I have always known that there is a large chunk of money to be made blogging. I never realized, however, just how powerful a blog can be. I have had a dream for several years now to start a personal finance blog, with a mix of household tips and work from home ideas. The hardest thing for me has been sticking with it consistently.

I have a lot of trouble when it comes to creating content. A simple blog post can sometimes take me hours to write if I’m not really in the mood to do it. Other times I can crank out over 1000 words easily in 40 minutes.

As some of you may know, I run a full-time business from home working in marketing. On top of that, I also run a small Etsy shop. Our home is also a bit of a zoo, quite literally. My husband and I do not have any children, but we have opened our home to 3 dogs, 3 cats, 3 ferrets and 2 bearded dragons. One of these lizards was also a very severe case of neglect and starvation and needs constant special care. To say I get distracted by my main business and life, in general, is an understatement 🙂 Looking back at my blog, however, I’m a bit ashamed to say it’s been almost 5 months since my last post.

My original goal was to write at least one post a week, but at some point I just let it go and tried to focus on other things. If you are interested in starting a blog, my biggest piece of advice is not only to do it but stick with it. Even if you are only committing to writing one post a week, if you stick with it, it will pay off for you.

So what has happened to my blog since I first started? In the beginning, I was pretty good about writing and had put up 11 posts over a couple of months. In the grand scheme of things, that really is not a lot. However, with the help of Pinterest, 2 of my 11 posts gained traction with over 1,000+ pins. That’s great, but what does that actually equate to? A pretty decent amount of money, at least for the work I put in.

I would say on average, I spend about an hour writing my posts. Here are my current earnings since I have started this blog, also keep in mind, this income is for 11 hours worth of post writing and maybe an additional 4 hours of me actually setting up the blog and getting everything how I wanted it.

As you can see, for those 11 posts that I wrote, I have earned $309.60 and there are still a few days left in February. For about 15 total hours of work, that is not bad at all, especially since these posts are going to continue to earn me money each month, whether I add any new content to my blog or not. Now imagine I had actually continued to write a few articles a month the last 5 months…my income would likely have been much higher.

Blogging is a wonderful way to earn extra money from home and eventually turn it into a full-time income. There are several bloggers making thousands each month and some bloggers are even making crazy amounts such as $10,000 up to even $80,000 each month.

Blogging is something anyone can do. It is incredibly cheap to get started. All you really need is hosting and a domain name which you can get both for under $25.00. You really do not even need much in the way of technical know-how or even writing for that manner. Between using spell check and a website called Grammarly, you can write just about anything and feel confident enough to put it out there.

Even if you’re not entirely sure what to write about, the best thing you could do is start with something you are passionate about, such as a hobby. Just off the top of my head, a few things that come to mind are:

• children and parenting
• pets/animals
• finances
• gardening
• photography
• crafts
• cooking
• graphic design
• wood working

There are so many topics that people are searching for information on out there and there is at least one thing you are likely an expert in. My best piece of advice is to just take the plunge, set a goal of how often you want to write and stick with it, in the end, the results are going to outweigh the time you initially put in.

At some point, I plan on putting together an in-depth guide on starting a blog, but I want to leave my readers with some direction in the mean time until I can put this together. The blog Crazy Busy Happy Life has a wonderful beginners guide that you can find here.

I know that the thought of blogging can be overwhelming for some, but I highly encourage you to set aside spare time to start a blog. It is incredibly rewarding and can actually be a great way to supplement your income and with hard work, eventually set you on the path to financial freedom.