Blogging

Two Years of Blogging: All the Stats

stats lalmch

Photo by Lalmch on Pixabay

Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. That means I may receive a commission if you make a purchase through my links. There’s no extra cost to you and it helps to support the blog. Thank you!

Happy blogiversary to me!

That’s right—on January 1st Eat Sleep Breathe FI turned two! It was a busy, successful year and I have lots to share. Just like last year, I’m sharing all the stats from my second year of blogging. Get ready for lots of tables, charts, and numbers! 

Related: If you haven’t already, read my one-year and six-month blogiversary posts for my honest experience with blogging. For all my 2019 blog stats, read my one-year stats post.

Why I reveal my blog stats

I’m guarded with our net worth and spending, but I’ll happily spill the beans with my blog stats. Why, you ask? It’s because I haven’t found much in the way of stats for new, small blogs. While there are exceptions, most bloggers who share stats tend to be much farther along. 

Reading gargantuan numbers like theirs can feel unrelatable and defeating to those of us who are still new to blogging. My hope is that by sharing my challenges and stats (even when they’re ugly) others might be encouraged to push through the hard patches and keep blogging. 

Part 1: All the stats

In this section, I’ll outline all the metrics I use to monitor my blog growth. If there’s a metric that I haven’t included, but that you use and find helpful, let me know. I’ll see about including it in my next blogiversary post.

Note: Since some of my commentary from my one-year blogiversary stats post still applies, I’ve reused some of it here.

Metric 1: Email subscribers

As mentioned in my one-year blogiversary post, my e-mail list is still small (really small) but I’m grateful for each and every subscriber. I’ve continued to be lazy about growing my email list, so I’m not surprised that it was another year of slow growth. Here are the stats:

2020 esbfi email subscribers
  • January: 97 (+4%)
  • February: 107 (+10%)
  • March: 119 (+11%)
  • April: 120 (+1%)
  • May: 128 (+7%)
  • June: 142 (+11%)
  • July: 148 (+4%)
  • August: 160 (+8%)
  • September: 176 (+10%)
  • October: 176 (0%)
  • November: 176 (0%)
  • December: 177 (+0.6%)

Additional e-mail stats

Here are some additional stats from Mailchimp. (I don’t know if these rates are good or not—there isn’t much info for small niche blogs.)

  • Average open rate: 53.7% 
  • Average click rate: 18.2%
  • Average subscribe rate: 800%
  • Average unsubscribe rate: 0.6%

My commentary

I have a strong suspicion that my email list will be one of those areas I may never get around to improving! I don’t know—I just never feel motivated to deal with it properly. It just seems I can help more people by focusing on new content to share the FI message.

If I’m wrong, please tell me why and help motivate me to do better! (Maybe that’s what I need to improve my email list growth—a good reason, and a good kick in the butt.)

Metric 2: Month-to-month pageviews

I have good news and bad news about my pageviews. The good news: the numbers were HUGE compared to 2019! The bad news: it was totally inconsistent, and my baseline traffic improved only slightly from last year.

However, given that I post infrequently and inconsistently, this was expected. I’d love to post more often, but it’s not possible for me right now. While my kids are still living at home and needing a mom to do mom things for them, my blog will have to take a backseat sometimes!

2020 esbfi month to month pageviews
  • January: 4,255 (+71%)
  • February: 5,294 (+24%)
  • March: 10,017 (+89%)
  • April: 6,027 (-39%)
  • May: 12,042 (+100%)
  • June: 5,009 (-58%)
  • July: 6,780 (+35%)
  • August: 11,204 (+65%)
  • September: 3,920 (-65%)
  • October: 4,483 (+14%)
  • November: 3,768 (-16%)
  • December: 3,371* (-10.5%)

*I mentioned in my December update that I had some major website issues last month. My Google Analytics disconnected and collected no data for a whole week! Therefore, my actual pageviews should be higher than what’s shown. Based on my average weekly pageviews in December, I estimate my total for December should be 4,194—823 pageviews more than what was captured in Google Analytics.

My commentary

I hit three big pageview peaks in 2020: 10,017 in March, 12,042 in May and 11,204 in August. Here’s more insight into each of those peaks:

March

In March, three of my COVID-related posts turned out to be hot-button topics that brought a lot of traffic to the blog:

I don’t think my success with these COVID posts is likely to be repeated. (I just happened to write about a topic that a lot of people were interested in.) However, I learned that it’s possible (even for a small, new-ish blog) to attract a lot of traffic with relevant, helpful content.

May

In May, I was completely surprised by how popular my coming out post was. The new readers also visited a wide variety of other posts and pages on my site, which boosted my pageviews to the highest level ever.

August

In August, my participation in an AMA on the Blind forum brought another big boost in traffic. Most of those visitors visited my homepage and my Ultimate Guide to ESPPs and RSUs. This bump was also unexpected, but I suppose I should have expected that as a natural side-effect of the AMA.

September to December: The slide back down

Unfortunately, just like in 2019, I saw a big decline in traffic in the fall and winter. From September to December, traffic tapered off drastically and didn’t come back up. Like last year, I think it was due to my inconsistency and it being a slower time of year for blog traffic.

To be honest, it’s not fun seeing my traffic go back down to my 2019 levels. But I try to see setbacks constructively. For me, I’ll take the drop in traffic as motivation to continue learning and working hard to grow my blog. 👍

Metric 3: Total pageviews

I like to track this number just for fun:

  • January–December 2019: 45,848
  • January–December 2020: 76,170 (+66%)
  • LIFETIME TOTAL: 122,018

Metric 4: Month-to-month users

These numbers are a lot lower than my pageviews, which (I think) means my readers come back often and/or visit more than one page per session. So I guess it’s a good thing!

2020 esbfi month to month users
  • January: 1,572 (+53%)
  • February: 1,462 (-7%)
  • March: 2,615 (+79%)
  • April: 1,471 (-43%)
  • May: 2,854 (+94%)
  • June: 2,027(+29%)
  • July: 2,808 (+39%)
  • August: 4,298 (+53%)
  • September: 1,484 (-65%)
  • October: 1,832 (+23%)
  • November: 1,603 (-13%)
  • December: 1,480* (-8%)

*I mentioned in my December update that I had some major website issues last month. My Google Analytics disconnected and collected no data for a whole week! Therefore, my actual users should be higher than what’s shown. Based on my average weekly users in December, I estimate my total for December should be 1,887—407 users more than what was captured in Google Analytics.

Metric 5: Total users

I also don’t know if this is useful, but I’ve seen this metric on other blog reports:

  • January–December 2019: 13,835
  • January–December 2020: 23,753 (+72%)
  • LIFETIME TOTAL: 37,588

Metric 6: Traffic sources

Note that the numbers below reflect users, not pageviews:

2020-esbfi-traffic-sources
  • Direct: 11,851
  • Social: 5,120
    • Twitter: 2,564
    • Facebook: 1,573
    • Instagram: 272
    • Other: 22
  • Organic search: 4,688
  • Referral: 1,713
  • Other: 404
  • Email: 308

My commentary

Direct traffic

Direct traffic is my biggest traffic source and it’s unfortunately very tricky to analyze. Apparently, it comes from a variety of hard-to-track sources (mobile apps, messaging apps, directly typing in the URL, etc.) 

I’ve learned that UTM tags can help to categorize some of this direct traffic (Google’s Campaign URL Builder is useful for this). But I’ve yet to find the time to implement them! I keep thinking I will, but I just never have the time.

Social

Twitter and Facebook are my biggest sources of social traffic because I spend a lot of time on those platforms. I love sharing and conversing with other bloggers on Twitter and I’m in several FI and blogging Facebook groups.

I brought in a lot more traffic from Twitter in 2020 when I started using the Revive Old Posts plugin from Revive Social. (Thanks for the tip, Bob!) This free plugin makes it very quick and easy to auto-schedule and tweet out my old posts. If you’re not using it yet, you definitely should!

The Eat Sleep Breathe FI Facebook page still doesn’t have a large following, so I’m pretty sure most of my Facebook traffic comes from the sharing threads in the groups I’m in: ChooseFI Canada and Women’s Personal Finance

My Instagram referral traffic is minuscule compared to Twitter and Facebook, but it’s better than nothing. I use Smart.Bio in my Instagram profile to link to multiple pages on my site. It’s more flexible than the single URL that Instagram normally allows (and it’s free). 

Organic search

In my one-year blogiversary post, I mentioned that this was an area I planned to work on in 2020. Happily, I managed to make some progress in this area—organic search accounted for 16.4% of my traffic in 2019 and increased to 19.5% in 2020.

What worked for organic search

I’m still not knowledgeable enough to know conclusively what worked (or didn’t) as far as my SEO tactics, but this is what I tried to focus on:

  • Updating old posts that are already ranking well in Google.
  • Researching keywords before writing a post, then naturally writing around those keywords.
  • Aiming for long-tail keywords (that is, a phrase instead of a single term).
  • Aiming for keywords that have decent monthly search volume, but not too much competition.

I’ll continue to learn about SEO and how to do better with it. Hopefully, I’ll see more improvements in 2021. 

Huge thanks to my blogging friends Maria and Kari, who I’m in a mini SEO mastermind with. They’ve shared lots of helpful tips with me to help up my SEO game.

My most unexpected search term

It seems all bloggers have weird or unexpected search terms that bring traffic to their site. (You can see these terms in Google Search Console). I always find it amusing and thought it would be fun to share mine: it’s “brandon walsh mustang” (or some combo of those words). 

I featured a GIF of Brandon Walsh from Beverly Hills 90210 in my post about my husband M’s classic Mustang and it continually brings a teeny tiny trickle of clicks to my site!

Referrals

Referrals were a much smaller percentage of my traffic in 2020—7.1% versus 24.3% in 2019. Still, it continues to be a good source of traffic for my blog as well as a great way to connect with other bloggers. In 2020, my referrals came from:

*Check out my Guest Appearances page to see where I’ve guest posted or been featured and quoted.

Did you know?

I also run a directory right here on this blog! It’s called the Canadian FIRE Directoryif you’re a Canadian FIRE content creator, I’d love to include you! Just shoot me a message here.

Other

‘Other’ traffic mostly came from RSS. To be honest, I’m not 100% sure how this works—is it people feeding my RSS directly to their email? If you have any insight to share, I’d love to learn more.

Email

These are the click-throughs from the emails I send to my subscribers. I only started using the Google Analytics tracking option in Mailchimp in June, so this number only captures half of my stats for 2020.

Metric 7: Audience location

In 2020, my readers came from 114 countries around the world! (In 2019 it was 88 countries.) I find it so cool and mind-blowing! Here’s the breakdown:

2020-esbfi-audience-location
  • United States: 45%
  • Canada: 40%
  • UK: 2%
  • Australia: 2%
  • France: 2%
  • India: 1%
  • Other: 8%

Metric 8: Twitter followers

I don’t know if Twitter followers are meaningful to track, but I do it anyway just for fun:

2020 esbfi twitter followers
  • January: 1,394 (+5%)
  • February: 1,436 (+3%)
  • March: 1,515 (+6%)
  • April: 1,542 (+2%)
  • May: 1,650 (+7%)
  • June: 1,692 (+3%)
  • July: 1,803 (+7%)
  • August: 1,892 (+5%)
  • September: 1,914 (+1%)
  • October: 1,939 (+1%)
  • November: 1,975 (+2%)
  • December: 1,999 (+1%)

My commentary

I don’t do anything in particular to grow my Twitter followers, so I don’t have much to say about it. However, I do have a request: if you know of an automated way to track and analyze Twitter followers (I track mine manually) let me know!

Metric 9: Top ten posts

Here are my top ten posts for 2020 (starting with the most-visited):

My commentary

I actually hadn’t looked into my top posts until I made this list… and I’m really surprised by the results. They tell me:
  • People are very curious about the identity of anonymous bloggers.
  • Organic search helps a lot (most of the traffic for many posts came from Google).
  • We were all obsessed with the coronavirus in March.
  • FI School (something I poured a ton of blood, sweat and tears into) is still getting good traction.
  • Blog stats are a popular topic that’s helpful to other bloggers—especially those who are new and/or have a very small blog, like mine. 

Metric 10: Comments

Comments are a huge part of blogging for me. It’s so rewarding to receive feedback from regular readers and newcomers. I love being able to regularly connect with and learn from all of you! 

Total comments

  • January–December 2019: 301
  • January–December 2020: 486 (+61%)
  • LIFETIME TOTAL: 787

Thanks for your comments

Whether you’re a frequent or one-time commenter, I appreciate that you took the time to engage and connect. If you haven’t left a comment before, please jump in and introduce yourself—I don’t bite, and I’d love to get to know you!

Part 2: Income and expenses

I saved the juiciest for last! This is what everyone wants to know… right? Well, don’t get too excited! I said it last year and I’ll say it again: there’s not a lot to report here!

However, even though I didn’t earn much in my first or second year of blogging, I’m still sharing my numbers. Why? Well, I like knowing what other bloggers earn and how they earned their income. It’s interesting, educational, and satiates my curiosity. 

And really—who doesn’t like a peek behind the curtain? With that, I present the numbers:

2020 income sources and totals

2020-esbfi-income-sources

Total income

  • Affiliate sales: $1,415 ($1,088 USD)
  • Advertising: $159 ($122 USD)
  • GRAND TOTAL: $1,574 ($1,211 USD)

Total expenses

  • Monumetric Propel Program implementation fee: $129 ($99 USD)
  • Web hosting: $53 ($69 USD)
  • 1 Hr Blog Post from Do You Even Blog: $35 ($27 USD)
  • Solo Pine theme support renewal: $14 ($11 USD)
  • GRAND TOTAL: $231 ($206 USD)

Net income

  • 2020: $1,323 ($1,018 USD)
  • 2019: $261 ($201 USD)

My commentary

$1,323 still isn’t much, but it’s more than 5X the $261 ($201 USD) I earned in 2019. I can’t help but be thrilled with that! (Even if earning income from my blog isn’t my main motivating driver.) 

For those who are curious, I’ve broken out and provided more commentary for each income source in the section below.

Affiliate sales

I’m a member of a handful of affiliate programs but didn’t earn commissions from all of them (or I didn’t reach the minimum thresholds to receive a payout). These are the programs which I received commissions from in 2020:

Fintel Connect

Fintel Connect is an affiliate network that connects content creators with a variety of affiliate programs (many are Canadian financial services and products). 

In 2020, I received commissions through Fintel Connect for Scotiabank and PolicyMe products. Fintel Connect also helped to connect me with advertisers for my podcast, Explore FI Canada. (Note: podcast income or stats are not included in this post.) 

I couldn’t be happier with Fintel Connect—everyone is always so friendly, helpful, and supportive. I look forward to continuing to work with them in 2021.

Smart Money Mamas 

Chelsea Brennan at Smart Money Mamas is the creator of one of my favourite estate planning products—the Family In Case of Emergency Binder. (I absolutely love this done-for-you binder and would promote it even if I wasn’t an affiliate.)

SALE ALERT: Until January 15th, 2020, the Family In Case of Emergency Binder is on sale for 25% off!

Web Hosting Canada 

My web host, Web Hosting Canada, has its own affiliate program which pays $20–$300 per sign-up. In 2020, I was thrilled to receive three web hosting sign-ups from some blogging friends. Thank you, friends!

If you’re looking for a reliable, affordable web host, I highly recommend Web Hosting Canada. After my month of dreadful tech issues in December, I’m even more convinced of how amazing of a host they are—they handled and fixed all my tech issues with patience and efficiency. They’re fantastic!

Passiv

Passiv is a service that helps DIY investors automatically rebalance their portfolios with one-click trades. Even better—Passiv Elite is completely free for Questrade clients (a $99 value)! Once you register for Passiv, you can also join their referral program and earn $20 for every signup.

The team at Passiv is a joy to work with. Their passion shows in everything they do. (And they’re also a Canadian start-up—I’d love to see them continue to grow!)

Amazon Associates

It wasn’t easy, but I was officially accepted into the Amazon.ca Associates store in early 2020. (I was accepted into the .com store in 2019.) So far, I haven’t earned a lot from either store but I’ll continue to link to Amazon for now.

I find it very easy to link to their products—even if only to give my readers an example of a product I’m referring to. I also really like that I can use their OneLink code to auto-redirect US readers to matching products in the US store.

Advertising

I lamented in a previous blog update that my Google Adsense earnings were frustratingly low. Despite hitting multiple traffic highs, I was still earning the same paltry sums—about $4 per month ($3 USD).

Thankfully, in May 2020, I finally hit the minimum threshold to apply for Monumetric’s Propel Program. (Read my Q2 2020 Blog & Podcast Update for the full story on how it all happened.)

Note: When I applied in March 2020, Monumetric’s minimum pageview requirement was 10,000 per month. They’ve since had to raise their minimum to 35,000 pageviews per month.

My experience with Monumetric

I have nothing but the highest of praise for the team at Monumetric—it’s been an absolute pleasure working with them. I’ve also been thrilled with my earnings (even though they’re still low compared to what bigger bloggers earn).

Compared with my average $4/month from Adsense, my average of $47/month ($36 USD) from Monumetric is nearly 12X the income! I’m really happy about that. 

I hope to eventually write a detailed review of my experience with Monumetric. (It’ll basically be all about how much I love working with them.) If you receive 35,000+ pageviews per month, I’d highly recommend applying to join Monumetric!

Part 3: Closing thoughts

closing thoughts rawpixel
Thought bubble image by rawpixel; Watercolour texture created by kjpargeter—freepik.com

2020 was another amazing year for me and Eat Sleep Breathe FI. I hit unexpected highs, continued to learn a lot, and made even more friends and connections. It was an incredibly rewarding year in so many ways. 

My biggest source of validation continues to be the feedback I receive from you—my readers. Obviously, without you, there’d be no point in blogging. Every day, I’m honoured that so many of you continue to follow me and my FI and blogging journey.

Thank you for your support, encouragement, questions and comments. All of it keeps me going even when things get tough. I look forward to another year of blogging and connecting with you.

As always, if you want to drop me a line and say hi, I’d love to hear from you. (It may take me a while to reply, but I promise I will—I reply to every non-spam comment and message I receive!)

Got feedback or questions?

Do you have thoughts to share? Did I miss anything? Do you have any blogging or podcasting questions you’d like me to answer? Feel free to ask below!

Support this blog

If you liked this article and want more content like this, please support this blog by sharing it! Not only does it help spread the FIRE, but it lets me know what content you find most useful. (Which encourages me to write more of it!) 

You can also support this blog by visiting my recommendations page and purchasing through the links. Note that not every link is an affiliate link—some are just favourite products and services that I want to share. 🙂

As always, however you show your support for this blog—THANK YOU!

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49 Comments

  • Reply
    TonFIRE
    January 6, 2021 at 7:40 am

    Wow! Congrats on 5x your net income in 2020! I knew you would get there and will get even further in 2021. The site is looking amazing and has so much great content. Also, “Brandon Walsh Mustang” cracked me up. HAHA! You have such great tips here, some of which I hope to adopt in 2021, thank you for posting the in-depth details. Off to check out your Web Hosting Canada referral link now…the thought of switching is daunting but I want to give it a shot this year. Great work CK!!!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 8:55 pm

      Hi T! I love your writing—both on your blog and in comments. You always make me laugh!

      I tell ya, blogging is not an easy nut to crack! It’s two steps forward, then one (or ten) steps back. Good thing I love it, or I’d be long gone by now, ha ha.

      I would LOVE to see you continue blogging. As I already said (and have said many times before) I love your writing style and want to read more of it! Please keep going, my friend!

  • Reply
    Court @ Modern FImily
    January 6, 2021 at 8:08 am

    Great recap Chrissy! Always love digging into numbers so thanks for sharing! Getting comments and making connections is really what it’s all about 🥰

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 8:56 pm

      Aww, thanks Court! You’re one of my favourite connections that my blog has brought to me. So yes, I completely agree that that’s what it’s all about!

  • Reply
    Chris @ Mindful Explorer
    January 6, 2021 at 9:23 am

    Keep up the great work, dont sweat the numbers too much. I have the numbers to easily do well of ads on my website but something I’m not really keen on doing yet at this point. I like the cleanliness of my website right now and as a visual site I think I need to stay that way. All the best to your growth in 2021 !

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:00 pm

      Hi Chris—every time I read your comments, I realize that I let my monkey brain take over way too much! I need to channel my inner Chris and be a little more zen with my blogging… I’ll keep working on it. 🙂

      I love the look of your blog, and don’t blame you at all for skipping the ads. Even though I chose to put ads on, I was VERY particular about what I approved. (I also keep tinkering with what’s there!) As much as I appreciate the income, there needs to be a balance.

  • Reply
    Jeff Fang
    January 6, 2021 at 9:43 am

    This is one of the only blogs out on the web which openly shares its information. Thanks for being so transparent Chrissy! Definitely a huge motivator for me and I always enjoy your posts. Happy New Year!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:05 pm

      Hi Jeff—your comments are the best. 🙂 Thanks for being such a huge supporter of me and my blog. I know (and still know) what it’s like to be a new blogger and I’m happy that my blogiversary stats posts are helpful.

      It’s not always easy revealing the disappointments, but I want to do it because that’s just the reality of blogging. It’s not a straight, upwards line of growth!

      Happy New Year to you too. I look forward to watching your blog grow in 2021.

  • Reply
    Shashi
    January 6, 2021 at 9:46 am

    Chrissy – congratulations on the two year blog anniversary. I am definitely in the “new and small blog” camp. Although I blog about outdoor trips, it still helps to see some of these metrics. I will definitely check out some of the tools you have listed.

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:09 pm

      Hi Shashi—welcome to the new and small blog club, LOL! There are lots of us here, and it’s nice to support each other as we learn and grow together. Thank you for reading and commenting.

      (PS I took a quick peek at your blog yesterday and it looks great! Lots of good content that I need to go back to check out. 😉)

      • Shashi
        January 6, 2021 at 10:09 pm

        Chrissy – Thank you! That means a lot!

  • Reply
    Tawcan
    January 6, 2021 at 10:07 am

    Congrats on the 2 year mark. Some very detailed numbers. You’re doing great, keep up the good work. 🙂

    So now you’re making more money via the blog, maybe I can finally convince you to come to FinCon hehe.

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:11 pm

      Hi Bob—oh you and your FinCon! You’re never going to let me off the hook, are you? Ha ha, I will think about it next time. There *was* that controversy that I’m not so sure about… 🤔

      Thanks for all your support, right from the beginning. You’re like a blogging big brother to me. 😆

  • Reply
    Paul Murray
    January 6, 2021 at 10:58 am

    Thanks for sharing such open and detailed content about your blog pageviews, visitors, sources, and earnings! It is all very impressive! It is also eye-opening for me and will help guide some of my own targets for 2021. Congrats for the growth, I appreciate all your hard work, and thanks again for sharing openly!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:16 pm

      Hi Paul—welcome to my blog and thank you for the lovely comment! These posts are a bit of a beast to assemble, especially since they coincide with the craziness of the holidays… but comments like yours make it all worth it.

      I took a peek at your blog and love your family’s amazing story. Wow, how wonderful it’ll be for your kids to still be so young and to have both of you available to spend more time with them. Congrats on being able to do that!

  • Reply
    Maria @ Handful of Thoughts
    January 6, 2021 at 1:34 pm

    Wow Chrissy you are doing awesome! The steady growth on every metric to me that’s the name of the game. Well done friend.

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:25 pm

      ❤❤❤ That’s what I have to say about your comment, Maria! Thank you for your support of my blog and for sharing your wisdom with me and Kari in our little Twitter group.

  • Reply
    Torrie @ To Love and To Learn
    January 6, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    I love that you shared this! And you’re doing amazing—our numbers are very similar, except I’ve been blogging publicly for over 10 years now. (Of course, I didn’t start “seriously” blogging until a few years ago, but still.)

    Blogging for profit was never a huge motivator for me, which is why I’ve continued to stick with it for so long. It’s so rewarding to connect with people and to share ideas and to just feel like your ability to help is slightly enlarged, just by the sheer force of the Internet. I’m so happy I found your blog last year, and I’m excited for all the content you’ll be putting out in 2021!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:30 pm

      Hi Torrie—I find it REALLY hard to believe that your numbers aren’t 10x mine! Your blog is so pro compared to this one, ha ha. You can tell yours is very well-established! I’m still sooo many years away from the level of polish on your site (and infinity number of years away from being as good of a photographer as you)!

      Your comments always lift me up so much. Thank you for sharing some of your light with me here and on your blog with all your readers. I totally agree that being able to share with others in a bigger way through our blogs is so fulfilling. 🥰

  • Reply
    Adam @ Minafi
    January 6, 2021 at 3:43 pm

    Nice progress for 2 years! I’d been considering ads, so I’ll have to look into Monumetric. It’s always fun when an article you never think will rank ends up high in SEO too. 😂

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:34 pm

      Hi Adam—thanks so much for coming by to read and comment! Your blog is one of the best out there (I wish I knew how to code like you and create all those awesome, useful tools).

      SEO can be such a magical, mysterious thing… I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the hang of it, but it’s fun trying!

  • Reply
    Liquid
    January 6, 2021 at 4:12 pm

    Great job on your second year of blogging. 5x last year’s income is a great leap forward. Thanks for sharing all the details. Your blog is making more money than mine. 🙂 I’m certainly taking down some notes.

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:38 pm

      Hey Liquid—I may be making a little more money, but I’ll never beat you at the meme game. You’re the master at that! 😆 I’m glad you’re back to blogging. I look forward to reading more of your writing in 2021!

  • Reply
    AnotherLoonie
    January 6, 2021 at 6:42 pm

    Nice job, Chrissy. I’m suprised your Adsense income was so low. Reading your 2019 update, I got the impression that you were earning $20 or so per month. I’m happy you’ve found more success with Monumetric. Going from $4 to $40 per month is a massive jump. Hope to see those numbers even higher for 2021 :).

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:42 pm

      Hi AnotherLoonie—yeah, Adsense was terrible for me! I think I earned $15 one month and $20 another, but then it tanked (even though my traffic was higher) and never went much higher than $4/month after that. VERY frustrating!

      I’ve been so happy with Monumetric—not just for the higher earnings but also for the support team. They’re seriously the nicest!

  • Reply
    Thrifty Hustler
    January 6, 2021 at 9:03 pm

    Happy 2nd Blog Anniversary Chrissy 🙂

    Congratulations and I’m wishing you all the best for the next years to come.

    Thanks for teaching me about ‘Revive Old Post’ plugin.

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 6, 2021 at 9:43 pm

      Hi Thrifty Hustler—thank you for the anniversary wishes and all the kind words. I hope ‘Revive Old Posts’ brings you some extra traffic!

  • Reply
    Reverse The Crush
    January 6, 2021 at 9:57 pm

    You’re doing amazing, Chrissy! Congrats on the great year! Happy to hear Monumetric increased your monthly income. We are both lucky that we got in when we did. My experience with them has been great. And you did amazing with affiliate sales this year too. I still need to improve at that. Thanks for being so candid with your blog. I look forward to reading more in 2021. I’m a big fan of ESBFI! 🙂

  • Reply
    Chris@TTL
    January 7, 2021 at 8:41 am

    Congrats, Chrissy! Just like FI, all these numbers build up overtime with slow, consistent, routine work from your end. I hope you’re heartened by your efforts and knowing that you’ve reached plenty of readers who have experienced real improvements to their lives through your writing.

    Thanks for all that you do within the community, too. You help us writers by being optimistic, supportive, and generally a positive influence out there!

    Cheers!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 7, 2021 at 10:03 pm

      Hi Chris—thank you for your always-cheery comments. Seriously, they never fail to make me smile! You’re right: slow, consistent work will eventually build the numbers. That’s what I try to remind myself of everyday. 🙂

      I could easily say the same about you—that you put so much optimism out there. We need more positivity in our world! I’m thankful to be part of a community that cherishes this kind of mindset. Thanks again for the lovely comment! ❤

  • Reply
    Ana
    January 7, 2021 at 10:06 am

    Happy second blogiversary! I really enjoyed your recap. I took plenty of notes and feel inspired to wrangle my analytics. I’m the worst when it comes to tracking my numbers. You’ve done an amazing job– gradually building your site and its reach.

    I’m so glad you mentioned Passiv. I received an email from them about working together but I haven’t had a chance to look into their product. Thanks for the insight.

    Chrissy, I look forward to following your third year journey. May it exceed your wildest expectations! 🙂

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 7, 2021 at 10:11 pm

      Hi Ana—you’re so sweet. I’m always grateful for your support and encouragement. ❤

      I’m thrilled to hear that Passiv is expanding into the US! They’re a small Canadian company based in New Brunswick so it’s wonderful to know that they’re growing. If you want to learn more about them, we interviewed the founders on our podcast: https://exploreficanada.ca/podcast/039-passiv/

      PS If you’d like to learn more about Google Analytics, I just came across this post yesterday: https://www.productiveblogging.com/google-analytics-beginners-guide/ She makes it so easy to understand what to pay attention to and how to set it up properly!

  • Reply
    Teresa
    January 7, 2021 at 10:28 am

    It is wonderful to see your progress but from the income for 2020, I can appreciate that it is really a labour of love! It is amazing that you have been able to do such a great job despite the challenges of 2020! Keep up the great work!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 7, 2021 at 10:13 pm

      Hi Mom—your support throughout my blogging journey has meant so much to me. Thank you! Yes, it is most definitely a labour of love (one that I’m happy to continue with)!

    • Reply
      Ana
      January 8, 2021 at 7:47 am

      You’re the best! Thanks for the links 💕

  • Reply
    Dave
    January 7, 2021 at 6:17 pm

    Thank you for sharing such detailed information! It’s fascinating to hear how other blogs are doing and it sounds like you are doing great. Really happy for you!! Congrats!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 7, 2021 at 10:16 pm

      Hi Dave—thank you for the kind words. I’m glad to hear that the info is interesting to other bloggers. I always love reading about this stuff on other blogs, but there’s not enough of it out there!

  • Reply
    Bob Wen
    January 8, 2021 at 7:34 am

    Fantastic info Chrissy, and thank you for all the knowledge you have shared with us readers over the past two years. The quality and detail of your work is amazing.

    All the best for the coming years.

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 8, 2021 at 6:06 pm

      Hi Bob—you’re too kind! Thank you, I always appreciate your enthusiastic support. I’m excited to continue this blogging journey. 🙂

  • Reply
    Joe
    January 8, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    Congratulations! Now you just need to keep 5x your income every year. 😉
    Good luck!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 8, 2021 at 6:08 pm

      Hi Joe—wouldn’t that be amazing! I can only dream to be at your level of blogging success one day. 🤞

  • Reply
    European Dividend Growth Investor
    January 8, 2021 at 4:54 pm

    Congratulations Chrissy! I think you can be really proud on those statistics. Well done!

    And regarding the questions about followers and SEO and such. I guess Content is King and you’re doing well there. Consider me a happy reader and keep it coming 👌

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 8, 2021 at 6:14 pm

      Hello EDGI—thank you for taking the time to share such kind words. Comments like yours mean so much and go a long way to help me stay motivated! ❤

      I’ll continue to do my best with the blog content. 👍

  • Reply
    Family Money Saver
    January 9, 2021 at 11:51 pm

    Amazing results Chrissy, I love the amount of detail in your article. This really shows people hoping to make money blogging, what it’s really like to run a site and how much time commitment, consistency and effort is involved.

    Keep up the great work, this website is one of my favourite destinations in the Personal Finance space.

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 10, 2021 at 9:03 pm

      Hey Family Money Saver—thank you so much for the lovely comment. Blogging truly is a labour of love! It’d be pretty tough to stick it through if I wasn’t as passionate about it as I am!

      I appreciate all your support, my friend!

  • Reply
    RS
    January 12, 2021 at 12:29 pm

    Congratulations Chrissy! This is my first time reading your post and from the metrics I can see you are awesome. You are an inspiration for smalltime washroom blogger like me. 😊

    Tons of informative links which I will have to reread and explore. Thank you!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 12, 2021 at 3:03 pm

      Hi there RS—welcome to my blog! I appreciate your kind words and am happy to hear my post was helpful to you.

      Feel free to contact me anytime if you have blogging questions. I’m no expert, but I’m happy to share what I know. 😉

  • Reply
    Emily
    January 29, 2021 at 7:10 am

    This is amazing! As someone new to blogging it is very helpful! It’s so crazy how a love of writing can be so complicated…considering that we actually want others to read what we have to say or learn from what we put out to the world! Thanks for sharing! I’d love to collaborate with posts/comments on others blogs to help each other out. I’m at http://www.imnotfollowing.com. Thanks again for writing something so help and meaningful!

    • Reply
      Chrissy
      January 29, 2021 at 4:22 pm

      Hi Emily—I’m happy to hear this post was helpful to you. It’s why I share my blog stats; I know how hard it is to find this kind of info when you’re a new blogger. You’re right, there’s a lot that goes into sharing our message. It’s not just the enjoyment of writing. If we want it to be seen by more people than just our moms, we have to WORK at it!

      It does get easier, though, and each of us will eventually find our own rhythm. I took a peek at your blog and love your message to be more mindful and intentional with our social media usage. I couldn’t agree more!

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