In Sixteenth Place for the $30K Challenge

After making $1000 blogging during the months of November and December, I decided to join a challenge being conducted by some personal financial bloggers that I had been following. The challenge was to make $30,000 online in 2012. I wasn't entirely convinced that I should even participate since to hit that goal, an average of $2500 per month is required.

Not only would I have to more than double my record monthly online income, but I would have to do so immediately and within a month. But I sat down and did some calculations and added in some potential growth from all my sources of online income which include 2 main blogs and private advertising, AdSense income, the HubPages Ad Program, and Amazon.

I really didn't plan on much from the way of Amazon. I don't focus on that revenue source but figured that I could at least expect $50 for the year. That left $29,950 to go! I added in some revenue from the blogs assuming consistent growth. I also figured that the necessary posts to the blogs plus the added effort that I would have to put into HubPages to make all of this even remotely possible would lead to growth in AdSense revenue and the HubPages Ad Program.

Well, it turns out that I was right! The results for AdSense and HubPages has been very positive and exceeded my targets for the month of January. On the other hand, my blog income fell a little bit short and so I was just over $95 short of my projected target for the month of January. I was hoping to make up for it in February, but it is looking mighty bleak on the blog front. However, AdSense and HubPages continues to do well.

Nevertheless, when I look at the leaderboard for the $30K Challenge, I see that I am in 16th place (Cash Flow Mantra). There are many who are behind me so I am thankful for the decent month I had in January even if I didn't hit my target. I know that there will be good months and bad months. I also know that if I don't hit the $30,000 number, I will be so much farther along for having pushed myself this year than I would have otherwise.

There is little that I can do to force revenue to happen, but I can continue to publish helpful content on my blogs on a regular basis. Currently, I am publishing 3 posts per week on each blog which means 6 articles per week. In addition, I am trying to add Hubs here with the ultimate goal of getting to a total of 400 by the end of the year. I am also considering strongly another site for the beginning of April. That one will need authors since I am pushing my time commitments to virtually maximal as it is. I should be able to edit and oversee that site. I already have some interested authors so I just need to confirm and get going.

Even though February looks like it will be a bust, I am still hopeful since there are 10 more months after that. You never know when the big month will be there to just push it over the top. I am learning a lot as I get more experience blogging and making money online so it is simply a matter of time before it happens.