10 Ways Blogging Changed My Life

I have been blogging for a really long time, but in 2018 I decided to get serious about it! My goal was to see if I could make a full-time living from my blog. Over six years later I am finally ready to share 10 ways blogging changed my life.

My blogging journey started back in 2008! I made a free blog with Google where I shared my adventure of moving to New Zealand for a year. When the year was up I kept writing and this blog carried on until 2017.

At the time my blog posts were mainly written for my family and friends to read, but occasionally I would get readers that were outside of the people I knew. So in the back of my mind, I knew there was probably a way to make money at this. But I just couldn’t imagine how.

At the end of 2017, I decided to make a YouTube channel for fun and to share my decluttering experience. I fell in love with creating YouTube videos as an artistic outlet.

This is when I also came across Lisa from the channel and blog Farm House on Boone. She had several videos on how she became a full-time blogger and how she was able to replace her husband’s income. After watching her videos I immediately signed up for her blogging course Create Your Blog Dream.

This course was the first part of the puzzle that explained: how to start a blog, how to make it successful, and how to make money from blogging!

Now that you know my back story let’s jump into the 10 ways blogging changed my life.

(this blog post contains affiliate links)

How Blogging Changed Everything:

1 – Blogging is a Creative Outlet

When I started this blog at the end of 2017 I was a full-time stay-at-home mom. My boys were 3.5 and 1 year old at that time and I needed something to do.

I was busy with two little ones, but to be honest that just wasn’t enough for my brain. As an artistic person, I like to have something that allows me to be creative.

At the time we also needed to find a way to make more money to hopefully replace my income that was lost when I stayed home to take care of our boys.

Blogging was the perfect thing! It was challenging, but easy enough that I could write a blog post in my spare time and eventually start growing my blog.

2 – Keep Learning With a Blog

I have realized over time that blogging is a great way to keep learning and keep my mind challenged.

Staying home with kids is great, but I love a challenge and a blog has kept me thinking and researching. I am constantly learning new things!

It could be how to write better, how to take better photos, how to market my blog better, and how to learn all the different social media platforms. There is always something to learn and it’s a lot of fun.

If you are interested in starting a blog and all the ways it can make you money check out:

CREATE YOUR BLOG DREAM

3 – Reaching Blog Goals

Setting goals and reaching them feels great! I like to set small goals each week and feel accomplished as I check them off.

It could be as simple as; thinking up 5 blog post ideas to write about or taking some photos of a project I am working on to share later.

Just having a goal (that isn’t home management oriented) and getting something done feels really good.

4 – Meeting Like-Minded People

I am in quite a few blogging groups on FaceBook where we all discuss different ways to improve our blogs and ways of getting traffic.

It is really nice to meet other people that have the same hobby and job as you. I have also met some really nice fellow YouTube creators who have become good friends.

5 – Finally Getting Accepted to an Ad Network

At the beginning of 2018, I started my blog without a clue of how I would make money or what I was doing. In October 2018 I took the Create Your Blog Dream course and learned all things blogging.

I quickly realized focusing on writing posts that would bring me traffic and qualifying for an ad network were my top goals. Most ad networks only accept you after you have a certain amount of views per month. At the time the ad network I wanted had a 30K a month or more rule to qualify. (This is if you choose to use ads on your blog to make money which is what I wanted to do.)

I started implementing everything I learned in the course. When you first start a blog it’s a blank slate! So the biggest challenge is to come up with blog post ideas and start pumping them out. My goal was to write one post a week, and if I could write more I did.

By September 2019, Eleven months after taking the course and 40ish blog posts later I was accepted to the ad network!

6 – Finally Making Money Blogging

I just dug through all my analytics and found that the first full year of having ads on my blog made me $7341.00. Now of course this wasn’t coming close to replacing my previous income, but it fully covered all my expenses and made the extra $200. I wanted per month.

The next year I made almost the same amount of money, but we were in the middle of the pandemic and the ad rates were lower and I couldn’t pump out as many posts for various reasons.

In my 3rd year of blogging, I made around $11,000.

In the fourth year of blogging, it almost doubled! And so far every year after that it’s only gone up.

Keep in mind this is only income from ads, there are a lot more ways to make money blogging.

Making this extra money has been life-changing in a lot of ways. We are not suddenly “rich”, but it has allowed us to move closer to family, start saving for our future, and work on our fixer-upper home.

7 – Flexible Schedule

Blogging changed my life by allowing me to work from home while also taking care of my kids. After my second son was born we crunched all the numbers and realized it would have cost more than I previously made to go back to my job.

After the cost of childcare and gas, I wouldn’t be bringing home enough money for the hassle of everything. That is why having a blog that I can work on while also being a stay-at-home mom was the right choice for me.

When first starting this blog I would write early in the morning before anyone woke up or on nights and weekends. In the beginning, it can feel like you are working for nothing and wasting time, but a post you write once can bring you future traffic for years to come.

Over the last few years, I have realized just how passive blogging can be. Now that I have over 300 posts on my blog I can go weeks without writing anything if I feel like it and still make money.

8 – Blogging About Something I Like

My blog is all about decluttering, simple living, saving money, minimalism, decor, and a lot more. Blogging changed my life by allowing me to share my thoughts on all my interests.

It’s fun to talk/write about things we enjoy doing and the great thing about posting this online is like-minded people will find you and become part of your community.

And now that I have found some success by blogging on those topics I am more comfortable sharing some tips and tricks on how I got here.

9 – Replacing Our Full-Time Income

After 6 years as a full-time blogger, I can say that blogging makes me more than I used to make at my full-time job!

This didn’t happen overnight. Every year I made a little more while focusing on writing and sharing my content.

Learning from other bloggers, taking courses, and investing in myself and my education are what helped me get here.

10 – My Husband Was Able to Quit His Job

Finally, the biggest way blogging changed my life was when we saved up and made enough for my husband to quit his job.

Ever since I started my blog I had this hope that my husband and I could work from home together. His job was over an hour’s drive from our home. That combined with an 8-hour day came to about 10 hours of him away each day.

Once my blog started making money we were able to save half of our income for about 2 years. This savings and living a frugal life gave us the courage to make the jump and have him quit his job.

Now we are working together from home on this blog and on our YouTube Channels (which is a lot of fun too)!