Related:Ā Two Months of Frugaling: A Reflection
I looked at a pile of debt and wondered if there was a way to get back to square one: zero. Out of this came a website based on self-reflection, education, and growth. Frugaling.org came to fruition out of these desires. Three months later and over 70 articles published, the website is attracting surprisingly large audiences and helping me stay frugal.
The site was founded on May 4th, 2013, as the spring semester of graduate school was just wrapping up. I wanted to write about my efforts and find an audience. Since then, nearly 40,000 people have visited the site.
While I continue to make budgetary mistakes, I’m committed to righting my course and getting rid of debt. All summer, I’ve hustled to create money out of nothing and it’s beginning to work. I’m excited to report that the month of July was an incredible period for the site.
Major highlights this month:
- Affiliate Revenue started at $125
- I wrote my first affiliate article regarding the Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard
Becoming a member of an affiliate network helped increase profits and meet new companies
- I wrote my first affiliate article regarding the Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard
- AdSense Revenue increased from $13.68 to $40
- Solidified advertising locations and wrote consistently – these factors seemed to work together to pad budget
- Over 30 Published Articles
- The reason is simple: I wrote a lot
- I published about one article per day and often had articles lined up for publication
- A Week Long Challenge Attracted New Audiences
- I engaged my audience in a frugal challenge for one week
- This 7-day writing experiment caused people to revisit the site for updates and click through the entire series
- It inspired me to seek other challenges and opportunities to cultivate lasting audiences
- Support From The Personal Finance Community
- Continued support from the Yakezie financial community was priceless
- If you haven’t heard of the personal finance group, check them out here: Yakezie.com
- Recorded 6,645 visitors in one day
- Strong traffic caused an incredible spike in revenue and subscriptions
- This was largely credited to a couple popular Reddit articles that reached the top of “frugal”
Congrats on making it three months! I’d be really interested in more detailed info on how you did that on adsense…something I struggle with!
FF,
I think the key here is positioning of ads. They can be finicky. My advice is to place them in context/content. Don’t make it difficult for viewers to see the ads. That way they can tell where to support you.
Best of luck,
-S.
6,000 traffic one day is fantastic!! Did you submit to reddit yourself or did your reader(s)???? Congratulations
Barb,
Thanks so much for sharing my stories on Twitter! Means a lot to have your support.
I did self-submit that Reddit, but then it took off all on its own. š
-S.
Your daily writing is incredibly impressive. I’m on a M, W, F schedule and I can barely keep up. I’d love to do more, but I fear my quality would drop. As you increased your writing, how did you keep the content quality so high?
Michael,
It averaged out to about one per day. Some days there were 2 and some had none. Either way, it was a lot of writing. Haha. My recommendation is to just keep practicing the art and writing a lot. Quality is important, but I’m a firm believer that that comes with quantity and care. Can’t promise I’ll be able to keep up that volume though! š
-S.
This is awesome man! Keep up the great work. Still so amazed by your reddit success
TPH,
Thanks for the kind words! Reddit has been very friendly to me. š
Nice job Sam, you are rocking it!
Nick,
Thanks for the encouragement and continuing to share my articles. Nice to have the readership and following.
All the best,
-S.
Very impressive Sam, you are doing it right! Especially building affiliate from the start, I wish I had started sooner.