Blogging Costs

The Unexpected Costs of Blogging

In Blogging by Joe WeintraubLeave a Comment

If you’re making a real effort to monetize your blog, then there’s a good chance that it’s going to become your primary source of income. If blogging is what you want do for a living, then you need to get prepared for the additional costs that come with that.

Here, we’re going to take a look at some of the costs involved with blogging full time,,, but they could just as easily apply to any other freelancer or self-employed person or side-hustler.

No such thing as a vacation day

When you work for yourself, you’re going to see first-hand, the costs of taking a day off. There’s no-one to pay for your vacation days or your sick days. Of course, there are still ways to enable yourself to take a vacation, as shown on Contently. Blogging can create a passive income, which in turn can allow for a sort of paid vacation. ..besides, you know you’re going to bring your laptop or iPad anyways right?

It’s also wise to make sure that some portion of your returns goes into savings that can pay for those days that you need to take off and to understand that you’re losing a little business as a result.This is particular important if your blog is not yet getting much affiliate income.

blogger

Ensuring your Insurance

You’re also going to be entirely responsible for finding and paying for your own Health Insurance. For most people, health insurance can be the costliest expense of them all. Besides finding a deal that offers the coverage you need at a reasonable price, you’ll want to make sure you’re not on the hook for accidents or injuries that aren’t your fault.

With the help of legal teams like Emroch and Kilduff, when you work for yourself you’ll know how to be more mindful of when you should pay, and when others need to cough up what they’re responsible for. Otherwise, your insurance costs are going skyrocket.

Don’t Underestimate Taxes

Taxes are no fun by any stretch of the imagination. When you’re self-employed or freelancing, your tax payments get a lot more complicated. Upwork shows a few tips to help you make them a little more predictable so you can plan well in advance, instead of being surprised by your quarterly bill.

One of the biggest expenses to expect is that you’re going to be covering the social security contributions that your past employers would have once paid. Depending on which state you live in, you may be on the hook for sales tax from products you sell.

blogging taxes

Funding your Future

When you start blogging, freelancing, or otherwise working for yourself, make a conscious effort to start putting money aside for your future as soon as possible. Even if you can only afford to contribute a tiny amount to your savings, you’re not going to have anyone else paying for your retirement.

The sooner you get started, the easier it is to meet those retirement goals. This Fidelity article offers some advice on how to maximize your contributions. Otherwise, you might find yourself working for yourself a lot longer than you expected to.

Making a career out of blogging, or any other kind of self-employed work comes with a lot of responsibility. The benefit is that it also comes with a much greater share of the profit (100%, to be precise). Be prepared for the costs and you’re much more likely to make it to see those returns.

Monetize Your Blog

Monetize Your Blog

As a relatively new blog, Lifein12keys.com has it’s share of expenses both monthly and yearly recurring. Now, I’m just a contributing author, so Craig ends up paying for all of this stuff. Some of the expenses it takes to run this website include:

Web Hosting – A necessary expense for all websites. The good news is, you can find inexpensive web hosting from a variety of sources like Namecheap or Bluehost.com. If you’re a WordPress Blogger like us Bluehost offers some great plans that include a 1-click WordPress install.

Email List – You’ve probably heard “The Money is in the List” from every professional Blogger out there. Well, it’s true. There are a number of companies that can make this painless for non-tech types. We use ConvertKit for all of our email needs. they offer a FREE 14 Day Trial too. Check out Craig’s excellent article: Blogging Nightmare and his experiences using various Mailing list programs.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing

Writing Software – Do a quick Google search for “Best Writing Software” and you’ll likely see Scrivener at the top of the heap. We use Scrivener for all of our articles here. Every word is written in Scrivener before it hits the blog.

Pinterest Scheduling – Pinterest accounts for about 87% of our website’s traffic! Seriously! It rivals google as the #1 Search Engine, especially among women. Thats 1000’s of pageviews per week for us! Tailwind App makes scheduling on Pinterest a breeze. We couldn’t Blog without it.

Pinterest Ninja

Learning From Other Bloggers – Online courses are great for catching up on topics you may know little about as a new Blogger. We recommend 2 excellent and relatively inexpensive courses:

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – Michelle Schroeder-Gardner makes over $100,000k per MONTH on her Blog. Her course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a must buy for anyone wanting to learn how to monetize their Blog. Check it out.

Pinterest Ninjas – I found Megan Johnson in a really helpful Facebook Group. I took her course and our Pinterest has blown up! If you’re new to Blogging and Pinterest this simple and easy to follow course is for you.

Last but not least…

Legal Pages, Disclaimers and Privacy Policy – Every website owner needs to get their legal pages in order, especially under the new GDPR regulations. We work with a Lawyer here in Florida who also happens to be a blogger; Amira Law. Amira has a Legal Pages Bundle that takes care of all of this… and it’s written by a Lawyer!

The Unexpected Costs of Blogging

 

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