Income Report – February, 2021
Our monthly income reports are an opportunity to share exactly what it’s like to run Wallet Squirrel. These are a transparent look at what we make, all the struggles/successes, and perhaps most importantly, how we built an audience of zero on Day 1 to 17,000 users in this most recent month.
If you’re curious about our progress, we share these income reports every month.
What We Accomplished in February
- Adam and Andrew had our annual Wallet Squirrel retreat. Meaning we hung out and planned out next year’s goals while eating snacks that we deducted as a business expense.
- Updated our contact form on our Contact Page. In the last 5 years, I’ve received numerous emails from people who have no idea how to read our guest post guidelines. So now they have to checkboxes next to each item to agree they understand. It seems silly, but half our time is responding to emails from the worst writers.
- We were granted access to a couple more affiliate networks (more coming on that soon!)
- We’re trying Ezoic as a new ad platform. Let us know what you think!
Our February Website Traffic
It is still a little crazy we share our website statistics, but we sincerely hope those reading get an idea of what it’s really like to run a blog. It’s very tough, but incredibly rewarding when we see people appreciating our content.
A majority of our traffic comes from Google, but we did have one day where a random bots sent a bunch of garbage traffic. So please ignore that spike. Here’s what the month’s traffic looked like!
Our February Website Income
It’s exciting to say that we had another month of $500+ income! This is a huge deal because this is becoming the average for our monthly income reports. This is money we use to grow Wallet Squirrel and buy more dividend stocks!
A big contributor to our high income is our How To Start A Blog page which continues to be one of the best on the internet (in terms of design). These affiliates are great, but we hope that our website ads and additional affiliates will become bigger contributors as we grow!
Every month we continue to try different ways to make money, and these passive income experiments continue to boost our potential income. Every day these grow and will eventually replace our entire income through blogging. Cool Right!
- Google AdSense – we make money when people see or click (extra money) on website banner ads
- Affiliate Marketing – we earn a commission if someone buys a product through a link on your website
- Blue Host Affiliate – an affiliate link for website hosting we use.
- Online Surveys – we earn money from participating in online surveys like Swagbucks.
- Stock Photography – we earn money whenever one of our photos sells online.
- Interest Checking/Saving Account – we earn interest on the money in our checking and savings accounts.
- Cash Back Credit Card – we earn extra money via 2% cashback from using our credit card.
- Seeking Alpha – we earn recurring ad revenue from SeekingAlpha.com for some articles we wrote years ago.
- Lending Club – we earn interest from peer-to-peer lending.
- Dividends – we earn dividends from the stocks we own.
Monthly Expenses for Wallet Squirrel
While it’s great to talk about the money we make. We also spend money to help our blog grow. Here is how much money we spent in February.
Monthly Expenses – $219
- Bluehost ($36) – hosting service
- Sitelock ($8) – extra security add-on from Bluehost
- Domain Name ($2) – so we can reserve the domain name WalletSquirrel.com.
- Bloom ($7) – our creative email signup forms.
- Money Mix Insiders ($166) – Great mastermind group for finance bloggers + Ahrefs Membership
In addition to our monthly blogging expenses, I did purchase a few dividend stocks to add to my stock portfolio. I purchased a few shares of Microsoft and Verizon. These purchases will continue to boost my monthly dividend income!
What’s Next For March
A big part of March will be closely watching our new Ezoic Ad Platform and optimizing it for our audience. There has to be a balance for people to accept ads and us to make money. I’m hoping to find that balance. So hopefully you’ll forgive this month as we play around with different ad set ups.
Additionally, I have some fun blog posts coming out and I’m excited to some new marketing efforts!
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
