Hello everyone!

We just got back late last night from a 7 day Disney Cruise to Alaska!  It was such a fun vacation(note that I said fun, not relaxing.  Can you really take a relaxing vacation with 3 little kids?  I don’t think so, I’m exhausted!  But it was so much fun)  I took plethora of pictures and will be posting a ton of them soon, don’t you worry!  I posted some on my Instagram if you want to check it out.

Anyway, I wanted to talk to you guys about what I think about sponsored posts.  A lot of my friends often ask me how much I earn from my blog.  They’re all surprised when I say it’s usually none or it’s only once in a blue moon and not a regular income, and hardly any so I don’t keep track.  I knew I had a lot of page views, enough to make a regular income off of my blog, but I just didn’t know how!  I don’t contact companies often and companies will often contact me to work with them, but I’ve turned many, many down because it’s not something I would buy or fit my personal taste.  Being a person of integrity and authenticity& making my readers happy is far more important to me than any amount of money.  So for about the last 3 years, I didn’t really make money.  I think I wrote less than 5 sponsored posts in my whole 6+ years of blogging?  But I didn’t start this blog to make money and making money will never be the #1 reason why I blog, I promise you that.  I did get free stuff(again, only if it’s something I love and would buy anyway because what’s the point of getting something just because it’s free if it’s ugly or something I would never wear/use/buy?) and I was happy with that.  So while I wouldn’t have minded making money(who doesn’t?), I didn’t know how and it wasn’t in my top priority or I would have attended workshops or read books on how to make money from blogging.  But I never did.  

Fast forward to just a month ago when I joined a few FB groups for bloggers.  One of the bloggers wrote on a wall post asking other bloggers what they thought about several companies that connect brands and bloggers together.  I haven’t heard of any of them(which is quiet embarrassing, I feel like I’m still such a rookie!), so I googled them and applied to join some of them.  Since then, I’ve been getting regular opportunities to work with many companies and a whole new world of opportunities has opened up for me!  These companies work like a modeling agency where a brand company reaches out to them and tells them about an opportunity, like when they’re launching a new product and are looking for bloggers to review and spread the word about the product.  Then the company plays middle-man and hand selects bloggers that fit the product(like the Aquafresh toothpaste post I did, they would go through a list of mom bloggers with kids ages 3-24 months) and contact the bloggers with full information.  If a blogger is interested, they’re invited to apply for the opportunity and then the brand company will look through the blogger’s info such as page views, target readers, interests and select the bloggers they would like to work with.  So it’s quiet a lengthy process where three parties are selecting whom they would like to work with and if all three parties like what they see and want to work with all participating parties, then a contract is signed.

So like I stated previously, I’ve been getting a lot more opportunities to work with brands and make some income for my household and I’m pretty excited, I’m not going to lie.  My goal is to be Jay’s sugar mama and my goal is becoming more of a reality!  Haha, but seriously, I am very grateful for the opportunity that I can be doing something I love and make some money on the side.  It’s not going to be a ton of money, just a little extra to put into our savings, or our children’s college fund, or some fun money, as my children call it.  But here is my promise to you.  I will always be real.  I will always be honest.  I will only work with companies I genuinely like and would buy for myself and my family anyway.  If I use a product and don’t like it, I will never promote it on my blog or anywhere else.  When I receive an opportunity, I always read up on it and research the brand, the company, the product, before I agree to working with them.  And only if I think it’s really cool or would love to buy for my family anyway.  I am smart about my money and am very picky and selective on where my money goes and it’s the same with the companies I work with.  I feel like the products I promote to my blog readers goes hand in hand with my integrity, and I will only work with companies that I love.  And one great thing about me writing more sponsored posts is that I feel like can’t slack on writing non-sponsored quality blog posts!  I feel like if I make a little money from my blog, I need to take my blog more seriously and write a lot of quality posts in return.  Before, I didn’t think anything of it if I didn’t post for two weeks, or only once a week, I didn’t feel guilty and thought, who cares?  But now, for every sponsored post, I feel like I need to write at least 5 quality posts.  I don’t want this blog to turn into a for-profit blog and turn all commercial, I will work hard to not let my blog be that way.  Keeping my wonderful readers happy and coming back to my blog is so much more important to me.  So I feel like this is a win-win for both me and you, I will sometimes introduce you to cool products that I love, and I hope you’ll support me in that and I will write quality posts more often.  Which would you rather have, me posting once a week or just sometimes or me writing quality posts on a regular basis and have one sponsored post once in awhile?  I hope you chose the latter.;)  Feel free to share with me what you think, I would love to know!

Thank you for reading my blog, and it’s because of you that I get this opportunity in the first place.  So thank you.  I am so grateful for you!