Making Extra Income – An Interview with Michelle Schroeder

If you’re anything like me, you’ll think a little extra income would be very nice wouldn’t it? In fact, it would be pretty great, because being able to make extra income would surely alleviate any financial problems as well as allow us to make choices about how we live our lives.

Learning how to make extra income is very high on my agenda at the moment with our mission to become debt free almost within reach. I’ve tried many ways of making extra income over the years myself, such as running an eBay shop; becoming a bridal make up artist; being a sales consultant for The Bodyshop at Home; doing car boot sales and running a blog / freelance writing which is what I’m doing right now.

Reading about how other people are making extra income really inspires and motivates me and one of my favourite blogs which frequently visits this subject is Michelle Schroeder’s Making Sense of Cents blog.

Michelle has managed to achieve real success with her blog and she’s been able to make the most of the business opportunities that have since come her way, which have led to her earning a serious amount of extra income. Michelle has been so successful in making extra money that she’s been able to leave her day job and make the switch to self-employment doing something that she loves.

Michelle has worked incredibly hard to get to where she is today. Whenever she posts her monthly income reports, I always read them in awe – each one is always jaw droppingly amazing. Today, Michelle has agreed to be interviewed by me about how she got started with making extra income…

How to Make Extra Income: Interview with Michelle Schroeder

Q1: Can you tell us more about you – who the person is behind the blog?

My name is Michelle Schroeder, and I am the blogger behind Making Sense of Cents and Diversified Finances. I started my blog on a whim, and just recently celebrated my third year of blogging. I blog about personal finance, travel, my life, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Q2: How long have you been blogging for and what made you get into blogging in the first place?

I have been blogging for slightly over three years now. I got into blogging in the first place after reading an article in Cosmopolitan about the women’s financial website DailyWorth. I quickly became addicted to reading that website, and one day I started scrolling through the comments. There were several bloggers who would comment on DailyWorth, and I then got addicted to reading their websites as well.

I eventually decided to start my own blog and it all grew from there. I quickly became addicted to blogging and I loved the community.

Q3: Why did you start looking at ways to make extra income and how did you get started?

Before I started blogging, I knew nothing about making extra money. I thought everyone just went to their day job and that was it. Then, I started reading blogs that talked about side hustle income and I became addicted to reading those blogs.

I had debt, so I decided to try out a few different ways to make extra money. I decided to use all of my extra income to pay off my student loans quicker, and I eventually paid off my student loans in the summer of 2013 when I was just 24.

I would say that my blog helped me get started with making extra money. Without my blog, I don’t think any of my clients would have ever been able to find me.

Q4: Not so long ago, you made the decision to become self-employed and your extra income has now become your main source of income. How are you finding self-employment?

I am absolutely LOVING self-employment. I don’t regret the decision at all, and I could never imagine going back to my day job or any day job out there. I won’t lie, at times it is tough with managing your own business, but there are so many positives that it all greatly outweighs any negative of working for yourself.

Q5: Your income reports are pretty amazing with last month’s income totalling a whopping $14,937! This kind of income is a dream for many people. How long did it take you to reach this level of income and what kind of efforts do you regularly put in to achieve high income consistently?

I worked around a full year on my side income without making any money, and it probably took around two years for me to make a liveable income. I put in a significant amount of work to get to this level. Before I left my day job, I was working 100 hour weeks between my day job and my side hustles. It took a lot of hard work in order to make money blogging, but it all paid off very well for me.

Q6: Is it true to say that the success of your blogs has played a pivotal role in earning you large amounts of income? If so, what advice would you have for fellow bloggers on how to grow their own blog readerships and start making money from their sites?

Yes, I would definitely say that the success of my blogs have played a pivotal role in my earnings. Most of my clients have found me directly through either Making Sense of Cents or Diversified Finances.

My top advice would be to not give up. Starting your blog is the easiest part. Occasionally, blogging can get very tiring. You might run out of blog ideas or feel burnt out because you are working your day job as well. If you really want something, you will have to try extra hard and put a lot of time into it.  Nothing great comes easy.

The next piece of advice I have is to start your blog on WordPress and make sure it is self-hosted if you want to make money. I made the mistake of starting on Blogger and I still regret that to this day.

Q7: How have your earnings, your self-employment and your blogs made a difference to your life?

My earnings, self-employment, and my blogs have all made a big difference in my life. I used to live paycheck to paycheck, and I no longer am that way. My self-employment has allowed me to have a flexible schedule, which I am very happy to have after years of working 100 hour weeks. My blogs are great as well because they are what led to me earning what I do and being able to be self-employed. I also love the blogging community- everyone is great!

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

A huge thanks to Michelle for taking time out to answer my questions about she got started making extra income. You might also be interested in reading another interview that I did with Michelle a while ago about how she successfully paid off $40,000 in student loan debt.

Please head on over to Michelle’s blogs Making Sense of Cents and Diversified Finances for further inspiration! You can also follow Michelle on Twitter.

If you’ve had success in making extra money, I’d love to feature you on Disease Called Debt. Please get in touch for more information.

*Original photo courtesy of Flickr – modified and rebuilt by Disease Called Debt