In a blink of an eye, we are in May!
April was a great month for Andrew and me (well mostly for me). I spent most of the month battling allergies (Hello Spring!) and then the flu that my youngest brought home. Andrew continues to grow our affiliate website. Its affiliate income tripled this past month!
For me, I finally found the SEO issue that has caused our monthly pageviews to drop over the last 12 months. I feel silly we did not catch the issue earlier. This whole time we have been blaming Andrew for changing a plugin. In reality, the issue was an update to the algorithm made by Google that we completely missed. Sorry Andrew! 
Once found, I made fixing the Core Web Vitals a priority for Wallet Squirrel. I also made sure they were not an issue for our affiliate website. For me, this took priority over creating new content. I was able to fix what I could but there is a lot more that needs to be fixed that I do not have the technical knowledge for. Because of this, we decided to pay someone to help us out. This work should be done within the first week of May. I suspect we will see a bounce in traffic in the next few months as our SEO recovers.
What We Managed to Accomplish in April!
- Back in January, we turned comment back on!
- We took a break from comments but we missed the community engagement on our posts. One of our goals in 2022 is to bring that sense of community back.
We missed hearing for you all! Shoot us a “Hello!” in the comments below!
- We published several more articles in April.
- Andrew published several new articles over at our affiliate website.
- Sorry, that is still a secret.
- We also share tons of cool finance jokes, infographics, and quotes on social media. Check out our Instagram!
Income For April
Our income was back for April! This was mostly thanks to a sponsored post and a Bluehost Affiliate. Quickly climbing the ranks is the income from our affiliate website. As I mentioned, its income tripled this past month! Well done Andrew!
Secretly I have a competition, income-wise, against Andrew (shhh!) to keep Wallet Squirrel’s income ahead of this other website till the end of 2022. I am beginning to think this is going to be tougher than I thought. Hopefully fixing our Core Web Vitals will turn Wallet Squirrel’s pageviews around so we can gain more income from website ads. That is my plan anyway. Fingers crossed!
These are all pretty incredible income generators and we’ve mentioned them before on the blog.
- Affiliate Marketing – we earn a commission if someone buys a product through a link on your website
- Blue Host Affiliate – an affiliate link for website hosting we use.
- Online Surveys – we earn money from participating in online surveys like Swagbucks.
- Stock Photography – we earn money whenever one of our photos sells online.
- Interest Checking/Saving Account – we earn interest on the money in our checking and savings accounts.
- Cash Back Credit Card – we earn extra money via 2% cashback from using our credit card.
- Lending Club – we earn interest from peer-to-peer lending.
- Dividends – we earn dividends from the stocks we own.
Monthly Expenses for Wallet Squirrel
The expression “It takes money to make money” is actually pretty accurate. As we learn new skills, we find new software and processes that help us make more money. However, they come with a cost for their convenience. Here is where our money went in March.
Monthly Expenses – $215 Total
- Bluehost [$36] – Hosting Service
- Ahrefs [$104] – Keyword and web traffic research
- Sitelock [$8] – Extra security for our Bluehost servers
- Domain [$2] – So we can keep the domain WalletSquirrel.com
- Bloom [$7] – Our email forms, but we’ll likely be getting rid of this soon
- Grammarly [$12] – We can’t live without this amazing grammar tool
- The Noun Project [$4] – The best site for icons for our infographics
- Sendible [$30] – A social media scheduling platform. Adam seems to really enjoy it!
- Canva [$12] – Helps us create cool graphics!
Everything leftover has been invested in my dividend portfolio.
What’s Next For May
After finding our SEO issue, I look forward to getting back to creating more content in May. Hopefully, my allergies will subside so my eyes stop burning. It is tough to look at a computer screen all day for my 9-5 and then again after putting the kids to bed to write articles.
Andrew continues to crush it over at our affiliate website. I look forward to seeing what this coming month can bring!
What are you tackling in May?
Cheers!
Adam and Andrew
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