Cutting your blogs costs to increase income

For bloggers, especially newbies the need to cut costs is breaking their heads. Once you get a steady stream of income you won’t have any problems, but until then even your basic expenses trouble you. I was lucky enough to make my parents pay my internet bill when my blog was young, but still I had troubles to pay for my hosting.

I managed my finances well with the use of some tips and tricks and successfully managed to survive. As a small blogger I had very less cash and no source of funding, so three months ago I sat down with a pen and paper and planned all my funding sources and took measures to cut expenses. Some of the ways I used to cut costs and turn a profit are listed below and I bet that it will be useful to newbie bloggers,

Going economy class

When your blog is young its recommended that you go for the cheapest host, design and promotional methods, even if you have a steady source of income or have a hell lot of cash. In case you have good amount of cash you can still spend on one time expenses, but make sure you have enough money saved up for the long term ones such as hosting, domain names and other softwares.

If you feel that its just impossible to generate income for the first few months, then don’t think of buying your own host or else you’ll lose all of those effective promotional methods you’ve used if you fail to pay for your host. In that case start a blog on Blogger or WordPress, when you start getting enough money then shift to your own host.

Make full use of coupons and discounts

If you’ve read my recent article on web hosting coupons you’ll know how much I valued and used web hosting coupons in my old days as a newbie blogger. On the internet coupons are the most effective methods for anyone to save money and most online businesses provide it to their customers as it acts more like a promotional method.

Most coupons for subscription based payments are usually only for a particular month or for a bit longer period of time, but it does help to save a lot of money if you use it wisely. On the other side when you are paying only a one time price then the coupon won’t be very cost cutting, but sure does helps you save a few bucks.

There are many places where you can find good quality, trustable coupons, so remember that your aim should not be to find a really hot coupon, but the coupon which which is trustable. The best sites which I use to find coupons are Retailmenot, webhostingreviews.org and other retailers.

Cashflow management

Businesses don’t run based on their incomes and expenses, but based on their cash in-flows and out-flows. I manage my cash flow through a simple excel spread sheet which is constantly updated. One view of my spreadsheet helps me understand my total financial condition which is really helpful.

While buying something for your blog you’ll be tempted to buy for the long term due to discounts offered by most of the people, but you must understand that your not saving money, but loosing out cash early, but in special circumstances its profitable if buy in this manner, so a detailed cash flow management on a spreadsheet is very essential.

Many times before and even today I face this common problem of not being payed by an ad network in frequent time intervals because I could not reach the payment threshold level. This is certainly frustrating and is pretty common for newbie bloggers, so at this situation If I had failed to have a backup, then I would have lost all of the hard work I had poured into my blog.

Thinking long term

One problem most bloggers face is that they never think long term, they see only the short term incomes and expenses. I studied and made a perfect long term plan, but due to some circumstances I failed to  go according to that, but still I managed to survive. Over here your not planning to earn more money from your blog, but trying to estimate your earnings.

In case you feel that your earnings and expenses are not going according to your plan, then you’ll have to make immediate changes to it.