Income from blogging

In addition to the enjoyment I get out of writing, Loonies And Sense has actually generated a (very) small amount of money for me, by way of advertising income. The idea of generating alternative income was one factor that motivated me to set up the blog last year, and I'm hoping for more opportunities in the future for the site to make me some cash.

A recent post at The Shark Investor has got me thinking about exactly what I'm expecting in terms of blogging income. The gist of this article is that, if the reason your blog exists is to make money, then

1. your blog will be boring, and


2. you won't make much money from your blog.

However, if you develop your blog out of your passion for the subject matter and a joy of writing, then you will have a more interesting blog that has the potential to earn more money.

These are great points, and I like this idea of growing an audience "organically", with income as a secondary bonus rather than the primary motivation. With over 250 posts and one advertiser, I think it's safe to say that I'm not blogging "for the money". Granted, I'm not going to turn down any reasonable advertising offers, and I have some kooky money-making ideas from time to time, but the main thing pushing me to keep writing is a desire to learn (and share) as much as I can about personal finance.

It's a nice surprise when something makes you question your motivation, and you end up happy with the answer.

To close, let me just share the best advice I've read on how to make money blogging.

Knowing your limits

I recently received a piece of unaddressed mail from a new BMO branch that just opened in our neighbourhood. The gist of the piece was a welcome bonus of $100 for new chequing customers who open an account at this branch, upon completion of their first payroll deposit or pre-authorized debit.

I looked into the accounts offered by BMO, and was strongly considering taking them up on the offer. My plan was to open the account, and set up our bi-monthly hydro bill as a pre-authorized debit. Then, after the next hydro bill gets processed in September, I would switch the debit back to my primary bank account. The deal requires the account to stay open for six months, so at the end of January I would close down the account. At the lowest level banking plan of $4/month, I would be out $24, for a net income of $76. Not bad for an hour's effort.

I started thinking hard about this, however, and realized that the whole idea of starting a new banking relationship (with a monthly fee) just for the purpose of gaming the company out of $76 feels like a bit of a stretch. This feels to me like the idea of running credit card arbitrage on a low-rate offer rather than a 0% offer: true, you come out ahead, but the margin is pretty slim, and with the possibility of something going wrong, not exactly a no-risk proposition.

I'm going to pass on this offer. I don't want or need a new chequing account, and that's really a showstopper for me. If I were in the market for a new account, this would probably sway me to BMO, but I'm not going to let this offer create the need for a new banking product.

This might very well be worthwhile for someone else, but it falls outside my own comfort zone, and doesn't seem worth the effort or the risk.

Where do you draw the line when it comes to bonus offers and arbitrage strategies?

Enter the TFSA

Checking my account balances online this weekend, I noticed a link on ING's front page to information on the Tax Free Savings Account that will make its debut in Canada in 2009. The folks at ING have included a top-10 FAQ on the TFSA, and their tagline for the product, "Great news. Now even the Government wants you to save your money!" illustrates the reason I love this company: they want to get people excited about saving.

I'm not so naïve that I can't see ING's financial motivation here (I do work in the banking industry, after all), but they really seem to put a lot of effort into making these saving products attractive to the consumer. I personally consider opening an ING account one of the most important steps I took to start my financial turn-around last spring. Saving for saving's sake was something new to me, and I have to say they've got me hooked.

One of my favourite things about ING is the way their products "cooperate" with accounts at other institutions. It's dead simple to move funds between your brick-and-mortar accounts and your ING account, and this gives their products a clear place in your financial portfolio. Their focus (at least in Canada) is not on meeting your chequing and day-to-day spending needs, but they do a great job at providing a convenient savings product.

ING is the first bank I've seen openly promoting the TFSA, and I can't wait to see when and how the other institutions start to promote their own accounts.

Fitness on the brain

JD at Get Rich Slowly has a great post on the shady marketing practices of athletic clubs. This post resonated with me, as Ms. Loonie and I recently checked out a local gym based on a promotional flyer we had received. The flyer basically claimed to offer "$15 per month" to the first 50 new customers, but when we went over the details after taking a tour of the club (which was, admittedly, a very nice facility), we found out that only the $15 applies only to the first two months, after which you are subject to their regular rates. The cheapest option was for us to use the corporate discounts available to our respective employers, and even that would come out to more than $50 per month per person.

Needless to say, we left without signing anything. There just isn't $100 extra in the budget at this point, especially when we already have some basic fitness facilities available to us through our condo.

We've since looked at the flyer that initially piqued our curiosity, and there is some minuscule type that lays out the "first two months" terms, but the advertising still seems quite disingenuous.

We were probably hopelessly naïve to expect a gym membership for $15 per month, but those were the only terms under which we were ready to commit to an ongoing membership. At the very least, we want to make sure that we're able to commit to using our current facilities before making a significant financial commitment.

Has anyone noticed that December is a busy time?

Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts recently. I've been a bit occupied with Christmas preparations, both at work, trying to wrap up projects before the holidays, and at home, trying to balance gift shopping and visit scheduling. I'm doing all right, but the blog has suffered a bit of late, and for that I'm sorry.

Astute readers will have noticed the text link ad at the bottom of the sidebar. Yes, that's right, Loonies And Sense has its first advertiser. That little bit of income was a nice early Christmas present, which will go straight to my line of credit.

In other news, Canadian Dream is running a series of interviews with PF bloggers, and he has included me in the series. I am a big fan of his blog, which has daily posts that are always entertaining and informative. He's also got a great, ambitious goal, namely to retire by the age of 45. We should all be so lucky.

I'm running behind on all my blog-related goals for December, with only 14 of 25 posts to date, and no posts on productivity or Getting Things Done. Will a Christmas miracle help me meet my goals? We'll have to wait and see.

Yet another milestone

It seems that Loonies And Sense is growing up. I have a small pool of loyal RSS subscribers, Google Analytics shows a steady flow of new visits coming in, and I've even been tagged to participate in a meme. Well, today it's official, because I've had an actual "advertising inquiry" e-mail.

Here's the text of the e-mail:

Hello,

I’ve recently looked over your site and believe that your reader-base and visitors might be a possible advertising venue for us.

I am interested in traditional link advertising as well as using link “blurbs” on certain pages of your site, or on certain articles – perhaps even submitting articles. This includes but is not limited to purchasing a post also. We are open to any idea that would allow us to capture interested readers, but would prefer to avoid the traditional “Ads by Google” and “Sponsored Links” sections.

Please let me know if you’d be open to discussing advertising possibilities further.

Thanks in advance,
Julie
National Techmark

In August, Interesting Money wrote about an advertising inquiry of his own, and his response to it. I tend to agree with his view on this subject. I'm not against monetizing Loonies And Sense, but the idea of an advertiser "submitting articles" does not sit well with me.

What do you think? Have you received this sort of request? How did you respond?