How I Made $792 In December Blogging As a Stay at Home Mom
this post may contain affiliate links. I may receive a commission for purchases made through links in this post.
Wondering how you can make passive income as a busy stay at home mom? See exactly how I did it here!
Hello & welcome to my very first blogging income report!
This isn’t the usual kind of thing I post about and not what schoolrunmessybun.com is about at all but since I have a large woman audience (more specifically moms) I feel it would be a disservice not to share this information!
Don’t worry, schoolrunmessybun.com is not going to become a blog about blogging. We’ll be right back to school related content after this!
This is so crazy and nerve wracking that I’m sharing this but I have my reasons!
I feel like I found a secret loophole to earning money online.. and I want everyone else to hear about it too!
First, you’re probably wondering..
Who are you and why should I care about how you make money?
Hi, I’m Angie!
I’m a mom of three young kids who has been a stay at home mom for past 8 years since my first child was born when I just 19 years old!
Yup, I was a teen mom who dove head first into motherhood and put my assumed future and career aspirations on the back burner.
I also had a sudden move states away from any and all of my family and friends.
As a single income, single vehicle, young family without a “village”, things became a bit harder..
As years passed and I got older without having further education and little to no work experience, I wondered and worried about how hard it would be to catch up once I got back into the workforce.
Fast forward to October 2020 when I was 24 with a daughter, a toddler son and a 4 month old baby (two under two – yikes)
I stumbled across a YouTube video that would change everything.
Sophie, also known as BySophiaLee, shared how she made $30,000 a month blogging as a college student.
I went to her website and quickly fell down a rabbit hole of her income reports.
People can make actual, real, good money from blogging? No way!
Reasons I was immediately sold on starting a blog
- I could work from home (or anywhere) – This was hugely important to me as a stay at home mom with only one vehicle that my partner used 12 hours a day.
- Blogging could turn into full time income – I knew bloggers on Instagram made good money but always thought of online blogging as a hobby people would do for fun and maybe make a buck or two.Boy, was I wrong.
- I could create my own schedule – I had looked into other work from home jobs before but many required degrees or some sort or set scheduled hours. I worried about how hard it would be to be clocked in at home with 3 kids running around in the background. Blogging was something I could do whenever I got a quiet moment (rare and sporadic opportunities) or after bedtime.
- Blogging is somewhat passive income – I quickly learned that once a blog is established, you can make money in your sleep! Yup! Things like ads & affiliate links are up and running on your blog 24/7, whether you’re online working, sleeping or on vacation – you’ll still be earning money!
- Anyone can do it – blogging doesn’t require a degree! – As I mentioned, I never got around to going back to college and always thought I would eventually need further education if I ever wanted to make more than $12/hr at a local retail store or restaurant.
During my time stalking Sophia’s website, income reports and other people’s blogging income reports I learned the bare basics of getting started on this journey.
How to start a blog (the right way)
Everywhere I read, I kept seeing the same things.
To start a blog you need..
- To be on WordPress.org and NOT WordPress.com
- Pick a low cost hosting service like Bluehost
- To choose a nice looking WordPress theme
1. WordPress
It’s best to start your blog on a self hosted website like wordpress.org so that you actually own it.
WordPress.com is hosted and isn’t your own.
You’ll often see websites started under WordPress.com as websitename.wordpress.com which doesn’t look very professional. Even if you purchase a domain to get rid of the WordPress.com part of your URL, you still don’t own it.
The easiest way this was explained to me was that creating a hosted website it like renting a space on the internet & creating a self hosted website is like owning a space on the internet.
This might seem insignificant but is extremely important for growing a profitable blog!
Self hosted is required for many ad agencies, best for SEO purposes and gives you complete control of your website.
WordPress.org is self hosted and requires you to have a hosting service like Bluehost
2. Bluehost
Once you have your wordpress.org account you’ll then need to choose a hosting provider
Bluehost is a website hosting provider for site owners like us.
They’re one of the most widely used hosting providers and great for beginners due to the low prices!
Bluehost offers plans starting as low as $2.95 a month!
In the beginning of your blogging journey you won’t be making thousands or even hundreds of dollar right off the bat
Keeping your start up costs low is so important while you’re just beginning and deciding if you’re gonna be in this for the long haul!
At the time of writing this, I’m actually still with Bluehost and have no complaints even this far in the game!
3. Website Theme
Choosing a nice looking theme is so important!
When people come to your website, the first thing they notice, even before they get into your content, is the way the website your looks!
If it doesn’t look professional and looks outdated or sketchy, they’ll immediately exit out.
Luckily for us, we don’t have to be website builders to have a clean, nice looking blog!
You can find tons of beautiful, low cost themes online or on places like Etsy!
My blog theme that I’ve had since the beginning and still currently use at the time of writing this have, is from Etsy seller StudioSaroya.
I purchased my theme for under $25 and is still one of my best low cost investments for this blog!
Speaking of investments..
As luck would have it, Sophia actually launched a blogging course of her own around this same time I was discovering all of this!
After about two months of owning my blog but not quite knowing exactly what I was doing, Sophia launched Perfecting Blogging & Perfecting Pinterest!
I took the plunge and purchased the bundle of both of them!
Best. Decision. Ever.
But I failed.. at first!
Yup, my first blog failed.
Even after buying Sophia’s courses, I thought I could still kinda do my own thing and that somehow it would totally work out.
I thought I could just write about whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and just loosely follow her advice.
Come December 2021, a little over a year since starting my blog, I gave up.
I thought for sure I would be rolling in it by a year in but I was still treading water and not getting very far.
It was then that I decided to serve myself a slice of humble pie and go back to the course.
I started completely over.
With a niched down to a topic I was extremely excited and passionate about, I started schoolrunmessybun.com!
I went back to the course, took notes and started fresh. This time I was going to listen and play the game right.
⭐️ I cannot recommend BySophiaLee’s blogging courses Perfecting Pinterest & Perfecting Blogging enough for beginner bloggers!
⭐️ If you follow exactly what she says and be patient, I promise you will succeed!
Finally I was ready to get serious and buckle down.
In January 2022 my first post went live!
Fast forward to now, December 2023, I’m hear to show you how far I’ve come and how earning money blogging IS possible!
December 2023 Blogging Income Report
This month I made $792 blogging!
My biggest payday from blogging yet and here’s where it came from.
- Affiliate income
- Amazon Affiliates – $303.80
- Advertisements
- Mediavine – $488.25
Total income: $792.05
I feel I must make a disclaimer that these are my earning before expenses and taxes.
Here are my expenses:
- Canva – $12
- Keysearch – $13.60
- Lasso – $289
Net profit: $477.45
What are these expenses?
- Canva – an online tool I use to edit graphics and make pins
- Keysearch – a keyword research tool to help me find target keywords for my posts
- Lasso – a new service I needed to buy in order to continue to show photos of Amazon Affiliate products in my posts due to changes in the way the Amazon Affiliate program runs.. thankfully this is a once a year expense.
I pay myself 50% of my net earnings, set aside 30% for taxes and put 20% towards business savings.
How did I make this happen?
This month was actually my first ever month getting paid from Mediavine ?
What’s Mediavine?
Mediavine is what is considered a premium ad agency!
Getting accepted into Mediavine is one of the biggest milestones of “making it” in the blogging world.
In order to get accepted, you must have at least 50,000 sessions (not pageviews) to your website.
I passed this milestone, applied and got accepted back in September! Woohoo!
Mediavine pays Net65 which basically means they pay out 65 days after the end of the month that your money is earned.
What this means is that the money I’m getting paid by them was actually earned back in the last few days of September from when my ads with them first went live!
Because of this, I already know what my earnings for next month will be too because I earned them back in October.
Projected January 2024 Income Report
October was my first full month with Mediavine and I earned a total of $2,927.90!
I know, I can hardly believe it either!
These earnings will be deposited in January.
I also have earnings from Amazon that I earned back in November that will be deposited in January.
That’s How I Made $792 Blogging as a Stay at Home Mom
I hope this inspires you to take the leap and start a blog too! Or, if you’ve tried before and failed, I hope this inspires you to try again because you can succeed!
I remember being you, the reader, combing through tons of income reports and wishing, hoping and wondering if that could me one day!
I thought maybe these people stumbled across this kinda success by pure dumb luck like how random YouTube videos would go viral back in the mid 2000’s.
Or even worse, I wondered if I was too late. With so much content out there, how could I compete to be found and why would anyone want to read my content?
Well, I can assure you I’m no one special.
I’m your average stay at home mom with a laptop and a dream and I’m finally seeing the fruits of my labors from sticking with it.
Starting a blog is the best leap of faith I’ve ever taken and I still can’t believe it’s actually working!
Some days it still doesn’t feel real, but it is! And it can be for you too!
Wishing you a Happy New Year & happy blogging journey!
-Angie | schoolrunmessybun.com
