Food Blogging Income Report March 2020

What an effing month this has been, huh? I actually debated not even writing an income report because it honestly just seems so trivial in relation to all that is happening across the world right now. However, for consistency’s sake, I decided that I will write this report, but it’s just going to be pretty straight forward and to the point. So let me apologize now – this post is not going to have the same enthusiasm and energy as mine usually do. I just can’t fake it, guys.

Surprisingly, March ended up bringing the highest amount of traffic my blog has ever seen. And despite the ridiculously low RPMs, this also resulted in the highest income I’ve made from my blog in one month. Which again, I am hesitant to even discuss as so many folks are facing layoffs, food shortages, and childcare issues – not to mention the very real possibility of themselves or their loved ones contracting a life-threatening virus just by leaving their house. See how unimportant income reports are right now?! Ugh, I am still wrestling with whether I should even be writing this…

But, I digress. Below I’ll share with you my monthly traffic, monthly expenses and monthly profit.

 

If you didn’t catch my first income report – you definitely want to check it out before diving in here. It gives you a lot of background on my blogging journey and a really in-depth look at my income over the last year since joining Mediavine in January of 2019. Be sure to check out my November, December, January, and February income reports too.

TRAFFIC:

Pageviews: 386,661
Sessions: 317,292
Users: 248,724

Traffic Sources:

Social: 73.82%
> Pinterest: 98.38%
> Facebook: 1.10%
> Buzzfeed: .24%
> Instagram: .20%
Organic: 14.49%
Direct: 6.43%
Referral: 5.20%
Other: .05%

Looking back on where I was at this time last year – in March of 2019, I had 31,103 page views with 23,894 sessions and 19,105 users. It’s exciting to see how much progress my blog has made in this last year.

INCOME:

As I mentioned in my first income report, Mediavine is my main source of income from the blog. I make a bit of money with Amazon Associates but it’s not much. Here’s a look at March stats:

Mediavine: $3,822.23 with an average RPM of $12.05
Freelance Photography: $3,525.00
Amazon Associates: $95.15

TOTAL PROFIT: $7,442.38

RPMs this month were sh!t. For those who blog, you know that the RPMs typically follow the stock market. So when the stock market plummets, so do RPMs. The reason my ad income was the highest it’s ever been was because, despite the terribly low RPMs, my pageviews were through the roof (for me). So – huge shout out to all the new faces around the blog this month! You are the reason I can feed my family and sleep at night!! 🙂

I’ve noticed that some folks don’t add their freelance work to their income reports. However, my blog is basically like a portfolio for my photography work. And I never would have gotten the freelance work with these brands if it wasn’t for my blog. So to me, it feels like freelance photography work is very directly correlated to my blog and therefore I include it in my income report.

EXPENSES:

Groceries: $150
Nerdpress (site maintenance): $122
Agathon (hosting): $70
ConvertKit (email service): $29
Canva (graphics for Pinterest): $13
Gsuite (email provider): $12
Lightroom (photo editing): $11
Tailwind (Pinterest scheduler): $10
Akismet (site security): $5
KeySearch Subscription: $8.50

TOTAL EXPENSES: $430.50

PROFIT: $7,011.88

These numbers are good. That’s all the excitement I can muster right now.

What I’ve been working on this past month:

• I’ve still been hard at work on my freelance project – which has actually been a really nice distraction during all of this. I’m really hoping to line up some more of these projects throughout the coming year, but it’s so hard to know where brands are going to be putting their money with everything that’s happening. Only time will tell!
• I’ve still been going to bed earlier. One great thing about being self quarantining for most of the month and getting to work my day job from home is that I have been getting adequate sleep. I’m going to be earlier each night because I actually feel like I have accomplished all the things I needed to during the day.
• This situation has forced our family to slow down. It’s amazing how much time you have in a day when you aren’t running from one place to the next. I have to say that our family has never been into “being busy” so we didn’t do a ton of stuff before, but as a couple that works opposite schedules, we are used to seeing each other for about 30 seconds most days of the week. So having my husband laid off from his day job and me working from home with mine has really been great. I’m not going to lie – I’m not so secretly hoping that I’ll be able to continue working from home after this is all said and done! We have had so much more time to sit down and eat dinner together and enjoy movies and go for walks. I am really hoping that this new trend is one that sticks around even after the quarantine is done.
• We’ve kind of put a pin in paying off debt for the time being. In last month’s income report, I talked about how we were paying off a lot of our debt with my Mediavine income. Right now, any extra income is going into our savings, rather than towards paying down debt. It’s a little scary to have no idea how much longer my husband will be laid off (although his employer is paying their employees a percentage of their wage which is really freaking awesome!!!) or if my job will continue to be necessary as I work in admin at a healthcare facility. So for now, we are just hanging onto what we’ve got and hoping for the best!
• I just have to give a little shoutout to Mediavine for being my saving grace during all of this. I have generalized anxiety disorder AND am a huge hypochondriac so I deal with a lot of anxiousness on a daily basis. A worldwide pandemic is basically my absolute worst nightmare (not to mention something that I really never thought was actually possible) – however, thanks to Mediavine and my consistent paychecks from my ad income, I am actually able to sleep at night knowing that our bills will be paid and we’ll continue to have a roof over our heads. Having a side hustle at a time like this is truly a blessing.

What I’ll be working on next month:

• Taking things one day a time. Getting enough sleep, spending time with my family, and eating good food. Those are my goals for the next month. Basically just trying to survive.
• I’m not focusing on how many posts I’m publishing or whether I’m creating content for the blog. I’m literally just doing what feels best in each moment – listening to my body when it needs to rest and taking advantage of the moments of creativity as they come.

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY PREVIOUS INCOME REPORTS!

See you next month when I share my income report for April!!