My monthly online income reports—which show how I make over $30,000 a month blogging—are consistently among my most popular posts. I enjoy reading income reports to learn different ways to earn from blogging, and it seems many of you do too.

Side note: If you’re thinking of starting a blog, check out my tutorial How To Start Your Own WordPress Blog. Keep in mind that it’s typically harder to make money on free Blogger or free WordPress blogs than on a paid WordPress site, so I highly recommend you switch to WordPress if you want to monetize your blog.

Nearly all of my monthly income comes from blogging and services tied to blogging. That’s why so many reader questions focus on how I make money blogging.

When I first learned that blogging could be profitable, I reached out to bloggers who published income reports. I already loved blogging, so the idea of earning money while enjoying the process appealed to me.

Blogging remains something I love, and thankfully it now covers my bills. I started this blog to track my finances and improve my life—everything else followed.

Read more

Today I’m pleased to share a guest post from Matt of Method To Your Money. Below are the practical strategies he used to graduate almost entirely debt-free.

If you’re preparing for college, or you have children who will be heading off to school, student loans can seem inevitable.

In fact, over 70% of graduates leave school with significant student loan debt. That’s millions of people carrying trillions of dollars in debt. It’s a sobering reality—but it doesn’t have to be your future.

What follows are realistic, proven steps Matt used to avoid becoming a heavily indebted graduate and to begin his career on solid financial footing. He’s already sharing these lessons with his own children so they can succeed academically while building healthy financial habits.

Matt grew up in a middle-class family—his father a pastor and his mother a nurse. Money was never unlimited, and his parents made financially sensible choices. Those values shaped many of the decisions he made about college and beyond.

Read more

Is saving for retirement important? Absolutely. If you prefer spending all your money on immediate pleasures—lavish vacations, designer clothes, or nights out—you might be tempted to ignore retirement savings. That may feel fun now, but it’s bad advice for your long-term well-being.

Just kidding — that’s terrible advice.

Your future matters. Neglecting retirement savings today can make securing your later years much harder and far more stressful. Saving for retirement is extremely important. The more you delay, the tougher it becomes to catch up.

Despite this, many people are behind on their retirement savings. Saving now matters for several reasons:

• It helps ensure you won’t have to work indefinitely.
• You may be able to retire earlier rather than later.
• Saving lets you maintain a comfortable quality of life after you stop working.
• Compound interest rewards early saving—time makes your money grow faster.
• You reduce the chance of relying on family or others for financial support.

Clearly, saving for retirement is essential.

Read more

Hello! Today I have an excellent article to share from R.J. Weiss. He purchased my course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing in 2017 and has since built a remarkable site. The Ways To Wealth now receives around 500,000 monthly visitors and has become a six-figure blog. Enjoy!

Before launching The Ways To Wealth in 2016, I studied the complete archives of many blogs’ income reports. For some sites, like Making Sense of Cents—which began publishing income reports in 2013—that meant reading years of old posts. It was time well spent.

I learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t when building a profitable blog. With that knowledge I set a goal: build a blog that could replace my full-time job. Fourteen months later I reached that goal and felt comfortable leaving a position I’d held for ten years. At the time the blog was earning about $3,000 per month. With a healthy emergency fund, I took the leap to become a full-time blogger.

Fast-forward again: The Ways To Wealth is thriving. It now reaches roughly 500,000 visitors each month and has exceeded the next goal I set—turning it into a six-figure business.

Read more