How to reach your money goals with a new blog
I’m so passionate about this topic; this post might be (is!) a long one.
For years I've been in love with the idea of financial freedom.
Freedom in general is one of my top values and I really got into the financial aspect of it when trying to figure out how to possibly pay off my student loans.
I spent hours reading the books and listening to the podcasts, taking in all of the information I could on the FIRE movement, budgeting, investing, saving. I even considered living in a van (who am I joking, I still consider it often, I just think it would be fun to experience) in order to cut down on a big part of our living expenses (housing).
I still consider myself more of a saver (although I will spend on some things increasingly fast without thinking about them - namely, treating friends to dinner and buying other peoples online courses) and I track most if not all of my expenses on a daily basis. I try to look at our spending with discernment and try to make sure that the things we’re spending our money on are things that are actually important to us.
But there’s really only so far you can budget, track, and cut costs before there’s nothing else to live without.
At some point, what you really need is to earn more.
I tried a few different side hustles that I could do in my free time when I found myself with a bit of extra energy to put in the effort to these things, but nothing really resonated with me and didn’t make much of any extra money.
I realized that what I really needed to do to fulfill both my dreams for financial freedom and for becoming an entrepreneur I needed to do just that - start my own business.
In this post, I’d like to go more into:
What it really takes to achieve financial independence
Common struggles sensitive and neurodivergent women may have when it comes to money
Why starting a business - and a blog in particular - could be a good way for you to meet your financial goals (+ how to set up your blog business with financial freedom in mind from the start)
My 5 step process I’m following to reach financial freedom with my blog
How to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment
Something maybe a little taboo about me - I love talking about money. I want to get into the juicy conversations with people (maybe that’s with most topics, though, not just money).
I’d love to share a bit about what I’ve eagerly learned and applied to my own life over the years:
1) First you have to get clear on what financial freedom means and looks like for you.
It’s most helpful if you have actual figures on what you actually want (and not just a generic “I want a million dollars”). An incredibly simple way to determine your financial freedom number is by taking your annual living/lifestyle costs and multiplying that by 25.
Example: $45,000 (all expenses, living costs, wants and needs for 1 year) x 25 = $1,125,000 needed to retire
This simple calculation is a ballpark estimation of how much you need in savings/investments in order to spend about $45,000/year for the rest of your life without additional money earned other than interest/investment income.
You can also use a calculator like this one to determine how long it will take you to reach financial freedom based on your current income, expenses, and savings rate.
These are very simplified calculations for a general idea of what you might need. Sometimes these types of calculations leave out a very important factor - that how you’re currently living isn’t how you WANT to be living for the rest of your life. You might be able to easily save $500,000-$1,000,000 to retire early, but that doesn’t give you a lot of room in your budget to save for things like dream vacations, a new home, supporting your aging parents, or starting a family. An important thing to determine is how much these things may cost and include them in your budget as well as your annual savings/expenses when figuring out how much you need for financial freedom. Conversely, your spending needs might be less when you retire.
Take this time to consider ALL of your financial goals, because they may increase your annual expenses and needs.
If you don’t know what your living costs are (either currently and/or for your future dreams), read on to determine your individual spending amounts…
2) Next you need to take a look at your finances and determine how much more you might need to save and/or earn to reach these goals.
This is the tough part - not necessarily because of the organization required and calculations involved in managing money (although that can be tough too!) - but because there can be so much resistance around looking at your finances and really getting to the truth of how much you spend on what.
You need to know exactly how much you’re spending on EVERYTHING every month, from necessities (housing, transportation, health, food) to hobbies to extras (new clothes, vacations, etc). Get out all of your bank statements for the past few months to see what you’re currently spending and currently earning.
I personally use the free version of EveryDollar to manually track my personal income and expenses, a Google spreadsheet for business expenses (you can download my template HERE), and Credit Karma to quickly check in on my net worth, and credit score in one place.
3) Work out the concrete details of your goals
For example, do you want or need to focus on paying off debt? This is crucial for financial freedom, especially if you have any consumer debt and debt other than maybe student loans and mortgage, depending upon your comfort level with these debts, interest rates, etc.
If you have a goal to be financially free in __ years, can you estimate how much you need to save and/or invest each month to reach that number AND achieve any other goals along the way like starting a family, traveling, caring for aging parents, etc.
This is a great free website for estimating monthly payments for saving and investment goals, as well as what you can possibly expect in regards to investment and retirement returns.
4) Make a weekly and/or monthly budget
Using the information you found in step 2 and step 3, create a budget for yourself. I prefer to use a monthly budget for a little more flexibility week to week.
5) Automate
your bill payments, money transfers to savings, investment, and retirement accounts. In terms of investing and retirement, I personally prefer to steer clear of buying and selling individual stocks, bonds, or crypto. I like to keep it simple (less stress, overwhelm, decision fatigue, AND less risk with pretty predictable rewards) by investing in mutual funds and ETFs. Vanguard and Fidelity are both well-known and pretty well-trusted companies to open investment/brokerage and retirement (IRA, Roth IRA, etc) accoutns. A potential downside to investing this way is the management fees that are involved - these fees are often not too crazy, but please check what your fee may be at your chosen brokerage. 0.5% management fee is often a reasonable one to expect to make. Check out this calculator to see how much of a difference these fees can make to your money growth.
For complete beginners to investing and/or retirement accounts, I highly recommend Acorns for how easy it is to use and the low barrier to entry to get started. But it’s even great to use if you like it when you have a substantial amount in your accounts - I make monthly contributions to both an investment account and a Roth IRA (retirement) account for a monthly fee of $3. This comes out to $36/year in fees, which is BETTER than the typical best 0.5% annual management fees when you have a portfolio with over $7200.
Some books I recommend for further reading on money management, saving/budgeting, and financial freedom:
Finish Rich series (Smart Couples Finish Rich, Smart Women Finish Rich, Start Late, Finish Rich, etc)
+more book recs at the bottom of this post!
Why you might struggle with money as a sensitive and/or neurodivergent person
Keep an eye out for these experiences or Some things you might struggle with when earning, budgeting, and managing your money as a neurodivergent or sensitive person:
Impulsivity: especially if you have ADHD, which effects the amount of dopamine in your brain. Being impulsive is sometimes a good way for your brain to produce more of that dopamine it needs quickly. This may manifest as having trouble sticking to a budget or even directly rebelling against something that seems as restrictive as a formal budget. I find that associating each area of your budget with some kind of game or challenge (ie: let me see how little I can spend on clothes this month) or goal (ie: I need to save $$ or I won’t be able to go on this vacation) can be incredibly helpful.
Disinterest and lack of motivation: If you naturally don’t have an interest in learning about money, it’s definitely difficult to magically develop the motivation to do so. It really can be helpful to relate your money with specific goals you have for financial freedom.
Overwhelm with information: there’s SO much information out there, it’s easy to be unsure about what you should do to create more wealth. Working with a professional can be helpful (and might be more affordable than you think in some cases). You could also decide to keep everything as simple as possible:
invest in funds (vs. individual stocks, bonds, and/or crypto)
automate all of your bills, savings, investment, and retirement payments
create/find more ways to make money that are within your time and energy boundaries
only spend money on things that are actually important to you and your family
I know keeping things simple can seem boring and these things are easier said than done, but are truly trusted, simple, reliable, ways to reach financial freedom.
Difficulty with decision-making and “analysis paralysis”: another huge reason why getting crystal clear on what your current definition of financial freedom actually is. When you have a goal (and often a specific numerical goal) in mind, it can be a lot easier to make decisions that support your progress towards this goal. Of course, sometimes it can be tough to know exactly how decisions will propel you towards your goal (for example, should you spend your time growing your blog audience through Pinterest or Instagram?) but knowing your goal, as well as your personal strengths and preferences, can be extremely beneficial to helping you make these decisions
Mindset: neuroscience and psychology have a lot to say about how we save, grow, and interact with money. If you have a lifetime of experience and/or thoughts about lack and never having enough, it can be difficult (but not impossible) to change this in order to be open and willing to save more money and to feel like you have enough.
There’s so much more information about financial freedom out there. I encourage you to dive even deeper into this topic if it’s something you’re interested in and aligns with your goals.
One of the best ways to achieve your financial goals is to increase your income. A great way to do this is by starting your own business.
5 Step Process to start a blog with a profitable business model (to best help others and reach your goals)
Blogging in general can be a great creative outlet, a means to help others, and a way to share your knowledge, expertise, and experience with the world.
Starting a blog business is also a great way to increase your tolerance for visibility online and grow little by little outside your comfort zone without jumping headfirst into things like making YouTube or short-form videos.
You can’t go wrong by starting a blog exactly how you want to.
But, there are ways that you can focus your attention and optimize your blog business to make an income that allows you to meet your financial goals.
1) Simplify
You can be successful without doing every single thing you’re “supposed” to do.
I want you to know that you…
Don’t have to have 100s of posts to get more traffic (I had 4 when I launched my website and started monetizing it, and this blog post is only my 7th)
Don’t have to know every single possible thing about your topic/niche (I have an ongoing list of things to learn more about)
Don’t have to force yourself to use every bit of tech (I make it a point to understand the main focus of what I’m doing and add on new tech as appropriate. I don’t even use an email manager at this time - my website just shares subscribers to my professional Google Workspace)
Don’t have to create your blog with Wordpress (This one’s with Squarespace and it’s been the best website builder for me so far!)
You CAN do all of these things, but I want to let you know it’s ok (and might even be beneficial for you personally) if you don’t. I was told by courses and mentors I DID need to do those things in order to be successful, but it’s really not true, especially at this time.
When I created my first blog, I was focused only on writing those first 100 blog posts (which took forever for my perfectionist, sometimes long-winded writing self) without any thoughts on how to actually make money from my blog other than with ad revenue. Now, I’ll never say never, but I have absolutely NO interest in putting ads on my site. I personally cannot stand them - they always seem to frustratingly get in my way when I’m trying to read a blog and makes it harder for my ADHD brain to focus.
I figure, why would I put them on my site if I can’t stand them as a reader/subscriber myself?
Instead, this time around I’m focusing on providing high quality information, offering free and paid products from the start, sharing and marketing my work with Pinterest, and trying my best to not overcomplicate these things along the way.
Check out some of my Pinterest strategy in this post.
2) Sell your stuff (and/or other people’s stuff)
There are so many ways you can choose to provide value for your customers, including selling products and services. And there are many ways you can sell these products and services. I’ve found one of the easiest ways is to create and promote test products on Pinterest.
You can even get your work and products out there from the FIRST day you launch your blog, without needing to wait for thousands of subscribers to find your website.
And really, you don’t even have to wait for the first day you launch. You could even create a one-page website (with something like ConvertKit) that is essentially a sales page for your product and promote that with pins you post on Pinterest while you’re still in the process of creating and launching your blog.
If you don’t want to create or have your own program yet, you could even consider signing up for some affiliate programs without even having a blog (although many need proof of some sort of website or social media presence) and create pins on Pinterest that use your affiliate link.
I don’t want to overwhelm you, but I DO want you to realize that there are soo many options out there. Yes, these options can take a lot of time and waiting and tweaking your approach until they’re profitable, but you CAN start on them now, rather than waiting for years until you blog is built up enough for you to provide things directly to your email list.
NOTE: Typically, it does seem that Pinterest pins that are linked to your own blog post/program/review that have affiliate links in them (and/or share your own products) do better (higher conversion rates) than your pins directly linked to the affiliate product you’re sharing, but definitely worth a shot if you’re interested in trying it! Make sure you’re in compliance with Pinterest’s rules and guidelines of course.
3) Be consistent (+ know what that actually looks like for your and your business)
When you’re setting up a new business, it can be so tempting to want everything to be set up perfectly as quickly as possible. But with perfection often comes procrastination and further delay in getting your website and business set up in a way that can actually start to help people and help you earn more.
My method/mantra of creating successful blog businesses is: Start it quick and grow it slowly
Set up the actually important parts of your business quickly. This doesn’t mean sloppily, but it does mean to encourage you to stop focusing on everything being perfect and to stop focusing on things that don’t really actually matter for your success. It can be a waste of a lot of energy to focus on starting and growing a social media account on every platform instead of focusing on setting up a well-structured website and choosing just 1 social media platform and/or Pinterest to market your blog from the start.
Once you have the foundation of your website and business created and started, including a website with:
a home page,
a way for people to subscribe and for you to collect their emails (or email marketing program),
4-6 core blog posts, and
relevant legal pages (privacy policy, terms & conditions, etc)
you’re ready to “grow it slowly.”
Grow it slowly to really focus on being intentional about your business decisions.
There are so many “shiny objects” out there, and it’s easy to start to chase something without really wanting to pursue it in the long run. I’m all about blogging and digital products and programs, but can easily be influenced and distracted by a drop shipping ad unless I take the time to be intentional and realize that’s not what I want to pursue at this time when I’m trying to improve and grow what I currently have in place.
After you’ve created the foundation of your business, you’re ready to focus on finding and growing your community and subscribers, creating programs and products, and adding affiliate programs to your website and social media. You can learn more as you go and integrate new tech and ways to automate your processes to do things like automate your emails and deliver your products as your business grows.
4) Listen to your audience (set up a way that can happen)
One of the best ways you’ll know what directions to pursue in your business as you grow it slowly is by listening to your subscribers. Any constructive feedback you receive - good or bad - is valuable information for you and can help you objectively consider how things are or aren’t working in your business. Of course, your own vision and judgment is important in the directions you take your business, but feedback can be a valuable addition to knowing how to best serve the people that you’re wanting to serve.
Make it easy for people, and especially your subscribers, to contact you if they want to. Consider encouraging your audience to respond back to you when you send out email newsletters and/or invite people to contact you at the bottom of each of your blog posts.
Receiving feedback can be incredibly stressful, but it’s important to know that the feedback your business receives isn’t feedback on you as a person. I highly recommend seeing a trusted therapist and working on your nervous system (The app I use daily to support my nervous system - get 20% off with that link) to increase your capacity to experience feedback if that’s something you struggle with.
5) Keep improving and updating as you’re able
Repeat steps 3 and 4, continuing to update your business, improve the tech and backend processes (if you want), add valuable content, incorporate feedback from your audience, tell people about your products and business, and increase the positive impact you have on your audience and the world.
Simple, right?
Simple but not always easy. I know it all can still feel overwhelming. Believe me, I know.
Very much “easier said than done.” I usually can’t stand cliches and sayings - they just seem to make real struggles and feelings a bit more impersonal and inauthentic - but it really does apply here.
I want to be a resource for you as you’re working towards building and growing your own business as a sensitive person. Please don’t hesitate to let me know what else I can do to help.
My personal goals for reaching financial independence
I plan to go into more details in my email newsletters (follow and subscribe for more juicy details as they unfold), but a few things I’m working towards in my journey to financial freedom include:
Paying off those pesky student loans
Being able to save enough to completely support myself and my husband and be able to essentially retire (although I anticipate continuing to work on and in things I’m passionate about - like neurological occupational therapy and this business)
Supporting our parents and siblings as needed during some tough times
Slow travel and living abroad for part of the year
How about you? What would you love to see happen with your blog? What dreams feel so powerful to you but maybe just out of reach? Please know it’s possible. I believe that everyone has the ability to be their own version of success - what’s yours?
If you want to dive deeper into how to build your online business as a sensitive person with your financial, time, and location freedom in mind, please do yourself a favor and check out Julie Bjelland’s free masterclass and/or comprehensive course to Build A Heart-Centered Business. As a therapist and HSP herself, she also has plenty of other great content to support you as a sensitive or neurodivergent person.
If you want some guidance on how to start your own profitable blog business from scratch, sign up here or below to receive my free Blog Business Roadmap for a step-by-step guide to building the blog biz of your dreams, complete with 9 business-building templates to make the entire process more enjoyable!
Related Posts:
9 Ways to Support Your Nervous System
Build a Profitable Blog as A Sensitive Person
How to Reach Your Goals this Year
Recommendations for Further Reading:
Finish Rich series (Smart Couples Finish Rich, Smart Women Finish Rich, Start Late, Finish Rich, etc)
You Are a Badass at Making Money
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