How to Build a $180K-Per-Year Finance Blog
Most of our time was spent researching side hustles, ways to make money through stock investments, and buying rental properties with my husband for a stable baseline income. We tried quite a few projects—furniture refinishing, DIY— but the earnings were unstable and had no room to grow. Franchises were out of the question; they demanded hundreds of thousands or even millions. Eventually I discovered that many people were making money through blogs, so I decided to start one myself.
My husband was skeptical that this was worth our time, but he still supported me. Having a supportive family makes all the difference.
I wrote the blog for two years before I finally gathered the courage to launch my first digital product—a course.
The core idea is building a real relationship with your blog readers, turning them into a steady flow of visitors and, ultimately, loyal fans. Because if you want to make money, your primary income depends on whether you can convince your fans to trust and buy what you recommend.
Treat your fans like friends, and those friends will refer you to others.
Cold-start strategy:
I used to actively leave comments on other people's blogs with my URL attached, but that didn't work well. So I switched to promoting myself on visual platforms like Pinterest—because I could create compelling images, and my content focused on saving money, staying within budget, and earning extra income. The value I provided attracted a lot of email subscribers (I drove most of my traffic from this site).
Then I experienced true passive income. In 2021, I barely touched the blog for six months, yet I was still pulling in at least $13,000 a month. Now I'm quietly replicating the model with a second blog. If you're into personal finance, check out how she does it on Pinterest and try promoting there (see her content approach here).
Main revenue streams:
1. Ads
2. Affiliate commissions from product recommendations to my blog readers
3. Selling my own courses (how to manage money, how to build a finance blog that earns, etc.)
There are actually several Chinese WeChat public account bloggers doing the exact same thing. From what I know, one of them has already bought four apartments.