Does Blogging Pay?

We are still under a winter weather warning and the snow is blowing and drifting outside as I speak. Later when I go out to shovel the walks I will try to snap a few photos to show you what we are really dealing with right now!

But for now, I wanted to answer the question, "Does having a blog pay?" I did not start this blog for the purpose of making money, but rather to have an outlet for my thoughts, random writings, and just be connected to my friends on a daily basis. There are bloggers who make a very respective living off their blogs. Some bloggers actually make several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (ever hear of Pioneer Woman or Dooce?). So blogging can make money, but for the majority of the small bloggers it is just a way to get our writing out there and connect with others.

That said, there really is a bit of a financial gain for even the smaller bloggers. Not much, and really not worth it if you are trying to make money, but it is a small enough gain to be like a little bonus for all the work you put into your blog. For example, I posted about Paper Back Swap and two people signed up with my referral (thinking about signing up? Please enter my e-mail address babys_mama "at" yahoo.com when doing so!) and I earned two free credits...which equals two free books for me!

I wrote about Swagbucks, where you can earn "swagbucks" by using their search engine instead of the typical search engines such as Google. I win at least one or two swagbucks a day just by doing a few searches. You can then buy products or gift cards with your swagbucks. You get even more by referring people, as you win as many swagbucks as they do (up to their first 100). I have been focusing on the Amazon $5 gift cards and since signing up for Swagbucks three months ago I have been able to cash in $65 worth of Amazon gift cards! This has been a tremendous help to me during this holiday season and I thank all of you who signed up under me. I hope you, too, are winning a lot of points and don't forget to have your friends sign up under you! If you are interested in learning more about "Swagbucks", click below:


And lastly, is Google Adsense. I decided to put a few ads on my blog because sometimes there are actually good advertisements that offer good coupon offers or helpful websites. I get paid per click on the advertisement and my clicks are fairly low (about 2 clicks per 100 people who visit) but it is enough that it is standing at about $55 in my account right now. You are not able to cash out until you reach $100 but even if it only reaches that once a year that is an extra $100 in my pocket!

I am happy with these little extras that I have earned through my blog but I blog just to blog. I love the fact that friends (and strangers!) find my writing interesting enough to check back again and again. I love having an online "journal" with photos and updates of my life; it's fun for me to go back and read about any given day. It is worth it, even if one isn't paid!