Jessica

Annual Income Report

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Just like last year I am doing another income report. Again I think transparency is important and I want you all to know that I do make money from blogging, though for the second year in a row that number is pretty darn small.

I know some of you have seen Pinch of Yum, Smart Passive Income, and a slew of other website posting their monthly income reports, and this one is going to be laid out pretty similarly to those, albeit a little shorter, and less technical, because lets be honest, I don’t have much to report.

Income:

Contributor Work: $227.66

Sponsored Posts: $65.99

Dealspotr.com: $48.97

Affiliate Sales: $9.50

My Recipe Magic: $7.50

*unfortunately My Recipe Magic stopped paying me money I have been owed since June and refuses to provide an explanation, so I have discontinued working with them. I would not recommend them to anyone as their site is riddled with problems, and they have no customer service to speak of.

TOTAL INCOME: $359.62

Expenses:

Switch to WordPress: $225.00

Domain/Hosting Fees: $65.17

Learning tools: $34.95

Advertising: $7.00

TOTAL EXPENSES: $332.12

Net Income: $27.50

Notes on this report:

This year I made money, that’s a huge increase over last year’s -$29.59, but it’s also not allowing me to pay my bills.

This year I chose to make the switch to wordpress from blogger, which in tern meant my hosting & domain fees have gone way up, and will continue to be at their current rate for the foreseeable future. You can read more about my domain and hosting set up here. For the actual transfer I used High Note Designs because sometimes it’s worth going with the professional. In this case it definitely was and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

The income I made from sponsored posts was manly through product reviews, so while I still have to count them at their dollar value as income “you cannot eat product”, so keep in mind more than half of those dollars are not actual dollars at all.

I lumped all of my affiliate sales into one category because I am a part of several affiliate programs and have only made minimal amounts at each. It didn’t seem useful to list all of those dollars separately. The affiliate programs that I am a part of are AvantLink, Shareasale.com, Amazon and Pinch of Yum. Also there is quite a lot of money sitting in a number of these affiliate accounts, but since they only pay out at larger dollar values I cannot count them as income. I will count them as income once they are actually paid into my accounts.

In 2016 I hope that I can improve on these numbers and increase my income. Any income that I do make will go right back into the blog. I am excited that I might finally be able to spring for new photography equipment or a blogging class this year. This blog is my hobby and it’s a hobby that I am passionate about and I want to learn more. Making money here allows me to reinvest it in the blog, and learning tools so that I can then supply you guys better content that is free to you.

I also want you to know that I appreciate each and every one of you that stopped by my little corner of the internet, even for a second. Every single view, comment, question, and share counts.

Recently

By Jessica

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The New Year rang in with a great group of friends. Unfortunately I was lucky enough to start off the year with sick, so this post is a day late, and while I still sound like a dying mule right now I get myself together enough to get this post out for you.

Chuck and I finally put in the effort clean up our yard. Since we moved in we have had a ton of junk just hanging out in our side yard and it was not a good look. Now all that stuff is safely stored in the basement or garage, which also got a cleaning out so that I can finally park in there! I’m so excited to not have to scrape my car every damn day.

We also made some big improvements to the house, and man is it really starting to feel like home! More on that soon.

Since this was the first Christmas in our new home as a married couple I actually put a little effort into decorating this year, though it was kind of a struggle (decorating just isn’t my thing). I think our efforts were well received.

We hosted back to back holiday parties, and wow was that a tiring weekend, but so, so fun.

It finally snowed! I’m pretty sure the north east broke some records for the unusually warm weather we had this December, but the snow finally hit before the new year, and I’m so glad that it did! I love winter!

I’m looking forward to the New Year and all it has to offer.

This Year’s One Little Word

By Jessica

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Last year I chose one little word to be my mantra for the year, and I think it was a pretty successful choice. I chose BUILD because I had hoped that we would be able to build the foundation of the life that we wanted and I think we did a pretty good job with it. In 2014 I spent a lot of time figuring out what I wanted for myself, and 2015 was about figuring it out in terms of the family that Chuck and I were building together.

In 2015 we bought a house, got married and made a number of other small life changes, and now looking back it all I’m in awe of how much we were able to accomplish together. We truly did begin to build the life that we both want. There is still a lot to figure out obviously, but we are taking this all one day at a time. I get the feeling that this coming year is going to be no different in terms of the challenges that we are going to face. There are a lot of things that we both want to accomplish, a few more big decisions that we have weighing on us, but I think we can do this. We can live the dream life that we want, on our terms.

Isn’t that what everyone is looking for any way?

I really, really want to get there. I know it’s going to take time, and be a little hard, but it’s doable, luckily we are simple people so we aren’t looking for much. After a year of hard work I think we are ready to take some chances, and that’s why this year’s one little word is BRAVE.

I don’t want to hold back because I’m scared, or because society says I shouldn’t do something. I don’t want to fall in line with everyone else’s just ok. I want to chase my dreams and that is exactly what I plan to do this year.

There are of course the smaller goals that I think we each have every year that will also be a part of this larger goal. I’d like to get a little healthier (you know actually work out, drink more water type of thing), finish a number of projects around the house, spend more down time away from electronics, and hike a lot more. I’d also like to be brave enough to let certain relationships that are not serving me well go, and build stronger bonds with the ones that are. I think letting go is the hardest part, but sometimes it’s for the best. The small thing that I want to do most this year is actually take some time and check back in with these goals. I kind of fell off the wagon with that last year, as I seem to do every year. I want to change that for 2016 and remember everything that I want to do. I would love to accomplish everything on my list.

What are some of your goals? Do you subscribe to the one little word idea?

SL&G’s Tops Posts from 2015

By Jessica

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Every year I typically round up SL&G’s top recipes, this year however I decided to go a in a slightly different direction. I figured since I give out a free ebook of the top recipes every year (Coming soon!!!) why round them up also? This year I started to incorporate more than just recipes in my posts and I’d really love to highlight some of the other craft, life, how to posts that hit it big here on the blog. So this time I’m rounding up all of SL&G’s top posts from 2015.

Panera’s Soba Noodle Broth Bowl & Pantry Lemon Pepper Chicken