September Blog Income Report (With Daycare Costs Included!)

Page Views: 113,681 (Holding steady from August)  

Unique Visitors: 26,318 (Holding steady from August)  

September was a most glorious month. September was a month when I finally felt like a professional. I had OFFICE HOURS! Yes, that’s right, the wee Cubs started daycare and Mama got down to business without distraction. I can accomplish one bazillion times more things in seven hours without children than I can in seven days trying to work around them. Sanity has been restored. I wasn’t sure if there would be a financial pay-off to daycare, considering it’s expensive. I was confident there would be a benefit to our family life and my mental health, but would I just be working to pay for daycare? Let’s find out!

Income:  

Affiliate Sales:  

I didn’t put much effort into affiliate marketing this month. (I usually don’t.) This commission would most likely be from people clicking affiliate links on my sidebar.

Lagoon Baby: $12.25  

Well.ca: $43.17

Total: $55.42

On-site Advertising:  

I said it last month, and I’ll say it again. I am SO satisfied with my switch to SavvyMom as my advertising provider.

SavvyMom: $275.05

Media.net: $27.76 USD/ $37 CAD   

Monthly ads & ambassadorships: $330  

Total: $642.05

Sponsored Posts:

I did a sponsored post for Finish Dishwasher Cleaner, a double whammy that got some housework done while also paying the bills! I wrote about lice (a post a hope to never have to refer back to, but I’m not holding my breath), winter babywearing solutions and the AppleCheeks one-size diaper.

Total: $1050

Grand Total: $1747.47

Blog expenses:  

McAfee Anti-Virus software:  $2.91  

Vault Press Website Back Up Plug in: $6.23  

Web hosting by Green Geeks (3-year subscription): $8.33

PicMonkey Image Editing: $3.91 (I won’t renew this now that I’m paying for Canva, but I had already paid for the year.) 

Freshbooks accounting software: $22  

InLinkz Linky service: $1.67  

Mad Mimi Newsletter Service: $35   

Facebook boosting: $56.25

Giveaway buy-in: $12

Canva $13 

Tailwind $11.40 

Sendible $9.23 (Use my Sendible promo code, 170220, and get 10% off your Sendible plan. Redeem from the sign up page at http://bit.ly/29VNDiK) 

Total Expenses: $181.93

Total income minus expenses: $1565.54

Social Media Management

I don’t normally include the money I earn managing social media for my clients in my blog income reports since that income is not related to my blog, and my goal here is to discuss income that can be earned directly from running a blog. However, since I want to also examine the financial impact of putting my children in daycare, I’m going to talk about the other income I earned this month. I couldn’t have accomplished all of my blog tasks and all of the hours for my clients without daycare. In fact, finding daycare was the main reason I committed to my role at Funky Fluff given the recent merger with Bummis. In September I billed $727.60 to my social media clients.

Blog Income (gross) + Clients = $2475.07*

Daycare cost us $800 in September. The Cubs attend twice a week at a rate of $50 per child per day.

In my pocket: $1675.07

*It’s important to note that there is no income tax taken at the source, so I do anticipate paying income tax for 2015, and of course there is a small tax deduction for daycare expenses.

Final thoughts:

The hours of uninterrupted work meant a definite increase in earnings this month. There was never a doubt that daycare would be beneficial for me on a personal level, but I didn’t really know if it would be profitable. I was hoping I would at least be able to bank 50% of my monthly earnings, and it worked out to be more! I have found myself less stressed on days when there’s no daycare because I am not constantly wondering when or if I will be able to get a given task done for my blog or a client. If Little Miss doesn’t nap during Cub’s preschool, I am not desperately trying to entertain her and work at the same time. I’m just enjoying a cup of tea (while keeping it out of her reach and trying to drink it while it’s still tepid) and time with my daughter, knowing there is allotted time for the to-do list. I’d love to say that I now only work on the two days my children are at daycare. Unfortunately, that’s not true, and it would only be true if I were sending them three to four days a week. I am clearly still trying to do a full-time job at part-time hours, but it’s much, much easier now. I have resigned myself to not having it all, but now I’m much happier with my work/life balance! My children are happy at daycare, too!