extra Income page.

This is for the month of April and after most fees and expenses (expenses were a little over $700 and include payments for staff writing on my blog and work with FITnancials, PayPal fees, etc.) being taken out. April’s number above includes a rent payment from my sister.

April was another great month. I’ve come a long way from the just the beginning of last year when I was ecstatic about $50 in extra income in a month. Don’t get me wrong, $50 is still awesome, but I never thought that I would be to the point where I am today. I look up to so many other bloggers and if it weren’t for them, I really don’t think I’d be anywhere near the level that I’m at today!

[Read more…]

Nicer Weather and $1,916 in Extra Income

Last Updated: October 1, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 61 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. I hope you all had a great weekend. It was a nice and relaxing weekend for us and I’m sad that it went by so quickly. This past week was pretty boring and uneventful, but I guess that’s a good thing also. On Wednesday, May 1st, I’ll be publishing my April goals update and extra income post, so be sure to come back for that!

Spending

I can’t think of any shopping that we did in this past week (except for food of course). Definitely a cheap week for us! We are thinking about buying a kayak (as seen in this post) for the spring and summer time. We’ve been wanting one and we currently have a gift card for Cabelas that would cover it. Free kayak? SURE!

We also have more work to do to the house, and of course that will be a lot of spending in the future. A post on all of the updating around the house that we need to do will be up soon. We finally did the spring clean up at our house and cleaned the gutters, raked leaves, hauled a lot of garbage after the tornado and so on. Our house looks so much nicer now and I’m sure our neighbors love us.

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

Extra income was similar to the week earlier and I am of course happy about it. I’m waiting on payments from multiple people but hopefully I receive those soon. Also, I’m still looking to get more into passive income, but I need more TIME.

I have also been thinking a lot about Lending Club and peer lending. Before I started blogging, I honestly had no idea about any of this, but it seems like a lot of other bloggers are always talking about it. Are you involved in peer-to-peer lending? What are your thoughts? TELL ME! If you know of any awesome posts relating to this (even if they are your own posts as well), please share them below.

Also, tell me about any other things that you do for extra income. I always love hearing about what others do. If you want to guest post on my blog about paying off your debt, side hustles, and so on, then please e-mail me. I always love sharing guest posts with my readers, because then you can learn about other readers and bloggers and follow their blogs as well.

Posts from my blog:

Clean Eating and $1,910 in Extra Income
Should I pay off my house early? – Pros and Cons – I loved everyone’s opinions and comments on this post. Thanks everyone!
Are you a risk taker? Risk tolerance and finances
Relationships and Money: Talk is Not Cheap

Link Love

Should I be called out for not spending in acceptable categories? Save Spend Splurge
Retirement Planning Versus You Only Live Once The Frugal Path
Making Money Versus Doing What You Love Our Freaking Budget
Extreme Retirement Is Fools Gold Krant Cents

Food

I am still doing good with eating better. I’m trying to cut out a lot of bread that I eat. I can eat a whole container of croissants or Hawaiian rolls in one sitting. Yes, one sitting! I can’t be the only one who does this, right? Also, avoiding snack aisles at the grocery store seems to be working as well. We spent around $100 on groceries last week and we are pretty positive that this will last us some time, especially since our fridge was packed full before we even went grocery shopping this week. As always, if you have any recipes, share below please 🙂

Being healthy

I have been doing AWESOME with running and working out more. I know it’s not much but I have been trying to run 3 or 4 miles every day. I’ve been running more and I’ve also been running with my dog everyday.

Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?

Side Hustle: Freelance Writer and SEO Specialist

Last Updated: September 24, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 25 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.

Hi everyone. Lauren from L Bee and the Money Tree taking over for Michelle. Since I know everyone can have mixed feelings about “the substitute teacher” coming in for the day I thought we’d discuss everyone’s favorite topic: developing a side hustle.

I’m not a “professional” blogger. In fact, Moneytree was the first self-hosted blog and website I’d ever done/built and it’s taken a lot of trial and error to tweak and get it to where it is now. I do make a modest side income from the blog, but not enough for me to quit my day job and sit at home in my yoga pants all day.

Being a blogger has vastly improved my life: it helped me get the job I have now as a content and social media manager for a software company, and helped me sharpen a skill set I now utilize as my primary source of income. By combining what I do on my blog and what I do at my job, I’ve been able to string together a pretty baller portfolio of digital copy, a nice resume, and lots of applicable experience. Those assets in turn have morphed into a “freelance writer and SEO specialist” side hustle.

Unless you work with online content/marketing you may not know what SEO is; in brief it stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s a process of super-charging your content so search engines can find it easier. There are a lot of factors that go into it, but the main trick is to write the copy so that it doesn’t sound like a robot or alien from Mars put a few sentences together and slapped it on a website. Poor copy means people take you less seriously, which is where I come in. [Read more…]

How To Make Money Blogging

Last Updated: May 16, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 138 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.

Today’s post is the one that many of you have been waiting for. I don’t think a single day goes by without me receiving an e-mail regarding how a person can make money blogging online and/or how to make money online.

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.

Sometimes it’s bloggers who e-mail me, but half the time the e-mails are from readers who do not have a blog but are interested in starting a money making blog.

As most of you have seen, a big bulk of my income every month comes from my blog in some form (I made over $320,000 online in 2015): advertising, affiliate income, consulting and so on. This How To Make Money Blogging post will be all about various ways that you can make money blogging.

When I started my blog in August of 2011, I never thought I’d be where I am at today. Now, I blog full-time, earn a great income, and I travel full-time, as you can see from my monthly online income report updates.

My extra income from my blog started slow, but within the past couple of months it has jumped significantly. I spend all of my extra time on finding extra income methods, and it definitely seems to be working.

[Read more…]