What does $10,000 and a trip to Korea have in common? Absolutely nothing, but if you follow me on twitter you’d have a pretty good idea why I bring these two topics up.

On September 30th, 2010 I wrote a post titled “I make money blogging.” According to that post I had made $2,100 in the first 9 months of 2010. I was totally stoked on the extra income seeing that my blogging expenses each year only run around $100. Towards the end of the post I made an ambitious goal to earn $10,000 in 2011.

Well, according to my calendar there are only a few weeks left in the year, which means it’s time I check in on my progress. Here’s a screenshot of my blogging income taken straight from Quicken…

So it’s not quite $10,000, what gives? Well, I have an Adsense balance of $145 ready to be paid to me before year’s end. That means I’ll gross at least $10,086 for the year! And hey, if I can swing another deal or two before we scream “Happy New Year” I can bump that up a couple hundred more.

Even though I turned a decent profit this go around, I make dirt compared to what other bloggers bring home. In fact, I could probably double my blog income if I took more time engaging with other bloggers, signed up for some affiliate programs, had someone manage my ads for me, and started SEOing the bajeezus out of my post.

Screw that!

This blog was never about, and will never be about, making money. You wont see me writing about credit card offers, you wont read lame posts titled “Live the dream and get rich blogging”, nor will you suddenly get spammed with sponsored posts and product reviews (bloggers who do that make me want to stab my eyeballs out).

J. Money from Budgets are Sexy is literally the only blogger I know that makes a full-time living off his blog, without sacrificing his voice or content. I’m not kidding, every other full-time PF blogger out there is pushing credit cards, polluting their page with advertisements, selling you crappy products and e-books you don’t really need, and publishing content they didn’t write (they pay people to write for them). Go to Wisebread’s top 100 personal finance bloggers list and look at the first 20 or so blogs on the chart. How many of them are you subscribed too? Probably not too many, wanna know why? They suck (yeah I said it).

Oh man, I didn’t mean for this to turn in to a rant about full-time bloggers, but I just couldn’t help myself. My apologies.

Okay, now let’s talk Korea.

I got an email from my agency the other day saying I was selected to go to Korea for eight weeks (Jan to March) for work. Exciting, right? But freakin’ scary too! Being the typical overthinker I am, I’ve made a list of the pros and cons about accepting the offer…

Pro:

I’d take home an additional $5,400 on top of my base salary for going.

I would probably never travel to Korea on my own dollar.

I’d hopefully go sightseeing to some pretty cool cities/places.

I’ve never been to an Asian country.

It makes me look good at work for being willing to go abroad.

Did I mention I’d make a bunch more money while I was there?

Con:

My wife is hot and I’d miss the heck out of her.

I’m a pretty simple eater and Asian food scares me (is that kind of racist to say?).

Holy crap, I googled how to say “hi” in Korean and this is what came up “안녕하세요”, which apparently translates to “annyong haseyo”, which is obviously much more difficult to say than “hi”. I thought German was rough, I couldn’t imagine trying to decipher a bunch of squiggly lines.

Korea was definitely not in MY top 50 countries I’d like to visit in my life.

Working alone, living in a hotel room, and eating out by yourself for eight weeks gets old, lonely, and quasi-depressing.

Girl Ninja wouldn’t be able to come visit. Stupid teachers actually having to go to work and teach kids stuff.

Ahhh, making decisions sucks. I haven’t had a chance to talk things over much with Girl Ninja, but we have to make a decision here in the next few days. Just when things seem to be getting a little normal, life gets interesting.

Over the last two and a half years, I’ve written nearly 700 posts. That’s a lot of blabbering if you ask me. I know I’m not interesting enough to deserve the awesome community that Punch Debt In The Face has built. I am only one person, with one opinion, and one story. As much as I’d like to pretend every post I write totally rocks your world, that’s simply not the case.

Even though I’m not the most influential personal finance blogger out there, I know I have something that the other PF blogs don’t; An amazingly loyal and committed reader base. I’m apparently not the only person that feels this way. Here’s part of an email I received yesterday from a long time reader…

Your blog is great!  I’m glad you are having fun with it and I think you have the best commenters on any blog ever. Thanks again for writing such great posts your blog has really made me think and changed some of my opinions of PF for the better!

I’m so glad I got this email, as it reminded me this pitiful excuse for a personal finance blog IS important and has the potential to radically impact people’s perspectives on money. But more importantly, it reminded me that the true value of this blog lies in the community that surrounds it.

In an attempt to diversify the message of PDITF, I’ve had my mom guest post, a close friend, Girl Ninja, my sister-in-law, and my fellow PF bloggers. That’s all fine and good, but what I really think this blog needs is an opportunity for you all to share your stories.

“Things I want to punch in the face“ is the only series I’ve ever had on this blog. Well, it’s time for that to change. We would all benefit from learning more about our peers and that’s why I’d like to ask for your help in kick starting my newest series: “How you doin’?”.

Here are some of the guidelines if you want to contribute:

First, shoot me an email and let me know you are interested. If no one emails me, then I’ll assume this was a terrible idea and we can pretend this post never happened.

After we’ve emailed back and forth, send me a 300-500 word article summing up how you are doing financially. Are you drowning in debt and feel like there’s no hope? Are you killin’ it and bringing home major dollars? Are you financially cheating on your spouse and don’t know how to stop? Have you lost your job as a result of the down economy and struggled to gain employment? Share your story with me, so I can share it with my readers.

You have to be willing to be 100% authentic and honest. That doesn’t mean you have to use your first and last name, but it does mean you have to be raw and tell your story as it truly is, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Ideally this series will consist of posts from my readers that don’t blog; people who have no way to share their story with others. If you have a blog and want to contribute, that’s fine by me, but you have to be willing to accept that I will not link back to, or even mention, your blog in the post (that way there is no question as to the motives for your submission). If you’ve never engaged with the PDITF community before, this series is the perfect opportunity for you to share how you are REALLY doing.

The ball is in your court community.

Will you take a step out of your comfort zone and help make PDITF even better?

p.s. If you think this idea sucks (or sounds cool) would you let me know in the comments. I haven’t actually talked this through with anyone and I know sometimes things seem better in my head then they do in reality.

p.p.s. If you want to be super awesome, would you also share some other things you’d like to see on PDITF?

I seriously love you guys so much. Thanks for all your support over the years and I want to do everything I can to serve the PDITF community better. If I was emotional, I’d totally be shedding a tear of happiness right now, but instead I’m just scratching my butt and burping

Oh gosh, as much as I’d like to deny it, I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that I am a geek. I know this comes as a shock to those of you who know me in real life. You are probably thinking to yourself “Surely, Ninja must be high right now? He is hands-down the coolest person I have ever known.” And to that I would say, you are absolutely correct. I am pretty awesome. Pretty awesome at being a big huge nerd that is.

If you would have told me two years ago I’d be flying half way across the country to go meet 250 strangers who love nothing more than budgeting, reading about the stock market, and blogging, I would have either A) punched you in the face or B) punched myself in the face. Nothing could have sounded more miserable.

Well, today I am taking a step out of my comfort zone and doing just that. By the time you read this (assuming your reading this at exactly 1pm pacific time) I will be half way to Chicago. Home to FinCon 2011, also known as the first ever Financial Bloggers Conference.

Yes, go ahead and laugh it up. I’m going to a conference. A blogging conference. A blogging conference about money. Does it get any nerdier? Me thinks not.

I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to work this anonymity thing in to the whole weekend. I’m thinking about buying a mask and wearing it around to all the events to protect my identity. Something like this perhaps…

Oh wait, I kind of look exactly like that in real life so I guess that won’t really work. Shoot.

If there is no blog post on Monday it’s safe to assume I have been kidnapped, de-skinned, and my individual body parts are currently being sold on e-Bay (I hear kidneys go for like $100,000). I’d recommend bidding on my kneecaps. I’ve been told I have very sexy kneecaps.

If you don’t have a twitter account, you should get one and start following me. I’ll be live-tweeting from the event and spilling all the juicy details about the other PF bloggers in attendance. Anyone in particular you want me to spy?

The PF conference is an outward expression of my inner-geek. Is there a geek inside of you? Do you love Star Trek? Does technology turn you on? Do you love punching numbers in to your ti-83 (math joke)? Share all your geek-glory in the comments below.

My blogging income is about as consistent as Lindsay Lohan’s sobriety. Yesterday was awesome. I negotiated two deals, which netted me $1,000. Unfortunately, not every day is like yesterday. In fact, most days I don’t earn money blogging. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

I don’t remember what I made my first year blogging, but I believe it was around $2,000. Last year I took in about $4,500. And this year I anticipate bringing home $6,000-ish. Not bad when you consider my annual blogging expenses hover around $300.

Here are the primary ways us bloggers earn money blogging…

Adsense

By far the most popular way to earn money blogging is Google Adsense. I ran Adsense ads for two years, but recently removed them (did you notice?). I was only earning about $50/month from the ads and to me the ugliness of the ads, coupled with the less then stellar return they provided, wasn’t worth it. The only people that should use Adsense (in my opinion) are people that can earn hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a month from them. For us smaller bloggers, we’d be FAAAAR better off selling private advertisements in the areas our Adsense ads reside. Don’t sell yourself short and give your ad space away.

Private ad sales

Each week I receive two or three requests from people wanting to advertise on my blog. About 80% of these requests are ignored because the compensation offered is too low (something like $10/month for some spammy looking link). But every once in a while a legitimate advertiser reaches out and we strike a deal. My rates often fluctuate, but I sell simple text links for around $50/month and banner/widget space for around $125/month (prices are obviously dependent on a wide variety of factors like size, location, # of links, etc). I have no idea if I’m overcharging or undercharging these advertisers since so few bloggers actually discuss their rates publicly. Yeah, I’m calling you other bloggers out.

Paid posts

The idea is simple. An advertiser will pay you $100 (or more) to post some super lame article they’ve written about credit card debt, solar panels, or some other thing you care nothing about. I’ve never accepted one of these offers. To me, a hundred dollars is not worth boring the crap out of my readers. You guys come here to read MY articles, not posts someone else wrote and paid me to publish.

Sponsored Posts

This is my favorite way to earn money blogging. The content of the article itself is not at all influenced by the advertiser. Instead, I simply put a little comment at the end of one of my articles that says something like “Today’s post was sponsored by XYZ company.” I can earn anywhere from $50-$200 for allowing a sponsored post.

Affiliate Advertising

I don’t do this, so I can’t really talk much about it. Basically you sign up with an affiliate network, they put ads on your site. If someone clicks on an ad and buys (or signs up for) whatever the advertiser is selling then I get a commission. I have no idea how profitable affiliate networking is for a blog my size. I’m flirting with the idea of testing one out. I’ll keep you posted.

If I had to grade my blog monetization efforts, I’d give myself an “F”. I’ve never actively sought out advertisement deals. Every dollar I’ve made is because someone (or some company) approached me first. While it’s cool that I can make nearly $6,000 a year without any marketing efforts, it does make me wonder how much money I’m passing up by not being more aggressive. Could I be making $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000 per year?

It’s definitely possible, but at this point I don’t have the desire to find out. I’m pretty sure that makes me a horrible business man, but oh well, Ninja’s aren’t obligated to follow typical business guidelines. As proven by this random dog/baby picture I’m going to include for no other reason besides the fact that I can…

If you blog, how invested are you in the monetization aspect of it? What means do you take to make new deals? Am I the only one that thinks Adsense is kind of a rip off (meaning low returns for the size and location of the ads)?

If you don’t blog, was this article completely boring to you? I’ve wanted to write about blog income stuff a handful of times, but didn’t want to alienate my non-blogging buddies.

p.s. If you’d like to buy my blog I’ll gladly sell it to you for $50,000… or a 24 pack of Dr. Pepper

Word on the street has it there is a little blogger get together going down in the fall. Phil, who blogs at PT Money, is the mastermind behind Financial Blogger Conference 2011: “a two day conference designed to bring together the best of the personal finance community so that we can network and learn.” These financial shenanigans are going down the first weekend in October. There are currently over one hundred PF bloggers signed up to attend. Guess who’s not signed up…

I’m sure everyone in attendance will have a freakin’ blast, network like crazy, and figure out ways to increase blog readership and revenue, but I have a few hesitations/reservations…

1) I’m still convinced there is at least one person out of my 1,400 subscribers that is a creepy, ninja loving, serial killer. If I sign up, said stalker could potentially fly to Chicago, break in to my hotel room, and cut my skin off while I’m sleeping. It gets creepier. They would then proceed to put my skin in zip-lock bags to preserve it for their long trip back to Nebraska (FYI all serial killers come from Nebraska). They would then use my skin to make “Flesh Bracelets” and sell them on their Etsy shop for $9.99. Call me crazy, but I don’t want you wearing my skin, it’s weird.

2) Chicago isn’t Seattle. When I lived in San Diego, I made the 1.5 hour drive to Irvine a few times to meet some So. Cal PF bloggers. It was quick and easy. Chicago, however, would be a whole different beast. I’d be looking at a minimum of 7 hours travel time (driving, getting to airport early, etc). Since the conference happenings are on Saturday and Sunday, I would have to take the Friday before (and probably the Monday after) off. My days off are very precious to me, I don’t like the idea of using them to sit on a plane all day.

3) I’m not a super serious blogger. I’m sure you’ve noticed I don’t run this website like a business. I’m not spamming you with sponsored advertisements, obtrusive popups, and I’m not trying to sell you a Stick Figure E-book (although I should consider making one of these). I’m also not SEOing the bajezzus out of my content just so it shows up a few ticks higher in the Google search engines. Side Note: You can usually tell when a post is SEO’d because it has a lame title like “10 Ways to save money” and then the phrase “Save money” is used 86 times throughout the post in really awkward spots. I know that if I turn my focus to income generation and SEO hacking, I’ll burn out quick.

4) J. Money is going. Need I say more?

5) Cost. What kind of PF blogger would I be, if I said the cost wasn’t a HUGE factor? Looks like tickets right now are around $400 round trip. Taxi from Chicago to the hotel runs $25 each way. The hotel is $82/night x 3 nights. Let’s say $110 for food over the weekend. And the conference itself is currently priced at $129. All said and done I’d be lookin’ at dropping a minimum of $935. Ouch.

I’ve had a handful of bloggers check in and see if I’d be attending. At this point I’m going with “probably not.” I’d love to meet the people behind the numerous PF blogs I read, but not sure I want to meet them $1,000 bad. If the Financial Bloggers Conference was a little closer to home I’d be all for it, but Chicago might be a bit too far for this Ninja.

• If you’re a PF blogger, are you going? How much do you think the weekend is going to cost you? What was the biggest draw?

• If you’re a PF blogger and NOT going, why?

• Non bloggers, have you ever met up with a bunch of random online strangers? Was it weird or totally worth it? Would you go?

p.s. I expect all you fabulous bloggers that are attending to take copious notes and write about your experiences so I can get all the details and live vicariously through you