Where I Was
Tomorrow marks the 6-month anniversary of Frugaling.org! On May 4th, 2013, I finally wrote about my struggle with student loans and my hope for a better life – one without the worries of excessive debt. My debt sat at $37,719 and would be pushed over $40,000 with the fall semester’s loans. I was scared, and I wondered aloud, “Would the amount of debt I have prevent somebody or scare them away from a serious relationship or marriage? Could debt be so burdensome, if shared, that people just avoid it at all costs?”
Remarkably, I’ve been able to continue to churn through article after article, while maintaining one of the busiest graduate school semesters of my life. But I’ve been motivated by a pressing need to change the paradigm. I live a life where everything I enjoy is taxed at an artificial rate: 6.8% active interest.
Starting a website like this was almost comical. My friends, coworkers, and family members generally gave me a resounding “That’s nice” message. Most thought it was a waste of time. I appreciated their rejections and skepticism, while completely fighting against every concern. People thought I was crazy to be in grad school, writing about personal finance, and have the lofty goal of paying back debt while in the process.
Where I Am
When I started, there were about 10-20 readers per day. It was safe to say my friends were taking pity on me and visiting to be nice. 6 months later, the site brings in 20 times that per day, and is consistently growing. Concerns over car/student loans, ways to save, and ideas about making more money have led to a site with growing popularity. Frugaling is about to cross the top 150,000 websites in the world and received about 83,000 visits in 6 months.
The excitement goes beyond website statistics. As I open up my Mint.com account and peek at my debt balance, I’m reassured by positive change. My debt load now sits at $34,179 – that’s a reduction of $3,000! I was able to pay back all the loans I took from this semester and pay back an extra $3,000 – in total it’s about $6,000.
By creating this site, I’ve been able to making serious amounts of advertising revenue – in the neighborhood of $10,000. I’ve shared this number with a couple of most closest friends and family members; suddenly, this is a serious living. Comically, I’ve never made more per month than the last 6 months. The money has been directed primarily to student loans and creating financial savings. I’ve grown more hopeful by the dollar, as I realize there’s an out – I can do this!
I feel like a lottery winner. Now, my monthly interest payments sit at $100 a month for the student loans. This is both manageable and something I’m ready to devour. Left and right, I’ve been paying my loan manager $500 to $1,000 at a clip. I’ve been paying so much money that the servicer sent an email reminding me that nothing was “due” yet. Little do they know that I want to pay off the active interest loans prior to graduation. If I fail, that’s okay – I’d rather fail trying.
Where I Am Going
I don’t want to lose my original intentions for starting this site, though. I created Frugaling to share my voice about personal finance, offer a reflective perspective, voice frequent opinions, help people tackle their debt, and encourage my readers to get frugal. For the next six months, I’m going to attempt to deliver the best content to my readers yet.
From experimental diets and budgets to new writers and perspectives, Frugaling is going to get a tremendous upgrade. By the year’s end I’d like to reach 500 Twitter followers, 100 Google+ followers, and write another 40-50 articles. Over the next couple months, I’m looking forward to cultivating some new contributors to the site and beginning to expand beyond my sole perspective.
When it comes to my debt, I intend to pay another $2,000 to $3,000 more by year’s end. Get ready NelNet (my loan servicer), some massive payments are coming. Oh, and on top of that, I won’t be needing any student loans next semester! The direction is changing, and I’m ready to catalog this entire experience for you. Please subscribe and share the site! Thank you for your support and encouragement.
Your friend and less broke grad student,
Sam
(See Related: Five Months Of Frugaling: A Reflection)
Congratulations! This is fantastic, and a great model for others to follow. I look forward to more super interesting conversations about the “adult” world of IRAs and home ownership!
Ethan!
Great to hear from you. Thanks for the comment. š
You’ll have to see the article I was featured in for USAToday, then! Here’s what I think about buying a home: USAToday: Millennials are not big homebuyers near term.
Sam
Congrats on launching and getting out there! How has the blog generated revenue for you?
Martin,
Thanks for the comment. The blog has made revenue through a variety of ad platforms: affiliate, adsense, and private companies. Through this amalgam, I was able to amass quite a fortune. I’m hoping to repeat it in the six months, but realize that I – largely – got lucky with my timing.
Hope that helps,
Sam
Can I ask approximately how many hits you had per day at around 6 months and how you marketed your page so well? That’s quite a bit for a blog that’s only 1/2 a year old, good job. And what other companies did you use aside from adsense? Any help is appreciated. š
Nice work Sam! That is quite the achievement. Not many people can do the same and certainly not in 6 months. One thing I would remind you of is the extra taxes you have to pay on this income. Depending on your income tax rate, you will be losing some portion of this money. Many bloggers forget about the taxes and when it comes time to paying them, they don’t have it anymore. Wouldn’t be good to have to pay out $2,500 when it’s tax time!
Debt Roundup,
Holy crap… Didn’t even think of this eventuality. Ugh, that’s gonna be a tough realization. Thanks for keeping this in the back of my head. I’ll be socking away a stash to help with tax season.
Thanks for your insight,
Sam
Glad I could give you a reminder. I didn’t want to put a damper on your celebration, but I figured it would be better coming from me than the IRS! Keep it up Sam, you are rocking!
That’s what I was thinking!
Wow, you have absolutely killed it with blog income! That is fantastic. I’m sure it makes you very happy to be able to cover next semester and have a solid amount of income coming in while going to school. I bet that your average wage is pretty good, too.
Anne,
Thank you for your kind words. Hopefully I can keep it up!
Sam
Wow 10K is a very impressive number. I’m going to have to go work on another blog post after reading this. Congrats on your success and another congrats on paying off so much of your loan. I am in the same situation expect just getting started paying back my student loans. I have a 3 more semesters left until I graduate and hope that I have cut through at least half of my student debt before I am thrown out into the real world.
Levi,
Thanks for the positivity! Guess we’re in this debt struggle together. I’m glad to have a compatriot that’s working to lessen this debt load. I hate having it! Hah.
Best of luck,
Sam
That is so amazing, Sam! I am in awe of the success of Frugaling and am so happy that you won’t be taking out more loans next semester. Congrats on the success of the site and kudos to all your hard work.
Thanks DD!
Your encouragement is much appreciated. š I’m looking forward to including your work on here.
All the best,
Sam
That’s awesome, Sam! Scary to think this could be a full time job! $20k/yr is more than minimum wage after all.
Keep up the good work, and maybe you’ll have all those loans paid off in another 6 months or year.
Congrats, that’s awesome!!! š
Great work so far! Can you break down your ad revenue in a future post?
Congrats! I started my blog about three months ago and have just started looking to advertise, so I second Kathleen. I’d like to see the breakdown of your ad revenue š
Congrats on your 6 months and your debt repayment progress! If you ever want to guest post about getting out of debt, just shoot me an email š
Congrats Sam! I am so impressed by your drive and wish that I myself would have had the ingenuity to come up with a way to pay off student loans while still in school (or not take out as many loans to begin with, for that matter!) Keep it up man, you are rockin’ it!
You are too sweet. Thank you for your kind words. I will do my best to keep it up. It can definitely be challenging to make a full time work schedule AND this work. Doing my best! Hah.
Cheers,
Sam
Wow Sam! You are doing awesome. You are probably the best new blogger success story I have heard.
Aww… Thanks Michelle. That’s really kind of you. š
I’ll try and keep it up. Hah.
Sam
Congrats Sam! I got a lot of those “That’s Nice” responses when I started telling people about my blog too. But I was used to it, I’m a professional actress after all.
That’s awesome! I’m still looking into monetizing options but I’m glad you’re doing so well with it!
This is impressive!
-Your buddy
Hey Christian,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments! Means a lot to have you reading.
All the best,
Sam
Wow! Those are some pretty impressive numbers! What was your Alexa score when you first started?
Hey Michelle!
Thanks for the comment and your support. I started way up in the tens of millions on Alexa. Pretty much as high as you can go! Haha. Started like everyone else. It was tough to work up to the number I have today, but it happens with consistent work and effort. This is a simple equation of content quality plus time. š
Good luck,
Sam
Congrats on the great work! We’ve been around for almost 6 months now as well and have only made about 1% of your revenue. Adsense doesn’t seem to be paying out as well as I’d hoped. Definitely waiting for the direct advertising to roll in.
Congrats on the early success with your site! I can still remember watching the money start to come in when I first started my site, and how gratifying it was to see something I had worked so hard on to be bearing fruit. I also remember that look on friends faces when i told them I was paying my mortgage from my site. It’s a great feeling!
Like someone else mentioned above, don’t forget to start hanging on to a portion of your earnings to pay taxes – and if you’re making enough you may need to consider making quarterly estimated tax payments. Otherwise you’ll be stuck with a nasty tax surprise at the end of the year!
Hey Sam, first time commentor here (read often but suck at commenting sometimes :)) Huge congrats to you!! Someone asked me today what my blogging goal was for 2014 and I replied to clear 10k to put towards our debt….I need to have a talking with you it seems!
Catherine,
What a sweet comment! Thank you for finally sharing your voice. š
Haha! I’ll be creating a more specific guide very soon, as it seems people want to know what it takes to duplicate the results.
Sam
I’m so impressed! Our blog is about the same age as yours and not doing quite as well. Our readership is up but definitely not our revenue… I hear rumor there’s another post about how to monetize your blog, you can bet I’m heading there next!
Krista,
Thank you so much for your kind words. Glad you’re following up and reading some of my other articles! š
All the best,
Sam
I’m going to have to try and figure this out. I’ve got traffic – 35000 views in 8 months; how do I get the money?
Start with Google AdSense! Also, check out my other post for specific steps you can take. Thanks for your comment.
I’m a new person to the blogging scene, so this amount in 6 months seems incredible! Will continue reading your articles with interest š
That’s really inspiring. Good for you doing what you feel is right and ignoring family and friends who may have not been supportive. I’ve had similar experiences with websites in other niches. Just be persistent over time… that’s the key.
Awesome you really have a quality blog and its glad your learning can help others!
I just read your new book and found it not only interesting but inspirational as well. In your book you discuss the negative impact of consumerism and how advertising is used to tempt us to purchase things we don’t need. Now I read this post and discover that you have been paying off your debt with revenue from ADVERTISING on your site – isn’t this a huge contradiction? It is nice to see that you’ve been able to pay off a significant amount of your debt with your blog, but I’m very disappointed to find out how you’ve achieved this. As difficult as it might seem, in order to be credible, you need to practice what you preach. To encourage others to do the same makes me wonder if you really can see the big picture.
Carol,
Thank you for your powerful words. I decided to make a change because of them: Frugaling is now ad free!
Your frugal friend,
Sam