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Four Months Blogging And My First Income Report
I started Let’s Glow in May and really had no idea what I was doing (read how I started my blog here and the mistakes I made here… so embarrassing to think about now!) I made my site beautiful and published a lot of high quality posts (my blogging style has even changed so much in just a few months!) I knew earning a profit, or any income at all, wouldn’t be a quick thing. But I knew I wanted to build something real, and that was mine. And I knew it would only grow over time, if I was strategic and if I put in the work.
The person who inspired me to blog is Cassie Scroggins. I originally just followed her on Instagram, but one day she shared a video about all of her different ways of earning income, and blogging was one of the biggest ones! She shared she made over $10,000 a month sometimes from her blog, despite hardly working on it for the last few years. That inspired me because that was exactly what I wanted. I was tired of my Instagram reels disappearing into the algorithm.
So I used her guide to start up my first blog over a year ago and she taught me a lot of beginner things I used to start up this one! However building Let’s Glow to what it is today took a lot of trial and error and I think figuring it all out on my own has been part of the journey that I love so much. For me, learning through experience and troubleshooting is so much better than from a guide, because I find I learn so much more and have so much more depth.
That said, with what I have learned, I definitely plan on collecting all my lessons and ideas into one cumulative guide. I promise I will update here once it is live and available for download!
Like I explained in this blog post here, for my first few months I didn’t really have a blogging strategy, and I just posted my posts and hoped for the best. That brought me all of 80 views a month. I applied for Google Adsense and of course got rejected. And that inspired me to overhaul my site and change my strategy… and in just 4 weeks my blog traffic has exploded (as well as my Pinterest traffic, which contributes to over half my blog views! Read about my Pinterest strategy here).
September was the first month where I saw real growth. Here is a breakdown of where Let’s Glow sits financially, four months into blogging and one month into having an actual strategy:
For full transparency, I have excluded any income (obviously…listed a whole 4 cents there) from network marketing sales through my Arbonne business or any affiliate income made through Instagram. I want to track and share purely blogging income.
Start Up Costs Explained
Hosting
I decided to host through Bluehost, because they are the most affordable and they integrate with WordPress which I find to be incredibly user friendly. The plugins are top notch and it is so easy for beginner bloggers to navigate and implement. They have plans for as low as $3.99 a month to start (possibly even lower if they have promotions). But for Let’s Glow I decided to purchase WordPress Basic Hosting at an annual plan. I had already had a hosting plan for a year for my old blog so my renewal was a little more expensive at around $11 a month instead of $4. Sign up through my link here and get exclusive pricing at $1.99 a month!
Domain Purchase
This is a necessary cost for any blogger, and that is your domain purchase (your website name/URL). It is the cost of your little corner of the Internet. In this blog post here I explain the embarrassing mistake I made where I tried to build my site on a domain I didn’t own. This is a very important step to get right in your blogging journey!
Storage and Backup
I purchased this through Jetpack after a few months of blogging and realizing that if I were to lose everything, I would be absolutely devastated. For under $100 I can protect my blog and my countless hours of work that I am literally putting my heart and soul into! I already love the Jetpack app and use it daily so I was happy to have my storage and backup with a company I already trust. What I have created would be impossible to do again so this cost for me is completely worth it.
Anti-Spam
I installed this after my first rejection from Google Adsense, after realizing that all the bot and spam comments on my blog posts and my contact forms were hurting my blog’s credibility. CleanTalk AntiSpam not only blocks spam but it removes all existing spam once activated. At $17CAD a year this is well worth the investment! It is probably one of the easiest things I have done to protect my site.
Check out my blog post here about the best plugins for managing and monetizing your blog!
Theme Installation
As I explained in my blog post here, in my first blog I spent so much time designing my site from scratch that I was completely burnt out and stopped blogging after only publishing a handful of posts. This time around, I knew better. I got my theme from Creative Market and the installation and activation was so easy! From there you customize and design your site appearance and widgets to how you like it and make it your own. If you are a beginner blogger, I highly recommend doing this, as designing a site from scratch is very challenging and time consuming, and you don’t want to spend more time figuring out how to build a menu bar than actually creating your content.
Other Costs Explained
Tailwind
Right now my only monthly investment is Tailwind, the leading Pinterest scheduling tool. It is a complete lifesaver for me as someone who wants to spend as little time on screens as possible!
Blog Income Explained
Ad Revenue
Like I explained in earlier blog posts, I got rejected by AdSense the first time I applied, but I was approved for PopAds. Unfortunately PopAds did not align with how I wanted my site to be perceived or with the user experience I wanted my readers to have, so I removed it after only a few days. I did make a tiny amount of money on it, but unfortunately the payout minimum is $5.00, so while I did “earn”, it isn’t actually in my bank account.
Affiliate Income
I have been doing affiliate marketing for several years and despite having a smaller following on my new Instagram page, I do manage to make some money from it still. My main source of income from Instagram is actually my network marketing business with Arbonne. However, I consider income from links on my blog to be affiliate income whether it is through Arbonne or another partner I have. And to date, no affiliate income has been earned (yet!) directly through links published on my blog.
Right now I publish links mainly through Arbonne, EcoKind Cleaning, Organika, and LTK — but I am working on working with some more partners in the digital space as I expand my audience and platforms!
Product Sales
Over the summer I started my product shop here I create and sell digital products. I did this with WooCommerce and I absolutely love it. It is so user friendly, you can add so many different types of products (digital, downloadable, custom, affiliate/external) and the payment methods are so easy to set up. My only sales right now are my free products so I don’t have any income yet. This is fine with me and to be expected as I grow my audience and build trust.
September 2025’s Income Reflection
Still seeing a negative number at the bottom of the screen does sting a little, but I am totally confident that in time that will change! Blogging by nature is a small burn and with the right strategy it can be a great source of passive income. Honestly I am just excited to see how another month of my blogging and pinterest strategy performs!
I wrote more about my blog update in this post here, where I share my starting and ending numbers for September, and it is truly amazing how far I have come in just 4 short weeks. Above all it has been an ongoing project and something healthy to focus on that is just for me.
Looking Ahead for October 2025 + Beyond
Right now my monthly cost is just for Tailwind. That means once my start up costs are earned back, I really don’t need much to earn a profit.
This is why I decided to start sharing these updates and income reports. Not only do the numbers tell the real story, but it reassures other new bloggers that they aren’t alone on a growth journey that may feel slow, especially a lot of our inspiration comes from bloggers who are already successful and are sharing their numbers and income in the tens of thousands or more!
If you are here to follow along, thank you! And let’s continue on this journey together!
