Last year, I published my first Ask Me Anything here on Making Sense of Cents. That went super well, so I decided to make it more of a regular thing!
Ask Me Anything is literally that – you can ask me anything. If you’re struggling to figure out what to ask, here are a few of the topics you may want to know more about:
- Personal finance
- Blogging
- My life
- Travel
- RVing
- Sailing
- Being location independent
- Business
- Making extra money
- Questions about my dogs
And so on, and so on.
Seriously, ask me anything in the comments below, and I will take the time to answer every single one. Of course, please nothing inappropriate or creepy. I’ll let you be the judge of what is creepy, I guess, haha!
All right, go for it, ask away!
P.S. If you’re looking to see all of the comments and questions, make sure to hit “Older Comments” or “Newer Comments” below. The comments break apart in pages once there are over 50 comments.
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Is affiliate income the primary means of your blog income? What was the first thing you sold that made your blog income?
You can see my income reports here and it goes over the specific ways I earn money blogging – https://fund-rise.live/category/business-income%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
The very first thing I did to make money blogging was a sponsored post.
What do you do to protect your business from lawsuits? Do you have media liability insurance or errors and omissions coverage? If so, where did you get a policy that fits bloggers? It seems impossible to find.
It is hard to find but I’m hoping that will change soon. I do have a lawyer and my background (the career I had before blogging) has helped me in this area so I’m knowledgeable, thankfully.
Hi Michelle
After becoming successful as a blogger what is the best way to obtain health insurance and about how much on average is the monthly cost for a husband and wife.
Thank you
Here’s what I do 🙂
https://fund-rise.live/2016/08/liberty-healthshare-review.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Hello Michelle, Happy Halloween if you celebrate it.
Thank you for giving us an opportunity to ask you questions and pick your brain on things that matter the most!
I have a question about health insurance for freelance blogger/ digital soloprenuer. What do you recommend to folks who are dependant on their jobs because of the health insurance benefits? Although the premiums for company sponsered health plans are increasing every year, it is still cheaper than paying for it by ourselves out of pocket. We maintain a pretty healthy lifestyle and rarely visit our primary care provider expect an annual checkup and 1/2 impromptu cold/flu-related sickness. I did find a bit of shared health care offered to Christians who are associated with their local church. But what about people like us who are not associated with any church? I may have asked a huge question and you may have answered it sometime in the past. If that is the case, can you please direct me to the link/ resource you have already created in the past? Thank you.
Happy Halloween!
We do this for health insurance – https://fund-rise.live/2016/08/liberty-healthshare-review.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
I’m not associated with any church and I’m not religious at all.
Hello,
I am so glad to see the review about healthshare. Just this morning I changed all our insurance from the non-affordable coverage we had to Solidarity Healthshare. At first, I just wasn’t too sure of this type of coverage but I have to say the companies have been awesome in helping me.
Good to hear!
Thank so much, Michelle. I will look into Liberty Health Share asap.
Hi Michelle –
Thank you for doing this!
How feasible is it in your opinion to start a men’s lifestyle blog? Something similar to brobible.com, but for a more mature audience. Do you think that’s too broad for a beginner?
Thanks again for doing this.
I’m not knowledgeable in this area, but there are successful blogs on pretty much all topics 🙂
Hi Michelle,
I’m introverted and SUPER SHY when it comes to reaching out to other bloggers. All of that “networking” stuff is WAY TOO overwhelming and scary for me! Do you think sticking to just a very small group of bloggers and/or self-learning through courses (i.e. not reaching out to more and others) will impact the success of one’s blog? Does a blogger really need to get out of their comfort zone to “network” in order to grow?
Any tips would be appreciated! Thanks!
I think most bloggers are quite shy – we all mostly work from home after all! haha
I don’t think you need to be a crazy networker, but being friendly goes a long way 🙂
Finsavvy Panda, I understand when you say that networking stuff is WAY TOO scary! However I am finding that the Blogging community, made up of Extro and many Introverts is probably the most accepting and helpful community. You don’t have to go to conferences, or cold call people. Just writing responses (like yours above) and letting other bloggers know that you like there stuff is networking. Eventually work up to emailing them and say, Hi! You will find that other bloggers will share your quality work. The more you do this the faster your will see growth, but set a goal for yourself – maybe 1 person a month.
By the way, I checked our your site and you have some great ideas!
Yes, exactly!
Hi Val Breeze!
Based on your comment, I guess I am networking to a degree (just a little bit since I speak to a few bloggers here and there). I was probably thinking about scarier things like meeting up with a group of bloggers IRL or attending FinCoin (I admit I’d be nervous going to one of those, haha).
I think your idea about setting a goal to connect with 1 person a month sounds great. I should start doing something like that. Thanks for your inputs! 🙂
Hi Michelle and thanks for sharing with us 🙂
I’m wondering what specific actions did you take to get your blog to grow in traffic and income? I’ve seen your early income reports you have posted and I love your monthy goals and accountability but when you show things like grow your traffic to a certain number, what actions did you take to do that?
Thanks so much!
I talk about the specific actions here 🙂
https://fund-rise.live/2017/04/how-to-make-money-blogging-online.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Hi Michelle, thanks for this forum!
How many blog posts do you think someone looking to blog for income should launch with?
If you were starting in 2018, what would be your go to traffic growing strategy? Thank you!!
Hello!
1) Starting with just 1-5 is fine. You’re not going to have a huge audience on day 1 anyways 🙂 Just starting and getting the hang of things is the toughest part.
2) Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and SEO!
Hi I’m a newbie to blogging. Super excited to start this. Journey. However I don’t have a laptop can I successfully start my blog from my phone?? Until I can get a laptop?? And I’m going to start a YouTube channel as well is it OK to link the two?? And if I have any questions or need any help in this new journey of mine can I reach out to you??
I think it would be hard to blog from a phone, but I’m sure it’s been done in the past.
Hi! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! I was wondering, how are bloggers affected by the GDPR or EU privacy laws? What do bloggers need to do to be compliant?
I’m not a lawyer so I really can’t give legal advice. A good blog to learn from is https://www.businessese.com/?s=gdpr
My biggest hurdle is building/creating my website. I have a name and some blog posts typed and ready, but my website it still “in progress” and not published/live yet. Did you build your own website or did you pay someone to do it for you?
For my first design, I did it myself. It was definitely not perfect, but I’m glad I spent the time to learn how to do that.
How have you legally protected Making Sense Of Cents (your entity) and your products? Our blog is growing and we are launching a course, so I’d like to protect it, trademark, and copywrite? I don’t know the first thing about all the legal sides of blogging. I’ve read about it and your latest post from the CPA and I’m still not sure! I know that you are not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice. I understand that any advice you give in response is for general use and not legal advise! I just would love to hear what steps you personally have taken legally with your blog and products to get more of an understanding. Thank you!
Hey Alice!
I had a lawyer help me decide what to do to protect my website. A lawyer who specializes in blogs can help analyze your business and blog to see what you should do. They may help you with DMCA takedown requests (such as if someone copies your blog), trademarks, creating an LLC, and more.
How do you decide on which product to work on next? You created the affiliate course and now the new one, how do you decide which big project to tackle next and if it will be worth it?
I really don’t have a set way, haha. I receive a lot of questions about sponsored posts, and it’s a subject that isn’t really taught, so I feel like I should make a course on it! I’m writing it right now and it’s also been very enjoyable to get all this knowledge out 🙂
Hi, Michelle! My question is about time. How much time did you initially put into your income generation? How much time do you spend on it now? And how was and is that time allocated? Also, do you “batch” your efforts? What is your time management like and what’s a typical day/week look like for you with your business tasks?
Hello!
When I first started to take my blog seriously, I was probably working around 40-60 hours a week on it, and that was on top of my day job.
Now, my time varies. I’ve been working a lot this week to write my new course, but usually I’m working around 10-20 hours a week.
Yes, I’m all about batch work! I wrote about this here – https://fund-rise.live/2018/06/digital-nomad-lifestyle.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Good to know! I’ll read the article. Thank you!
I love how you’ve achieved a better work-life balance, working 10 hours a week or so with your blog lately. How did you personally achieve this? I know you’ve put in grueling hours in the past building your blog. I think it’s awesome you have hired outside help to run your blogging business. One person can’t do everything alone and you shouldn’t! What help have you hired and what do you primarily focus on with the blog now personally?
Lots of pain before to enjoy the benefits now 🙂
Batch work definitely helps, as well as having more passive income streams such as affiliate marketing.
I have hired an editor and a virtual assistant. I also have several one-off jobs that I hire out for too, such as for printables.