How to Get Rich in Your First Year of Blogging

/ July 23, 2014
How to Get Rich in Your First Year of Blogging

How to Get Rich in Your First Year of Blogging | brokeGIRLrich

No, seriously, if you know, leave your secret in the comments. At least in the traditional sense.

Yesterday brokeGIRLrich turned one. And while financially, I might not be a lot better off than I was when I started a year ago, in a lot of ways this blog has made my life much richer.

As someone who doesn’t commit to hobbies and projects all that well, I’m pretty pleased that I’m still here a year after I got hooked on reading The Broke and Beautiful Life and Budgets Are Sexy and decided I’d try this thing out myself – with very low expectations.

Further proof I’m not great at commitment, at the same time I started this blog, I started a health blog that lasted roughly three weeks. Clearly I’m way more passionate about thrifty living and paying down debt than I ever was about clean eating and exercise.

During this last year, my life has changed a lot. A year ago today, I was somewhere in California, living on a circus train, had about $4,000 left to pay off on my student loans and largely discontent with my life.

The funny thing is that when you’re discontent with life, you need to put wheels in motion to fix it and that’s what I’ve been doing all year in a lot of areas of my life. And it’s not always smooth sailing. I realized somewhere around December that I thought once I started trying to fix things, they’d magically fall into place, and while I’m 10 steps ahead of where I was at this time last year, the only goal I’ve achieved so far is becoming debt free (which, don’t get me wrong, was a big one).

What I love about the personal finance community is that’s something everyone gets here! From paying down debt, breaking bad habits, building net worth, reaching financial independence – its all a pretty lengthy journey.

This community is also incredibly friendly and endlessly helpful. I literally had no idea I’d make actual friends when I was clicking through the sign up process for a free blog at WordPress.com.

I also had no idea what I would learn from everyone (especially side hustling, I no longer have any idea where I first came across that phrase, but thank you, thank you, thank you)! Personal finance bloggers are a terrific group of folks who just want to help people and I’m so pleased to be one of them.

My First Post: WTF is this Stock Market Thing? (Part 1)

My Favorite 5 Posts I’ve Written This Year:

5 Most Viewed Posts This Year:

  1. 114 Side Hustles: Ways to Make More Money
  2. Why a Theatre Degree is Not Useless
  3. Side Hustle Your Way to Millions as a Mystery Shopper: Just Kidding!!
  4. How to Stock a Stage Management Kit on a Budget
  5. I Love Free Stuff: Four Great Free Sample Websites

In honor of surviving my first year of blogging, I thought I’d give you guys the birthday present instead (because, fortunately, while I’m nowhere near rich, brokeGIRLrich does make enough money to cover it – a thing I didn’t even know was possible 365 days ago)!

We’ll be celebrating over here for a week (until my birthday) and the raffle will close on July 28th at 11:55 PM EST. Good luck!

Win a $10 Starbucks Gift Card: Now till 7/28

Enter to win a $10 Starbucks Gift Card: Now till 7/28

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And can you believe brokeGIRLrich used to look like this? Can we just call those the awkward teenage years?

brokeGIRLrich's First Year

It’s like a baby picture… a really ugly baby picture.

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47 thoughts on “How to Get Rich in Your First Year of Blogging”

  2. And can you believe brokeGIRLrich used to look like this? Can we just call those the awkward teenage years?

    Don’t be dissin Teen Girl Squad yo.

    Congrats on the big 01! My blog is still quite young and while I have many ideas rolling around my head it’s impossible to say where the blog will lead. Even though I only have three posts so far it has definitely helped bring focus to my life.

    Just to make you feel awesome, it was your blog along with Budget’s Are Sexy, Mr. Money Mustache and SeeJackSave.com which inspired me to get started. 🙂
    MapleSpaceHamster recently posted…Setting My GoalsMy Profile

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  5. Congrats on 1 year AND on being debt free! That’s awesome! And I completely agree with you about how wonderful this community of bloggers is–I’m still pretty new, but I’m continually amazed at how helpful, genuine, and friendly everyone is.
    P.S. I am a little disappointed that you didn’t tell me how to get super rich 😉
    Mrs. Frugalwoods recently posted…How Does Free Yoga Help Our Financial Goals?My Profile

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  10. Congrats on the 1 year anniversary!
    Blogging might not make you financially rich in the first 12 months, but it does help you tighten your belt and add more discipline to investing/saving. More importantly, your network of friends and fellow PF bloggers is invaluable.

    Without blogging, I wouldn’t have been able to double my net worth in just over 12 months!
    Mr Ikonz @ Project Ikonz recently posted…A packet of Lifesavers costs $20My Profile

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  18. Congrats on the blogversary! I’ve been at it a little over a year…I wish I had the secrets to getting rich off of it too =) To be honest, that was one of the main reasons I started a blog, but I haven’t made much. I’d probably give up if it wasn’t for the wonderful pf community. I’ve definitely learned a lot from them.
    Andrew@LivingRichCheaply recently posted…Is it Possible to Raise a Family in NYC?My Profile

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  19. Congratulations on your 1st year. I’m not a blogger but I am a person interested in staying debt-free and saving. I grew up in a household that lived on the edge financially because my dad was an often unemployed alcoholic and my mother was a paranoid schizophrenic who was afraid to leave the house. Because of never knowing where we’d live, eat etc I worked hard and no matter how little I made I saved something even if it was $5.00. It DOES accumulate over time. I am now almost 60. What I was putting away in my early 20’s was just being used to put my 4th and last son through college. Good luck to you!

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  20. Congratulations on your first year. Paying off your debt is huge. Even though my life didn’t seem to change when I paid off my debt the peace of mind it gave me was well worth it. Looking forward to your second year.
    Savvy recently posted…Career Reinvention at 52My Profile

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  31. I clicked on the icon for this post at Motivational Monday, guessing that you were going to talk about more than monetary riches! I have yet to make a cent on my blog, but I am richer now in many ways than before I started it. Great post!

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  34. Happy anniversary! I’m glad you were able to make it a year. It has been so great to read your posts over the last 6-8 months. Hope you continue. Your posts always amaze me. I still regularly reference the “114 Side Hustles”. I think I’ve shared and looked up that post at least half a dozen times!

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