What are the financial benefits of starting a blog?
Have you ever wondered why the most successful people own businesses?
Here I list 10 significant financial benefits of starting a blog that you can’t ignore.
1-Tax benefits
Most people know that starting a business allows you to write things off. What they don’t know or understand is how that works to their advantage.
First off, some of the items you can write off from starting a blog, includes a portion of your rent/mortgage, cell phone, internet, car payments, gas, heating costs and other expenses related to the business.
What this means is that you don’t need to pay as much tax as you would if you just worked as an employee. You don’t even need to earn anything from your business! You just need to have the intention and treat your blog as a business.
How much can you actually save?
Let’s say, for example, I’m working a full time job earning $45,000/yr. Based on just this, I would have to pay $6,691 in taxes at the end of the year.
Now, if I write off just the business portion of my rent (25%) and cell bill (30%) of $4860, I now only owe $5588 which means that:
I just saved $1,103 in taxes!!!
I haven’t even included my internet costs, hosting costs, computer purchase, banking fees, hydro & gas bill and more which are allowable deductions for businesses. That’s a pretty darn good return on my $60/yr investment to start my blog.
Where else can you spend $60 and save $1100?
2-Don’t have to quit your regular paying job or lose your government benefits
Starting a business requires a lot of time and effort. Many professions such as a realtor, a life insurance agent, a mortgage broker and more requires you to commit 100% and be available 24/7. A blog allows you to keep your regular job but also have the upside of earning additional income.
A blog allows you to find the time when it works for you. You don’t have to do it during the day, during the week or even without your children. A blog is the most flexible part-time business you could ever start.
For those of you that lost your jobs recently, you can keep your government benefits. You can spend all that extra time and focus on starting your own blog.
3-Don’t have to risk financial instability
One of the biggest fears of a new business owner is how long can they last without earning anything from their business? They need to have enough money in the bank to cover 6 months to a years worth of expenses. Again, with other career opportunities where you can earn unlimited income, you start off living in a feast or famine state.
However, because a blog doesn’t require you to quit your day job, you continue to earn your usual income while slowly building your blog. This gives you peace of mind when one month you may earn $500 from your blog but only $100 the next.
4-Low cost to start
Nowhere else can you start a business with such a low investment. I completely understand living paycheck to paycheck, having no savings, not sure how you’re going to eat next week and wanting desperately to change that. Most businesses, even MLM’s require you to have hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get started. But you can start a blog for less than $5 a month!
A cup of coffee at Starbucks costs more!
5-Earn extra income with no limits
With any regular paying job, whether you are paid hourly or on a salary, you are exchanging your time to earn a paycheck. There is no potential to earn more. Even if you work more hour, you can only earn so much.
With a commission paying job, however, the amount you can earn doesn’t cap out but still requires you to be to actively working in order to earn your next commission cheque.
A blog allows you to earn an unlimited amount of money. There is no maximum and you don’t need to even be the one doing all the work. You can outsource or hire people to help. But at the end of the day, you have the potential to earn an unlimited amount of money.
6-Don’t need a Degree
It used to be that the more education you had the higher you could expect your income to be. That has significantly changed over the last 15-20 years. More now than ever, you can earn a significant amount without needing a University Degree.
Yes, you will need to spend a bunch of time learning. But you won’t need to wait 4 years and pay thousands of dollars before you can start earning money. With a blog, you have the potential to literally earn income from month 1. Of course, I don’t believe that is realistic. However, you can expect to earn something, within the first year of consistency and a good plan.
7-Multiple streams of income
This is a huge benefit to blogging. You can diversify your income to come from multiple streams. That means that you aren’t relying solely on one source of income. You could earn a portion from ad revenue, a portion from affiliate income, a portion from a download etc. This means that even if you lose one of those sources, you still have money coming in from the others.
8-Make money even while sleeping or on holiday
I personally love this benefit. Yes, it takes time to set up and get going. But, once it’s running and things are going smoothly, you can automate most things blogging so that it is now working for you while you are nowhere near a computer! You could be earning money on a consistent basis for weeks!
9-Income splitting
This is an advanced financial strategy where income from the higher income earner is shared with the spouse in order to reduce the overall amount of tax payable by the family. There are strict rules of how this can be applied but essentially with your blog, as you earn more income, you could share some of the income with your spouse and pay less tax overall.
10-Learn about finances and how money works
Owning a business forces you to keep track of your income and expenses for tax purposes. You will be more aware of how much you spend and what you spend it on. You may want to use your blog income to pay off your credit card debt or car loan. Either way, you will be more in control of your financial future and understanding how money works is a lifelong skill that you will use over and over again.