Progress Tracking Bars

Made some changes to the blog this weekend, namely:

1.) Getting rid of ads. I was curious if I'd be able to make any money from ad-revenue, and it turns out the answer is pretty much no. Over six months, I've earned less than $20... not even enough to make it worth my time to jump through Google AdSense's paperwork (since they count it as income, they need your social security number, banking info, etc. so that they can verify identities and send paperwork for tax purposes). I might put them back at some point in the future, but they are gone for now.

2.) Added progress bars on the right-hand side. Although I'm tracking each individual debt separately (e.g., mine & Hubby), the bars just show the total by category. We also have our mortgage debt that isn't shown.

Google Ad-Sense

When I started this blog, I debated whether to put ads on the site or not. This is meant to be my personal-finance/money-stuff blog, and not a "business", but I've always been curious about how much money I'd be able to make off ads. 

With just the side-bar of ads, through the Google Ad-Sense program, I've earned $16.84 so far. I've had 800 page impressions on this site, and only 8 "clicks" on the ads (so a 1% conversion rate).  While I'd love to start earning a decent amount from ads each month, to provide a small but steady stream of extra income, it certainly isn't going to happen from this blog! 

I earned absolutely nothing during the entire month of September, and I haven't earned anything so far for October either. It seems like the amount they pay for page views is nothing (or practically nothing), but that the amount they pay for "clicks" on ads is pretty decent. 

Most of my ads appear to be related to debt-elimination (not a big surprise, since most of my blog entries discuss credit cards and debt), and it seems like most people who would read this blog are smart enough to avoid most debt-counseling or debt-consolidation services. Based on other articles I've read, it seems like websites with very specific uncommon subject matters earn much more revenue (especially hobby sites and adult-type sites). 

I guess if I really want to earn money from ads, I should set up some weird fetish website or something...  (kidding!)