One of the best pieces of advice you’ll ever hear when it comes to how to create a money-making blog is this. If you want to generate an income from your blog, treat your blog like a business.
This means, (amongst other things) that it’s important to invest in your blog. Yes, a large time investment (particularly in the early stages) is incredibly important.
But for the purpose of this post, I’m talking about a monetary investment.
In my opinion, it’s pretty difficult to start an online business without any money.
Now, you can start a blog for super cheap (I have a step-by-step tutorial here.) But “super-cheap” still means that you need a least little bit of money to get started.
And while there is a lot of excellent, free information floating around on the internet, I highly recommend investing it some good blog courses.
Again, this requires some capital.
When I made the decision that I wanted to start a blog (and generate an income from it) I also decided that I didn’t want to dip into our bank account to fund it.
That meant that I needed to somehow get money to pay for hosting, buy a theme, pay for blogging courses, etc.
All the time, I hear people saying “I want to start a blog but I don’t have the money” or “How can I start a business online with no money?”
Like I said, starting a business online with no money is pretty difficult (you usually need at least a little bit of money to get started.) The good news is, it’s actually pretty easy to make enough money online so you can invest into your business, and generate even more money!
So, I’m going to show exactly how I got the money to invest in my blog when I had no money.
Of course, I also found ways to save money, so I could use the money I saved. This included buying my farm-fresh meat online, which saves a ton given that meat is pretty expensive.
But the purpose of this post is to show you how to make money online so you can invest in your blog.
On that note, here’s exactly what I did (and I’m so glad I did these things, because I now generate a pretty good income from my blog!)
How I Made Quick Money To Invest In My Blog
1) Freelance Writing
Freelance writing was my first foray into making money online.
There are tons of people who actually make a excellent income (I’m talking 200k plus!) from freelance writing. If that sounds like something you might want to do, then I’ve written a post on how to get started as a freelance writer which you can read here.
But for my purposes, I wanted to generate some quick income that I could invest back into my blog. I wasn’t trying to build up a full-time income through freelance writing.
The best way to generate some quick cash is to sign up to Blogmutt. That’s exactly what I did. And while I definitely didn’t make enough money to get rich, I made enough (and pretty quickly) to buy a super-information blogging eBook and a professional looking theme from Studiopress.
2) Online Surveys
The second way I made money to invest in my blog was by doing online surveys.
Again, certainly not enough money to replace a full-time income, but at least a couple hundred dollars a month.
The survey sites I used included:
Swagbucks – probably my favorite, because there are actually a lot more opportunities to earn some extra cash than just doing online surveys. This includes performing online searches, watching videos, doing online polls, etc.
Inbox Dollars – I really like Inbox Dollars because I find that the website is actually fun to use! And I love spinning Billy the Wheel 🙂
ACOP – More of a traditional survey site, but another good one.
3) Garage Sale
Not all the money I made to invest in my blog was made online.
I also made a few hundred dollars by holding a garage sale. And no, I didn’t have any big-ticket items to sell!
I’m kind of self-proclaimed garage sale pro. My parents and grandparents would hold garage sales every year and my sisters and I loved hustling our little butts off, selling our old toys haha!
I’ve written a post on how to hold a successful yard sale that you can read here.
4) Cash back for shopping
The final tactic I used to make money to invest in my blog was by getting cash back for shopping.
Now, obviously when I was trying to generate some cash to invest in my blog, I cut back on my shopping budget.
But we still need to buy things like groceries, underwear, etc., right?
So for those types of necessities, this is how I got cash back:
For cash back on groceries, I used Ibotta (and actually still do, because I love it and who doesn’t want free cash?) You’re going to be buying groceries regardless, so why not get cash back for them.
You can click here to join Ibotta and get a bonus $5 when you redeem your first cash back.
Whenever I’m going to visit any online store, I always to go Ebates first. Ebates tracks your purchase and gives you a percentage of cash back. Then they send you a “Big Fat Check” in the mail every 3 months. Pretty sweet.
Join Ebates here and get a cash bonus after you make your first qualifying purchase.
*Honorable mention*
I’m a HUGE Amazon fan. I buy a TON of stuff from there, including my favorite Lularoe dupe leggings.
Before I buy anything in stores, I always check Amazon to see if it’s cheaper. Books are almost always cheaper on Amazon, so I buy most of books there.
I’m also a huge Amazon Prime fan. If you’re not a Prime member, you can get a 30-Day Free Trial by clicking here
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So there you go – those are the exact 4 things I did to make some extra cash and invest in my blog.
Like I said, you can start a blog for super cheap. But if you want to generate an income, it’s important to invest in your blog and treat it like a business.
Do you have any other ways you make some quick cash? Let me know in the comments!
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