April 2020 Income Report: My Fourth Income Report

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What a time for everyone in the world. With everything happening around the world, I hope that you are staying safe and healthy. I was struggling whether to write this income report. However, I want to share my ups and downs with you my readers.

To be honest, this past month has not been the easiest in terms of blogging and keeping up as I, like many others, are worried about our health and families and friends.

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Welcome to my fourth income report. If this is your first time here at Making Days Count, hi, I’m Becca.

I talk about lifestyle as a parent, travel mistakes to avoid, and occasional home projects.

My reasoning of writing this income report is to share with others what they can do too with a lifestyle and travel blog. Please know that I am only at the beginning stages though I started the blog awhile back.

Thank you so much for coming by. I hope you enjoy your stay and please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions.

Background of my blog

I started this blog back in July 2018. Yes, it was more than 1 year and a half ago. When I started the blog, it was more of to share my ideas and experiences with others.

In this blog, I talk about travelling, DIY projects, and my journey as a parent.

In July 2018, I was pregnant with my kid K. If you are pregnant and thinking of starting a blog, my suggestion is to pre-write many blog posts before your intended due date and also schedule and automate many parts of your blog if possible.

Or, you can go slow like I did.

I did write blog posts and schedule them but that was pretty much it.

My blog had ads and affiliates, but I was not really doing much because I was busy with my baby. (Hats off to moms who work their butts off starting businesses while having a baby to take care of).

Slowly, but surely, my blog views started to rise.

Fast forward to December 2019. I was at 877 readers a month with about 931 sessions.

I thought, you know what, I need to do something different.

Though it is exciting to watch my numbers grow month by month, I wanted to see if I could increase my viewership a little more. I did and it went to 1,602 readers in January 2020.

In February, my readership went up to 2,209. That is 607 more readers, I’m so grateful!

However in March, due to our current situation and less pinning, my readership went down to 1,730. It’s alright.

Last month, April, it dropped to 1,345. It was a tough month but I am looking forward to the numbers increasing for this month!

Pin this for later!

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Why I am giving 50% away?

I’ve decided that 50% of the money I make from the ads or affiliates from this blog (after taxes) will be given to charity.

For the months of January 2020 to March 2020, I gave 50% to the WWF Australia. As you may or may not know, Australia is going through a bush fire emergency and will need all the help and support they can get. Australia is also where some of my family members and friends are living.

I am so blessed to have food, shelter, and a loving family. This is a way for me to give back and bless others.

The numbers

So here is what you’ve been waiting for the numbers. I always get so excited and inspired by the income report numbers. It gives me a sense of hope to be able to achieve what they attain some day.

Here are my numbers in April:

Blog readers: 1,345 (decreased from 1,730)
Ad revenue: $2.82 CAD (decreased from CAD $7.25)
Awin affiliate: $4.45 (decreased from $5.71)
Amazon: $12.12 (increased from $0)
Sponsored post: $20 (increased from $0)

This means that I will be giving $19.70 CAD to charity for the month of April. Please let me know where I should donate next. I really want to do something to help people out, especially during this difficult time. I am open to different ideas.

What did I do different from March 2020?

As I mentioned earlier, this past month (April) has been different. We are going through a difficult time together, self-isolating, and doing the best that we can. To be honest, I’m struggling a little to be motivated. Working from home (day job), taking care of a toddler, and also working on this blog can be tiring.

It’s good that I wrote some of the blog posts earlier in the year. I highly recommend writing blog posts in advance if you can.

Pinning less often

Before January 2020, I would just pin after writing a blog post and call it a day. I will pin other people’s posts on my boards when I get a chance to do so. I’m not sure if this is laziness or just scared to start.

Yes, having a baby is a reason I use sometimes to why I’m not pinning or feel motivated to pin more often. (Hey, I’m being honest!)

Now that she’s a toddler, parenthood doesn’t get easier but I wanted to do something different to gain more viewership.

I downloaded the Pinterest app on my phone and started pinning at random times during the day. It increased the opportunities for my pins to show up on people’s feeds.

This works. But something else works even better (more below).

In February and March, I used Tailwind to see if it will help. If you click on this link, we both get $15 of Tailwind Plus which is one month free.

Using Tailwind not only allows me to schedule my pins based on what they think is best, and I don’t have to be constantly on my phone.

I’m back to work this month so it is really hard to pin things while I’m at work.

Being on Tailwind, I am able to automatically pin things. This saves me so much time.

I am manually pinning less, but I am still getting readers because of Tailwind.

Sometime in March, I received a message from Tailwind that I am pinning a little too much (around 74 pins a day). So, I decided to decrease the amount that I pin. This might be contributing to the less readers I’ve received as well.

The plan for May is to manually pin more if I am scheduling too many on Tailwind. Let me know in the comments if you are in the same boat.

Using automation for my Instagram account

I love Instagram. The beautiful pictures and the meaningful captions are something that I enjoy looking at and reading.

As I was trying to figure out how to post there more often to draw people to the blog, to notify others when I have a new post, it was so tiring. It was inconsistent and frustrating for me.

So I decided to test out Tailwind for Instagram. They were able to tell me which hashtags to use and the best time of when to post. Yeah, I decided to use Tailwind for Instagram before Pinterest (shocking, but it’s true).

By using Tailwind, I was able to post everyday in April and increased my followers to 100 people (from 98 people). Maybe I should do a giveaway, what do you guys think?

I made a plan of what I wanted to post everyday and the pictures alongside with it. Please feel free to check out my account and follow me if you like.

You can try out Tailwind for free and then decide if you want to upgrade to their paid plan or not.

Resources

Here are the resources that I use and can recommend to you:

My hosting plan and where I get my domain name is with Siteground. It’s easy to use and I get an email account with it as well. The loading time seems pretty good and I have no complains at the moment. If you are thinking about a hosting plan, I highly recommend Siteground because I’m using it too!

For ads, I am using the Google Adsense program. It’s simple and also you can choose how many ads and where you want them to be. Be sure to apply for Google Adsense when you have a brand new blog.

One affiliate program I mentioned to you earlier is Awin, where I earned $2.71. It may not seem like much, but it’s a good start. It does cost you $5 to join, but they will put it back into your account after accepting you as an Awin affiliate.

Other affiliate programs I am a part of include Amazon, Share A Sale, Rakuten, and Airbnb (Get CAD$45 off your first stay).

As mentioned earlier, I am currently using Tailwind. It’s been giving me results, so I think I will continue using it for awhile.

Please know that the links above are affiliate links. I might get a small commission at no extra cost to you. I will donate 50% (after tax) to the next charity for April and May 2020. Please let me know if you have any suggestions of where I should donate to.

Here are April’s blog posts:

Thank you

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end of this really long income report post. I am excited that I was able to increase my readership and also donate some money as a part of my revenue for the blog Making Days Count.

If you like what you read and want to follow me to hear my random thoughts, check out my Instagram. My Instagram stories can be pretty random, but they do tell you my thoughts during the day. Also, please pin the image below to share with others that they too can make their days meaningful and count!