This page contains all quarterly income reports for Site #2 starting with the third quarter of 2020. To read overall income reports showing all income sources, please visit the Income Reports page. To see total income and a list of individual income sources, please visit the How Much Money I Have Made page.
Before I purchased the domain for this site I was asking myself: Is there room for one more blog? The answer is: ask me again in two years from now. I am not trying to be funny. That’s how long it will probably take to answer that question.
Ever since I retired from my banking career, I have been busy looking for ways to generate money as an entrepreneur. Essentially I was tired (but not bitter) of being an employee and wanted to create my own business.
It has been about a year, and I have established Pioneer Publishing Group LLC as the business entity for all my projects. I am using this site, Finance Notebook (Site #1), to record my progress and talk about my successes and failures.
From the very beginning, I set up clear financial goals and rules because I believe without a roadmap, I will get nowhere.
For this year 2020, the goal is to earn $5,000, and am on target to accomplish that and it won’t be hard.
The real challenge is to develop projects to ensure I meet my future financial goals without working 80-hour weeks.
Overall Income Goals
This is the summary table of my income goals. As you can see, they are slowly but steadily increasing. My ultimate goal is to prove that anyone determined can earn a full-time income as an entrepreneur within a reasonable time.
| Year | Gross Income |
| 2020 (✔️ Goal Accomplished) | $5,000 |
| 2021 | $10,000 |
| 2022 | $20,000 |
| 2023 | $30,000 |
| 2024 | $50,000 |
| 2025 | $70,000 |
| Total (6-year goal) | $185,000 |
That’s where the initial question comes in: Is there room for one more blog?
Sure, I could make this money with many of the gig economy jobs. I could drive for Uber or try any of the available food delivery apps. And I will probably have to do some of those jobs as the financial goals increase.
But I can also dream of living a laptop lifestyle. You know, drinking a beer at the beach while writing blog posts that make me rich. Ok, maybe not rich, but without too many financial worries.
The Odds Are Not in My Favor, or Are They?
According to growthbadger.com, “there are over 600 million blogs in the world today, out of over 1.7 billion websites!!”
How much money are those blogs making is hard to know, but a Problogger.com‘s survey ran a few years ago and asked 1500 ProBlogger readers how much money they were making.
Based on that survey, 63% earned less than $3.50 per day. On the upside, 4% of those who took the survey were making over $10,000 per month (6-figures annually). An additional 9% were making over $1000 per month, which could be considered part-time income.
I will be honest; I’d like to be part of the 4% group making over $10,000 per month, but it may be a combination of blogging and other business activities in my case.
Are the Odds in My Favor?
Neil Patel has said that only those who produce great content have a chance to succeed. In his own words, “With so much content being produced, great content is the minimum bet for getting in the game.”
I don’t disagree with Mr. Patel, but I think personal traits are more important than writing great content.
Let me explain.
I don’t think I will fail because I don’t write great content. If I fail is because I gave up too soon. I will learn how to write great content if I don’t give up.
According to bloggingtips.guru, around 90% of people quit blogging within a few months of starting. Based on various sources, websites’ average time to rank on Google, even with serious search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, is about six months.
Perhaps some of those people who quit early were writing great content, but they never gave it a chance to rank on Google and other search engines.
So, are the odds in my favor?
I will not quit within a few months, so my odds are already better. I am in no way an expert blogger. In fact, I am totally new at it and English is my second language. And this is why I am setting it up as a 6-year plan.
How I Am Trying to Squeeze in One More Blog
In May 2020 I started a blog about the new house my wife and I purchased in Lewes, Delaware.
I know, another blog about home maintenance, improvement, and DIY projects. Good luck, right?
How are you to get a piece of the pie?
Have you ever been on a crowded subway train, wondering why you didn’t wait for the next one? I have, I used to have audit assignments in San Francisco and commuted to offices with BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). In my first assignments, I often waited for the next train to find out that it was as crowded as the prior one.
Invariably, as people got off the train after each destination, there was more room, and I was glad I didn’t wait for another one. After all, you never knew if the next one was also going to be full.
This is how I am doing this blog; I am squeezing in the first train and waiting for people to exit the train little by little, but I will not leave the train until I arrive at my final destination.
2020 Basic Stats
These are the basic stats after 8 months.
| Month | New Posts | Total Posts | Users | Pageviews | Revenue |
| May | 8 | 8 | 31 | 651 | 0 |
| June | 10 | 18 | 54 | 215 | 0 |
| July | 14 | 32 | 28 | 74 | 0 |
| August | 11 | 43 | 28 | 50 | 0 |
| September | 14 | 57 | 118 | 150 | 0 |
| October | 13 | 70 | 386 | 450 | 0 |
| November | 17 | 87 | 2487 | 2824 | $24.16 |
| December | 13 | 100 | 1991 | 2302 | $29.85 |
2021 Basic Stats
These are the basic stats for the first 3 months of 2021.
| Month | New Posts | Total Posts | Users | Pageviews | Revenue |
| January | 13 | 113 | 2848 | 3177 | $23.04 |
| February | 10 | 123 | 3395 | 3777 | $31.71 |
| March | 11 | 134 | 4248 | 4738 | $2.39* |
| April | 10 | 144 | 3982 | 4545 | $0 |
| May | 8 | 152 | 5012 | 5902 | $0 |
| June | 16 | 168 | 5172 | 6033 | $0 |
| July | 22 | 190 | 5717 | 7276 | $0 |
| August | 20 | 210 | 5878 | 7129 | $1.62 |
| September | 6 | 216 | 5156 | 6067 | $35.75 |
Trend of Users
Third Quater 2021 Comments
I added a total of 64 articles since June which takes me to 216 total articles on the site. The trend of users is not encouraging as you can see it is flat at a little over 5000. I believe the main reason for this is that the ‘niche’ I chose is broad and the articles revolve around topics related to our new house, which is also very competitive.
Of course, I am not giving up. I will continue to write one or two articles per week until, hopefully, it takes off.
I have added a couple of ads per page, which has generated $35 in September. I will not increase the number of ads until it gets significantly more traffic.
I don’t expect the fourth quarter to be better, but I am hoping for a better 2022. I’ll keep you posted.
