I’ve had BlogHer ads on my site for quite a while now, but I forgot that one of the rules they have is that we can’t get freebies worth more than $40 for review on our sites.  When I got a giftcard to JC Penny from Box Tops for Education, it was for $50.  I wrote about it last week, but I’ve had to move the post to a new page that doesn’t have BlogHer ads on it.  I highly recommend going through Box Tops for Education if you’re doing your shopping online.  In case you missed my post last week, you can check it out here at its new home.

When I started this blog, I was excited about getting to write about whatever frugal ideas I happened to be having, and also about the possibility of making some extra money blogging.  The writing part of it has been great from the start, but it seemed to take forever before the blog made any money at all.  I think I was making $7/month until I had been blogging for well over a year.  I’m making about $300/month now, which I must say is a big improvement from $7.  And I still get excited whenever an advertiser wants to put a link on my blog.  Especially since I’m thinking about leaving my library job after our baby is born, any extra money I can make will come in handy.

I know I could be much more proactive about getting traffic to my site.  I currently have just under 300 subscribers.  I’m always impressed when I see blogs with four digit subscriber numbers (Lynnae is just about to hit the 2000 mark - Congratulations!).  I did write two guest posts for Small Cents in March, and I submit posts to carnivals and festivals about once a month.  I know that I could focus my writing towards the carnivals and submit posts to several of them each week, but I tend to just write about whatever’s going on in my frugal world at the moment, and I only submit to a blog carnival when I think that I’ve written something really appropriate.  And I’ve been so busy lately with remodeling the house, working two jobs, and getting ready for the baby that I often forget to submit posts even when I do write something that I could submit.

But enough with the excuses.  If I do end up leaving my library job this summer, I need to put more effort into getting traffic to my blog.  My readership and page views have been about the same for several months now, and I’ve gotten into a comfortable routine of just writing whatever I want and having fun with my blog.  I very much want that aspect of it to remain the same – I don’t want my blog to turn into a chore, but I also recognize that with a little more effort I could have quite a bit more traffic.  So I’m going to set a goal of 350 subscribers by the end of April.  Feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed if you don’t already!

I finally got signed up with BlogHerAd Network, and got it going on my site.  I love that the very first ad that came up was for Habitat for Humanity.  I worked on a Habitat house in Tanzania during a school break while I was Peace Corps volunteer.  And my favorite thrift store is run by Habitat as well.  I’m there about once every two weeks, scouting the clothes (everything is $2, which is a lot cheaper than the big chain thrift stores around here) and whatever else I might be needing at the moment.  I had no idea what advertising would pop up on my site when I signed up with BlogHer, so I’m pleasantly surprised. 

Today, I hosted the Festival of Frugality – the first time I’d hosted a blog carnival.  I got to read lots of posts, and then ended up sitting at my computer until 2am last night, putting everything together the way I wanted it.  For some reason (probably exhaustion-induced delerium) I didn’t publish the post when I was finished – instead I saved it and went to bed, intending to publish it first thing this morning.  

Of course, today was the day when my wordpress setup took a dump.  Not two days ago when I wrote about our car, or two days from now when I’ll likely write about something equally important.  No, it did it today, when I had a post with 50 article links and a freakin schedule.  The only time in the history of the blog that I have to get a post up on a particular day, and nothing’s working. 

I tried all the things that I could think of, then I had a little tantrum and asked my husband to look at it (he does all the web design for our business, so my little blog probably isn’t the biggest problem he’s had this week).  Anyway, he got everything fixed, but we had to pick a new design for my blog – the old one was fouling up the works.  So now I have a simple daisy – my favorite flower – and I love it.   

Hope you like the new look!