Whether you’re looking to invest, start a savings, pay off student loan debt or budget for a new car, personal finance blogs are full of advise, guidelines and beneficial information no matter the financial situation.
Wanting to start a finance blog of your own? These four personal finance bloggers are the perfect example of how you can simultaneously teach readers how to save money while earning some for yourself.
Still not convinced writing about personal finance is worth the time? What if I told you that you could earn as much as $100,000… a month.
Have your attention now? Let’s kickstart our list with the personal finance blog, Making Sense of Cents.
Making Sense of Cents
About the Creators:
Michelle, who has spent the past few years traveling America with her husband and living out of an RV, is the owner and author of Making Sense of Cents.
Michelle credits the debt she acquired through student loans after college for inspiring her to start a finance blog. In a little under 7 months she was able to pay of $38,000 of her student loan debt.
What is ‘Making Sense of Cents’?
Making Sense of Cents is a finance blog dedicated to helping readers learn how to make extra money, how to save and how to budget for personal dreams.
Some recent posts include:
- Is Paying Off Your Debt Worth It?
- Make Extra Money By Learning to Teach English Online
- Is Your Job Costing You Too Much Money Each Year?
In addition to the finance related posts, Making Sense of Cents also includes quite a few travel and lifestyle related content as Michelle and her husband road trip to various locations.
How does Making Sense of Cents make money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income that Making Sense of Cents brings in monthly:
- Affiliate Marketing
- Sponsored Partnerships
- Courses – (Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course and Making Sense of Sponsored Posts)
- Display Advertising – (Michelle notes that she uses Adthrive but another great option is Mediavine.)
Michelle explains that affiliate marketing is where most of her monthly income stems from and that it is her favorite way to earn a living online.
“Just around two years ago, I was barely earning anything from affiliate income,” she says. “But now I’m earning over $50,000 a month from it!”
Affiliate marketing is way for a company to sell its products by signing up individuals or companies (“affiliates”) who market the company’s products for a commission.
These companies can market products through links, photos or social media. In general, affiliate marketing is a win-win for both parties involved and can greatly boost monthly income.
“I love affiliate income because it can feel quite passive” – Michelle
She explains that you can spend a few minutes crafting an Instagram post or a few days perfecting s blog post and essentially continue to earn revenue from it (as long as you keep it updated and relevant, of course.)
Michelle also points out that if you already love a product what’s the harm in getting paid to promote it?
Fake advertising is an issue many bloggers and influencers find themselves facing. Your audience and readers will be able to tell if you genuinely love a product or are just promoting it for cash.
Instead, try to find brands that you personally love and that represent your company and what it stands for.
The Takeaway:
Getting substantial traffic to a blog can make or break the blogs success. Michelle’s promotional habits help keep traffic to her blog, including:
- Accepting all interviews. “If someone wants to interview me, I use it as practice to get outside of my “box,” to reach a new audience, and more,” she says.
- Keeping active on social media. Michelle says that replying to comments on her social pages and engaging with readers in a genuine way is an important part of running a blog. “Your readers want to hear from YOU!”
- Emails. Michelle makes an effort to send out a newsletter to her subscribers every time a new posts becomes live on her blog.
Believe in a Budget
About the Creator: Kristin, owner and author of Believe in a Budget, was working as a designer prior to getting her feet wet in the online world of blogging.
She says that although she knew she wanted to start a blog and it had the potential to be successful, she was well aware it was going to take a lot of hard work.
Less than a year later, she was able to quit her day job, allowing her to work on her website and brand full time.
What is ‘Believe in a Budget’?
Believe in a Budget is a finance blog designed to help readers find tips on side hustles, start and grow a successful blog and master Pinterest.
Pinterest has quickly become one of the biggest traffic-driving tools for bloggers and website owners.(It’s also one of the best instructional topics for new bloggers!)
There are a few reasons why Pinterest works so well as a means to drive traffic to a blog. For starters, 250 million people now use Pinterest each month. That is a lot of potential traffic you can attract with a single pin and ultimately your blog.
In addition, 84% of people use Pinterest when trying to decide what to buy. This means that promoting one of your products or your company on Pinterest could potentially lead to increased sales.
Utilizing Pinterest for traffic isn’t simple but with practice and trial and error, it can become a viable tool for increasing profit.
Kristin became a master at Pinterest early on, allowing her to become a Pinterest virtual assistant and, eventually, creator of a Pinterest management company.
How does Believe in a Budget Make Money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income Believe in a Budget brings in monthly, in order from their most to least profitable:
Courses + Products (Pinterest Presence, Become a Pinterest VA TODAY!, Pinterest Pin Templates, Side Hustle to Success) – $100,282
Affiliate Income – $8,638.86
Ads – $957.84
Kristin admits that one of the biggest benefits to starting a blog is the ability to control your income.
What you earn every month is completely dependent on the work that you put in. The more affiliate links, ads, sponsorships and courses you contribute to, the more revenue you will take in.
Millennial Money Man
About the Creators: Bobby Hoyt, owner and creator of Millennial Money Man, was a high school band director prior to starting his blogging career. His motivation for starting Millennial Money Man came after earning his college degree.
He explains that soon after graduation he was faced with something that haunts many college-attending youths: student loan debt.
In addition to his student loan debt, Bobby was faced with another common issue many millennials face in today’s society: the undenying pressure to buy a new car, buy a new house and start s family – forgetting about the financial burden in the process.
Wanting to step out of routine and advise of older generations, Bobby set out to settle his debt and change his lifestyle in order to live more fully and stress-free.
What is Millennial Money Man?
Millennial Money Man is a website dedicated to helping people of all financial backgrounds budget and plat for their futures.
Bobby explains that most of his articles are driven by the following four principals:
- Live below your means until you don’t have to anymore.
- Don’t finance stuff you don’t need.
- Let your friends pass you up.
- Work really hard and then make your money work for you.
How does Millennial Money Man make money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income Millennial Money Man brings in monthly, from most to least profitable.
- Millennial Money Mastermind: $18,037.00
- Digital Marketing Income: $5,369.95
- Affiliate income: $2,098.40
- Bluehost Blog Hosting: $1,240.00
Credible: $840
ConvertKit: $18.40 - Staff writing: $1,500.00
- Course launch FB Ad Retargeting: $2,500.00
- Ads/Traffic: $730.03
But that’s not all. Bobby notes that the reason for September’s outrageous success was due to the following three launches:
- FB Ads for Bloggers
- Millennial Money Mastermind
- FB Side Hustle Course
His courses FB Side Hustle Course And FB Ad for Bloggers earned him nearly $96.978.00 (before affiliate payouts and credit card fees).
Selling courses is a profitable strategy for many bloggers.
Think about it like this: Most bloggers have websites with posts chock-full of information… for free. Of course ads and affiliate marketing may be included in order to profit but the content itself is free.
Creating and selling a course over your best content – content you know is requested and profitable – can be a great way to increase sales.
The Takeaway:
Bobby explains that it’s important to build relationships with readers before attempting to sell anything to them.
In addition, he makes sure that the courses he sells are 1.) affordable and 2.) designed to actually help people (ie: not just fluff!)
Good Financial Cents
Note: This number excludes the money that Jeff earns from Alliance Wealth Management, Life Insurance, The Online Advisor Growth Formula and Media/Brand Sponsorships, which have totaled him nearly $150,000 in monthly profit)
About the Creator: It’s hard to believe that Jeff Rose, owner and creator of Good Financial Cents, who dropped out of college his first semester and took four years just to earn his associates degree, would one day be earning the over $100k giving others financial advice.
He explains that much of the content for this financial blog comes from his past experiences and mistakes.
From losing $5,000 investing in a penny stock to missing out on an investment opportunity that could have earned him upwards of $75,000, Jeff uses these opportunities to craft quality financial content and advice.
But not all of Jeff’s financial experience has been bleak. In fact, he is a certified professional planner, the CEO of a wealth management firm and wrote a best-selling book on personal finance.
What is Good Financial Cents?
Good Financial Cents is acts as a financial advisor through blog posts, allowing individuals to begin investing in themselves.
Good Financial Cents mission? To help you gain full control of your money situation so that one day you can experience what financial independence truly tastes like.
Jeff notes that even through he graduated college with a finance degree, he actually had no idea what investing was like.
Which is why his website focuses a lot on the process of investing and why it’s worth the time and energy.
How does Good Financial Cents make money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income Good Financial Cents brings in monthly:
- Affiliate Earnings – $39,888.47
- Ad Networks – $8,808.91
One of the biggest benefits to using affiliate marketing is the fact that there are affiliates for any niche or blogging topic. No matter who your audience is, there is an affiliate network that will appeal to them.
How much an affiliate makes depends entirely on first the prearranged agreement and, second, the total number of people they end up sending to the merchants site through a link or otherwise.
Like Bobby of Millennial a Money Man, Jeff earns much of his additional income from selling courses.
Jeff admits it took him awhile to determine what his course topic would be. He then considered the following question: What is the #1 question you get asked the most?
Creating a course on a topic that is in high demand or has been specifically requested is the perfect way to ensure you are making profitable content.