If you’d like to check out Zion Healthshare please do use my link: https://www.pullingcurls.com/go/zion-healthshare/ It really helps when you say you heard about them from Pulling Curls!

Find it here on Apple or Spotify Podcasts

Links for you:

My other healthshare info:

• Zion Healthshare Reviews & Why Left Liberty Healthshare
• Finding a HealthShare for Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
• How Does a Healthshare Work? with Heather Eden from Zion Healthshare — Episode 126
• Making the Choice to use a Christian Healthshare — Episode 065
• Is a Health Share Right for You? Discover If You’re a Good Fit.
• Using a Direct Primary Care Membership with Dr Bradley Shumway – Episode 086

Timestamps:

00:00 Zion reimburses quickly; other health shares delay.

06:13 Unexpected healthcare costs due to insurance complexities.

06:59 Bills cleared monthly; sometimes paid using credit.

12:47 Waited 30 days for medical bill, frustrated.

13:24 Frustrated over hospital billing and collection threats.

Keypoints:

• Hilary Erickson shares her personal experience with non-traditional healthcare, specifically a health share organization, rather than traditional health insurance.
• The high costs of traditional health insurance for self-employed individuals prompted Hilary to explore alternative options, leading her to Zion Healthshare.
• Health share organizations allow for greater flexibility in choosing hospitals, doctors, and labs without restrictive networks.
• Hilary explains that with health share organizations, patients are often considered self-pay and need to be proactive in managing and submitting medical bills for reimbursement.
• Unlike insurance companies, health shares may take time to process and reimburse bills, sometimes taking up to six months, but Zion Healthshare was notably faster.
• Hilary highlights the concept of a per-incident deductible with Zion Healthshare, explaining that for each new medical incident, her family is responsible for the first $1,000.
• The episode details the various medical bills Hilary received following her appendicitis surgery, including bills from the hospital, anesthesiologist, radiologist, and other specialists.
• A key frustration was the medical billing process, where hospitals initially billed exorbitant amounts before drastically reducing them for self-pay patients.
• Hilary emphasizes the importance of having some form of healthcare coverage to manage unexpected medical expenses and stresses the necessity of understanding and navigating the billing process.
• The podcast episode aims to demystify health share organizations and provide valuable insights into alternative healthcare options for families, particularly those who are self-employed.

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.590] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 249, we are talking about how we do insurance at our house, so let’s untangle it.

[00:00:11.610] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial overcomplicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and the pregnancy nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop overcomplicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with Pregnancy and Parenting Untangled The Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:00:39.680] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, so if you listened to, I think it’s two episodes ago, I shared about how I had an appendicitis. And then I also at the very end shared that we don’t use traditional health insurance. We own our own business, and traditional health insurance would have been, at this point, probably double what our mortgage is. And we just decided that that wasn’t worth it if there was another option. Now, I am a believer that you need to have insurance, but we’re going to dive into that in this episode.

[00:01:07.400] – Hilary Erickson

So first off, we use what’s called a Christian Health Share, although our Health Share is not considered Christian. Most people call it a Christian Health Share. I believe they just go buy a Health Share. We use Zion Health Share. If you’re interested in it, I have a link in the show notes that you can check them out. I love it when people use my link, it lets them know that I’m giving them business. And I can get a little kickback sometimes if you sign up through me. Just full disclosure. But I really like Zion Health Share. We ended up using a few of the different ones.

[00:01:34.320] – Hilary Erickson

We use Liberty. We use, I think it’s Samaritan. Liberty was a huge mess. So it is something that you have to be on top of. I could tell that Liberty was going down, and so we jump ship. It’s not insurance. So regular insurance has specific laws in your state where they’re required to do specific things, pay your bills, stuff like that, according to their policies.

[00:01:55.880] – Hilary Erickson

Of course, so many people get caught off guard by the policies because it It is impossible to read all the policies and know, especially when you go in for something emergency, like an appendicitis. Now, a health share, surprisingly, is sometimes more flexible. This is confusing. So if you have an insurance company, usually they say You can go to XYZ hospital or XYZ doctor. But with a health share, I could go anywhere. I could go to any hospital that I wanted to go to. So that’s really nice about it. I can go to any doctor I want to. I can go to get any lab I want to. They don’t have certain requirements It’s at least mine doesn’t, other ones might. But it’s really nice that when I thought my appendix had burst, I could pick any hospital I wanted.

[00:02:37.110] – Hilary Erickson

I didn’t have to go to a specific one. Now, the other thing to know about a health share is when you go to the hospital, you tell them you are self-pay. Now, I usually use an addendum. We have a health share, so I’ll need to get the bill so then I can submit it to them. But according to all of the billing departments, we were considered self-pay. Now, you get those bills, and some health shares take a really long time to reimburse you for that money. So let’s say the hospital gave us a bill for 40,000. Some health share, it’s going to be two to six months before they send you a check for that bill.

[00:03:09.760] – Hilary Erickson

That’s the problem. You’re stuck in the meantime, trying to either make payments on it or whatever you’re going to do so that you’re just waiting for that check. With Zion, which is actually why we chose to go with Zion, it was pretty quick. They had the check to them within the month. And honestly, it was shocking how long it took for a lot of these bills to come in. I let Zion know about the appendix with my discharge instructions as soon as I could so that they could then let me know that it was a covered cost.

[00:03:37.820] – Hilary Erickson

And then I submitted bills from there. We are almost eight weeks out from the appendix, and I just got another bill last week. It’s shocking to me that these people don’t have to send bills within any specific time frame. I’m hoping that’s our last bill. We’re going to talk about the bills. Don’t worry, we’re going to talk about the dollar bills. Anyway, the speed at which they paid off stuff was a big reason why we chose Zion Health Share.

[00:04:01.060] – Hilary Erickson

Now, with Zion, we have what’s called a per-incident deductible. So every time something happens, we are responsible for the first $1,000. So when I was in the hospital, the billing people came in and they’re like, We need a payment, and I just gave them $1,000 because I knew that that is what we were going to owe. I then submitted the receipt to Zion. They want to see that you paid that $1,000, and then they end up paying the rest. They paid the absolute rest of any of our visits after after that. So I saw a physical therapist, I saw a chiropractor. All of that was paid. There was no deductible after that because I paid the first $1,000 of an incident.

[00:04:39.610] – Hilary Erickson

Now, your kid breaks their arm and it’s $750. You pay all that. Your kid again breaks their other arm. It’s $750. You pay all that. They don’t kick in at all until you hit your per incident deductible, which for us is $1,000. But you can pick 2,500, you can pick 5,000, where they kick in after that. But the nice thing is when you have something really big that happens, They are going to pay all of that for as long as the incident happens. So let’s say this appendix a month later has an abscess, that’s still under the first $1,000. So you’re not required to pay more for this new thing that’s cropped up.

[00:05:14.260] – Hilary Erickson

But you are responsible for everything up until $1,000, which is part of why we have a DPC. I have a whole episode on that. Some people call it a concierge doctor. I just think of it like as Netflix for a doctor. I pay this doctor every month, regardless of if I see them or not. And then they’re there that I can make a phone call, send an email to, have a visit with whenever I need, which I absolutely love. I love that part of it.

[00:05:39.250] – Hilary Erickson

Now, a lot of you are thinking, but insurance is a sure thing, and I get that line of thinking, right? We all need to have insurance. I’ve seen so many expensive bills. We’re going to talk about my bills. But so many people end up getting caught off guard. They end up needing to somehow use two deductibles because it’s split over a year. The doctor isn’t in network. That’s a big one that I hear, and especially with my appendicitis, that’s something I couldn’t control who my radiologist was. I couldn’t control who my anesthesiologist was. I couldn’t control who the surgeon was. All I could control was which hospital I went to. Not in every state. I think they’re trying to work this so that it doesn’t keep happening.

[00:06:17.350] – Hilary Erickson

But some doctor who you have no choice over, you might end up having to pay out of network for that radiologist because they aren’t on your insurance’s plan, even though the hospital that they work at is on the plan. You know what I’m saying? There’s just so many times that people are caught off guard by bills and end up paying way more than they thought they were going to because of how insurance works.

[00:06:40.200] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, so we use a health share, which means that every single bill gets sent to me. With a self-pay. They think Hilary is going to pay it, which is not a really good feeling. I will say that when we were in the hospital, I was like, well, we’re really going to see if this thing works out. And when that bill comes to me, I scan it, or sometimes it’s already a PDF, and I just submit it to the health share company. And then about every month or so for each incident, they would go in, maybe every three weeks, go in and clear all those bills. They would pay everything that had come in. Sometimes they just pay it. If they’re able to pay it on their end, they’ll just pay it. On one of them, they gave me a digital credit card that had $32,000 on it, and I paid it using that credit card with the hospital. So you have to take a little bit more responsibility in getting those bills to them so that they can pay it, which is annoying when you’re already not feeling your very best because of surgery.

[00:07:33.560] – Hilary Erickson

Now, when my husband had skin cancer, I took care of… Very mild skin cancer, by the way. Let’s not freak out here. I took care of all the billing so that he could heal, but that’s just not his forte. So I was still taking care of all the bills while I was healing up. Annoying. Just get a folder, start putting the bills in the folder, move them to the submitted pocket once you’ve been able to scan them and submit them. You can even take pictures on your phone. It doesn’t have to be a scanner, scanner.

[00:07:59.950] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, so let’s talk about the different bills that I had that come, because in your mind, you’re like, okay, you go to the hospital, you get a bill from the hospital, right? And you do. You get a very big bill from the hospital. So let’s talk about that very first. My bill from the hospital initially said 126,000,362$, right? But then, because I was self-paid, they brought that bill down to 34,886. So I don’t even know why the hospital comes out with a bill of $126,000. I know that that’s what they submit to your insurance, but I feel like the hospital sends you this $126,000 bill just so that you think, Oh, my gosh, I’d have to have insurance in order to pay for this, because I don’t know many families who can absorb a $126,000 bill, liquidity split, right?

[00:08:45.160] – Hilary Erickson

But if you look at the self-pay thing, and this is for four days of inpatient hospital stay and three days of outpatient stay that’s through the hospital, which is billed at a higher rate than just regular home health. So this is a pretty hefty 50 hospitals stay, including a CT scan, lots of labs, lots of IV meds. I couldn’t believe every bag of L. R. Was $400, which I could… I mean, it’s just crazy. But then they just reduce all these things down to the self-pay rate.

[00:09:15.440] – Hilary Erickson

So that, I feel, was the biggest scam of all of this, that the hospital bills you for this outrageous amount, acting like that’s the amount everyone pays, when in reality, they’re going to lower it to another rate because that’s more reasonable, right? Even though I still think 34,000 for five days of inpatient hospital is still crazy. But it’s not just the hospital bill. Then you’re going to get all these other bills. So I got an anesthesiologist bill that was 2,600. They adjusted it down to 1,200 for self-pay patients. The hospitalists, so those are the doctors, the general doctors that you see at the hospital, they submitted a bill for $630.

[00:09:55.040] – Hilary Erickson

No changes for self-pay. I did notice that a lot of the doctors don’t have a self-pay discount. That’s just the price. The pharmacy, well, we bought medications from the pharmacy, and because they’re within the 30-day window of the incident happening, Zion will pay for those. So that was like $1600. The ER doctors have their own bill, so We’ll see that there are lots of different doctors that each have their own billing. They were $1,500, and that adjusted down to $758. There was the hospital, like the surgeons, and then the follow-up surgeon people was $2,800, and the adjusted amount was $1,900. I saw physical therapy. I saw a chiropractor. Physical therapy was $150. The chiropractor was $50. I just paid out of pocket for those, but then they will just reimburse me.

[00:10:38.990] – Hilary Erickson

I ended up having this crazy shoulder pain after I stopped taking pain meds, maybe because of the way I was laying. Anyway, that’s why I went to those two different people. This one is the crazy one. So whoever read my CT, not the CT cost, because that’s in the hospital bill, so the cost of actually getting the CT. This is the doctor who read my CT, billed me $912 for it, and then lowered it to 547.

[00:11:02.470] – Hilary Erickson

But the CT, it’s like six sentences. It just said very vague things about the CT. $500 for that. That’s crazy town. Radiology, guys, think about it as a career. Pathology, which is after they take out your appendix, they send it to pathology to make sure that it’s your appendix. That was $13. Seems very reasonable, right? Don’t become a pathologist, apparently. And then I also had infectious disease following me at the hospital, and that was $810.

[00:11:33.150] – Hilary Erickson

So if you’re following along, at the hospital, as far as doctors, there was an anesthesiologist, there were the general hospitalist doctors, there was the ER doctors, there were the surgeons, there was the radiologist, there was the pathologist, there was the infectious disease doctor. So I knew that all those different bills were coming, but I think a lot of people would just think, Okay, I got the bill from the hospital. It’s 36,000 or whatever. That’s all we have to pay. So the pre-adjustment amount, in case you were was $136,069. And then the final amount that was paid was $41,028. So just over $41,000 was my total. And Zion paid all those within 2-3 weeks of getting the bill.

[00:12:14.100] – Hilary Erickson

And if they start to hound you because the hospital… We’re going to talk more about that. The hospital started to hound me, although they hadn’t even sent me the bill. We’re going to get into that. They immediately went in and paid that bill. So if people are starting to bother you about it, Zion was really good about paying that.

[00:12:29.670] – Hilary Erickson

Let’s go back to the hospital, though. So I had this lady that I paid the $1,000. She was like my care counselor or something, the financial assistant. I don’t know if everyone gets this or if it’s just that you’re self pay. And then I was like, great, when will I get my bill? And she was like, oh, well, you’ll have to submit this thing. So I went home on my email, I printed it out, signed it, even though I felt like death, submitted it to get my medical records or the payment.

[00:12:54.900] – Hilary Erickson

Thirty days is what they said they would then get me the bill within 30 days. Which I was like, you know how sometimes you get those and you’re like, oh, they say 30 days, but they really mean a week? No, I waited two weeks and I called them and I was like, hey, when am I going to be able to get my bill emailed to me?

[00:13:10.320] – Hilary Erickson

And they’re like, well, it’s 30 days. I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. I really have to wait 30 days to be able to get it? They said, Well, you can come into the hospital and get it right away. I said, That absolutely makes no sense. And they were like, Well, that’s just how we do things. So I had to haul myself back to the hospital. I think by this point, I was maybe two, three weeks out from the surgery. I couldn’t send Drew, by the way, because I need a special form to be able to have my husband, HIPAA violation, get the form from the hospital, right?

[00:13:36.390] – Hilary Erickson

So I had to haul myself in and get the bill. And you can only imagine how happy I was and how many managers I asked to speak to about how poor this process was because I couldn’t imagine. Anyway, the reason I went to the hospital is because my care coordinator, prior to me actually receiving the bill, I had no idea what the bill was, was saying, Well, we don’t want to have to send you to collections for this.

[00:13:57.060] – Hilary Erickson

And I was like, I don’t even have a bill. And she was like, Well, that’s your problem, right? How unfair is that? You haven’t even sent me the bill, yet you’re already talking about collections. And I get it. I come up as a self-care pay patient. They’re worried about getting paid, but also send me the bill. My gosh.

[00:14:14.830] – Hilary Erickson

Anyway, all of that to say, I feel like hospitals and insurance companies are in kahoots to make this almost impossible for people to manage on their own. Trying to get all of those bills said to an insurance company. If I was just Joe Smoes trying to pay this out of my pocket. Every another $800 that comes, that’s unsettling for people.

[00:14:36.510] – Hilary Erickson

So that’s the worst part of having the health care is just having to manage the bills on your own and manage a system that is not rigged for people to succeed at all. I’m hoping that the American public wakes up at some point and realizes that insurance is just a huge fat scam. But until then, this is what we have. And I do think that most people would not be able to absorb a $40,000 hospital bill very well with their own finances.

[00:14:59.760] – Hilary Erickson

So at this point in time, we do need to have insurance or a health share. Again, if your insurance is a crazy amount, especially if you are self-employed, I would encourage you to check out the health share. You can find the link through this episode.

[00:15:13.100] – Hilary Erickson

Anyway, it’s something to consider. It did end up working out for us. They paid every bill and have been so helpful, so that was really nice. And I’m healing up nicely. I probably feel 100%. I don’t really feel any different than I did before the surgery. We didn’t end up having an abscess. We actually went on a trip to Dollywood just about a month after. I had the surgery and all things went well. So huzzah for that.

[00:15:34.100] – Hilary Erickson

Huzzah for healing. Oh my gosh, it’s amazing that my body can even heal from all these different things. So probably way more information than you wanted on this episode, but I thought it was interesting in case people were interested in it.

[00:15:46.590] – Hilary Erickson

We are actually going on hiatus until the beginning of the year after this episode. So we will see you in 2025, where we are talking about signs your birth will be hard. And then I’m talking about moving my parents into retirement living. So stay tuned for 2025. We’ll be back early January.

[00:16:03.170] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls Podcast today. If you like today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.

Keywords:

health insurance, pulling curls podcast, Hilary Erickson, Christian health share, traditional health insurance, ZION health share, appendicitis, Liberty health share, Samaritan health share, self-pay patients, health share benefits, insurance policies, emergency medical bills, per incident deductible, health share reimbursement, DPC, concierge doctor, Netflix for a doctor, medical billing, out-of-network doctors, hospital bills, anesthesiologist bill, radiologist bill, physical therapy, chiropractor, pathology, infectious disease doctor, inpatient hospital stay, health share coverage, medical expenses, handling medical invoices.

The post Understanding Healthshares: Bills, Payments, and Peace of Mind appeared first on Pulling Curls.

Find it here on Apple or Spotify Podcasts

Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines — if you’re looking to make your home life easier check it out!

Links for you:

Timestamps:

00:00 Detach from outcome, focus on what matters.
04:04 Setting boundaries for attention and work goals.
07:11 Struggling, learning, and letting go in 2020.

Keypoints:

1. Hilary Erickson discusses her struggles and realizations about New Year’s resolutions for 2023 and how it impacted her personal and professional life.
2. She talks about detaching from the outcome and the impact of reading “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson.
3. Hilary highlights the importance of identifying who should invest attention and effort into a problem, setting boundaries, and entrusting certain aspects to faith or the universe.
4. She shares her struggle with constantly trying to solve problems for others, emphasizing the need to recognize whose problem it truly is.
5. The concept of not pushing all the time and learning to let go is discussed in relation to exerting effort and then allowing things to unfold.
6. Hilary uses the analogy of flipping the baby in pregnancy to illustrate the idea of pushing for a little bit and then letting go to see where things go.
7. She delves into the realization that there is a limit to the amount of “f*cks” one can give, advocating the importance of rationing emotional investment and not expecting to give beyond one’s capacity.
8. Hilary empathizes with the challenge of learning to let go and admits to her struggle in this area, while encouraging listeners to join her in working on it.
9. She invites listeners to engage with her on Instagram or via email to share advice and insights on the topic.
10. The episode closes with a preview of upcoming episodes on prenatal classes and sleep, and Hilary’s request for reviews, shares, and subscriptions to support the podcast’s growth.

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.110] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 216, we are talking about New Year’s resolutions. So let’s untangle it.

[00:00:08.620] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial overcomplicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and the pregnancy nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop over complicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snars with pregnancy and parenting untangled, the Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:00:29.550] – Hilary Erickson

Before we get started, this episode is sponsored by Family Routines. Honestly, while I’m excited to get organized at my house, I really want to get into good new routines that help support everyone in the family at the beginning of the year. So find family routines either in the show notes or at pullingcurls.com.

[00:00:53.240] – Hilary Erickson

I usually have giant resolutions. I’m super excited for all the whatever that I’m going to do in the upcoming year. But I have to say that in 2023, I really struggled. My business was struggling. I was having a hard time connecting and really finding traction in a lot that I was doing. And I got to a point, I think I was crying in the car and I just thought, do I just have to not care? Like, should I just not care? Because I’d watched some manifesting videos about how you have to let go of the outcome in order to really succeed. And I was like, well, how do I exactly do that when my family needs to eat from my business to pay our mortgage and buy our groceries and things like that. So am I just not not to care?

[00:01:35.090] – Hilary Erickson

And honestly, the answer was yes. Mid year, I just made the point that I was like, I’m going to stop caring so much about the outcome. Hopefully courses sell. Hopefully people love me. Hopefully I make some videos that help them out. But I can’t keep trying to work a 60 hour work week, hoping that these things are going to happen because I’m going to drive myself insane if they don’t.

[00:01:58.780] – Hilary Erickson

So I really had to detach from the outcome in order to actually find some success. And during this time frame, I read The Subtle Art of Not Giving Up an F by Mark Hanson. I’m just going to use the word F. I hope that doesn’t bother you guys, but I think it reminds us. You can substitute the word attention or anxiety or whatever you want to use the word. We would normally use the word F for. But I really enjoyed this book and I want to tell you three things that I learned and I’m trying to apply in 2024 and these are my biggest resolutions to stop giving all my F’s. Okay, for me, it was so important to realize what I had control over and put my F’s attention in those areas and let the rest of it fall to whoever was in charge of it.

[00:02:47.450] – Hilary Erickson

So that takes place a lot in adult children. They would have a problem and I would get so wound up in it. I would think about it all the time. I would try and work on it for them. But in reality, they needed to give more F’s about the problem, and it was their problem, not mine.

[00:03:04.400] – Hilary Erickson

And I see this a lot in people with adult kids. They’ll put a lot of effort into a problem that the kid maybe even hasn’t talked to them about or even doesn’t even know that it’s a problem. But the parent is super invested that this is a problem. So I would just encourage you to think about whose problem it is. And sometimes, honestly, my problem is God’s problem. I want to get a book deal. And so I’ll put that as God’s problem because I don’t really have the skills to create a book deal or to find the people that need to do a book deal. So I’m hoping that God will take care of that.

[00:03:37.890] – Hilary Erickson

I, on the other hand, am writing lots during the day. I’m creating a platform that could sell books really well. And so that’s my part. Those are the Fs that I can give, whereas I’m hoping that God will just open up the things for me so that I can succeed in that if that’s what the plan is for me, because that’s not always the plan.

[00:03:56.810] – Hilary Erickson

But the key on this one is figuring out who is supposed to give the Fs about it and then setting the boundaries that like, okay, I’m giving this away to God or the universe however you want to describe it, or this is the effort that I’m going to put in and then I’m going to give it to God or the universe, or it’s not even my problem anymore, I should stop giving so many Fs about it.

[00:04:17.410] – Hilary Erickson

So setting boundaries about how you’re going to give your attention is one of my huge goals for 2024, something I’m working on. I am not great on it because I’m a problem solver and I think I can solve everyone’s problems better than they can, which is not my best characteristic, I got to say.

[00:04:33.050] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, one of the other things I thought of is that I don’t have to push all the time. I can put in my F’s, my four hours of F’s or whatever, and then it’s going to the universe. Whereas I would constantly be thinking about how I should reshape my sales page to make more sales. It would be constantly in the back of my mind. I would shift up the sales page daily, which honestly is a really bad idea, because then you have no idea if something worked or didn’t work, or it’s just like the day. I sold five one day, three the next. It doesn’t mean that I did anything to assist that.

[00:05:06.380] – Hilary Erickson

So putting in my effort and then just letting go. I was talking the other day about versions in a post that I was writing on the pregnancy nurse, and that’s where they flip the baby from bum down to head down. They’re trying to get the baby’s head down so that it can be a Vertex delivery. And I was saying about if it hurts a lot is that they will push and then they just let go and see where baby goes. Because they can’t really force baby into the right spot. Babies sometimes have to just fall into the right spot.

[00:05:37.140] – Hilary Erickson

So I think that’s true a lot in our lives, is that we push for a little bit and then we let go and just see where the chips fall. Not very good at that. I’m working on it. It’s one of my resolutions, but I’m not going to give all the F’s to letting go. I’m just like… Sometimes I feel like I would put so much attention into letting go, I wasn’t letting go. So this is obviously something that I have to work on. Tell me if you’re with me over on Instagram.

[00:06:02.020] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, the third thing that I learned from the subtle art of not giving an F is that I only have so many F’s to give because I think in my mind I thought I can pull F’s out of thin air. It’s like how the Duggers, say, somebody said, one of those TLC shows said that love multiplies, it doesn’t divide. And I thought I think I thought that about F’s. But in reality, really to stay healthy, you really only have so many F’s that you can give, and after those are done, then you’re out of F’s. And so I always like to keep a few F’s just like in the margins in case I need to give them out for something that happens.

[00:06:45.300] – Hilary Erickson

But I can’t care a hundred % about everything. I just can’t. And giving myself that allowance and just knowing that, that is an eternal truth for all of us that we only have so much that we can give. And so we have to ration it out to what really matters for us.

[00:06:59.040] – Hilary Erickson

That probably my ultimate goal for 2024 is to ration them out, not expect that I can give extra F’s when I really don’t have them. So a lot of it is just learning to let go. It’s not something that I’m good at, something that I’m working at. Some of that is faith that I’ve put in my effort, the effort that I have versus just like worrying, which I think in my head, I think that that’s effort, but it is not effort. So doing that and then just learning to let go.

[00:07:29.270] – Hilary Erickson

I don’t know if any of you guys are on the same page with me, but that’s something that I’m really working on in 2024. And I’m encouraging you guys to work on it too. If you guys have any advice for me, I’d love to see you over on Instagram where we can chitty chat about it or email me. You can do whatever you want. But learning to let go is something that I’m really working on in 2024. And I hope this episode gave you guys some ideas on how to work on it in your life too.

[00:07:52.060] – Hilary Erickson

Stay tuned. We have some great episodes coming up next week. We are talking about prenatal classes and what the studies show that they can do for you and your birth. It is Crazy Town, what a prenatal class can do for you when you look at the studies. And the week after that, we have a sleep doctor coming on. He’s like a neuroscientist about sleep. And he not only gave me some tips about babies and kids and getting them asleep, but also moms because sleeping is not something that I’m great at. And he gave me some tips that have actually helped. So I can’t wait to see you in there.

[00:08:21.920] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls podcast today. If you like today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.

Keywords:

New Year’s resolutions, 2023 struggles, manifesting, outcomes, The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F, control, problem-solving, boundaries, effort, sales page, letting go, attention, rationing, faith, prenatal classes, studies, sleep doctor, neuroscientist, babies, kids, moms, sleep tips, reviewing, sharing, subscribing, parenting, pregnancy, nurse, family routines, organization.

The post Finding Success by Letting Go: New Year’s Resolutions for Parents appeared first on Pulling Curls.

Hiring a housekeeping service is a big step — and one I’ve certainly considered — today I’m going to tell you why I choose NOT to have professional cleaners.

Confession: Life is busy. My life is busy and I would guess yours is too. Between work, school, and kids, sometimes my dream of a clean home falls to the bottom of the pile.

With my kids often that pile is pretty dirty.

Sometimes I look at their bathroom and sigh a tired sigh and walk away.

I’ve certainly asked myself if professional housekeepers might be the right choice. I think it’s something a lot of us consider at different times.

Hiring professional house cleaners would be awesome in a lot of ways.

Today I’m going to talk about my four main reasons for not having a maid or house keeper.

Before we get too deep into this, a BIG part of my reason WAS my kids, and I really felt like I could help them learn how to clean, while also making it easier on myself… I found that I was able to do that, and I compiled all my best tips into Family Routines. If that sounds like the route you’d like to go, I’d recommend it!

Ok, onto WHY we don’t have a cleaner:

Why not hire a cleaning service?

While I know there are a lot of reasons for hiring cleaning professionals I am going to talk about the reasons I have chosen, for now, not to.

#1 What would professional housecleaners do?

The reality is, about 80% of my “cleaning” time is used putting stuff away and organizing. This is not something cleaning people do. Unless your cleaning person is living in your home or part of your every day life they likely don’t know where all the little things go.

I don’t know about you but having things put away incorrectly would actually add time to other tasks if I had to go looking for them.

Personally, I use my 10-minute tidy to stay on top of this with a small time commitment!

#2 What am I teaching my kids?

There is zero chance my children are going to have cleaning ladies in college, or for the vast majority of their early adult life. If I hired a maid now, is that what are they going to think life is like?

I need to teach my kids how to deep clean NOW. I wanted to be that example that we could make it work with what we have.

THEY ARE MY MAID. Or, they should be. Especially for their own spaces. Kids need to learn how to clean.

I will say that getting my kids to help out more was work by myself and by my husband, but it’s paid off by them having some life skills and also us not having that added expense. I don’t want you to think it magically happened — but I do have my best tips in here.

Honestly, this one’s a big deal to me. Learning to clean and organize as they grow are the best ways to make sure when children leave our home they have the knowledge they need to clean their own living spaces when they’re grown.

Hard work isn’t a punishment, especially when most of the messes are their own. At the end of the day kids can do a great job, they just need to be taught how.

I think there can be real joy in seeing a job well done — sometimes I even love cleaning.

#3 You clean before the maid comes

A lot of my friends have maids, and I think it’s funny that many of them end up cleaning every single time before the maid comes. Maybe they’re talking about just tidying up so they can vacuum or whatnot — but HONESTLY, a lot of what they’re doing to prepare for the cleaning companies is what cleaning is.

The actual CLEANING part isn’t too much.

#4 How much time would a maid really save me?

When I use my cleaning schedule, I spend MAYBE 30 minutes max per day cleaning. Most days, a lot less.

I know plenty of people (especially bloggers) who feel like they “can make a lot more money in that cleaning time” and hire a cleaning lady. Personally, I haven’t seen that. Between the hourly rate, the time spent finding a good house cleaner, meeting to discuss what you want with new cleaners, etc that is a lot of money and time.

For me, one of the best parts of cleaning is the solitude time. It gives me time to think about the changes I want to make in my life or with my kids. Time to think if I really need everything sitting on my kitchen counters or if the rocking chair works best in the master bedroom or if it would be better in the family room.

I’ve found this to be a great time to think about individual family members and their needs and to come up with blog ideas!

It’s mindless, quiet work and often allows your mind to wander to other things you’d like to improve or you can listen to podcasts or audiobooks.  These make listening while cleaning a LOT easier!

Final Thoughts on Hiring a Cleaning Professional

Anyway — these are the reasons I have for not choosing to have a house cleaner at this time.

Honestly, once it’s just my husband and myself I may hire one. It would be really nice to have someone else clean toilets and my kitchen floor.  I won’t have kids to teach or do the dirty work. But, honestly – with just him and I… maybe I won’t need one anyway.

I am in no way judging someone who DOES have a maid I don’t know every circumstance in people’s lives. The bottom line is this is your choice to make. I’m just sharing my feelings and if you’re considering it — I think you should really consider WHY you want one. You may actually need more help with organizing and decluttering than the actual cleaning.

Think about what it will REALLY do for you and then, by all means — get one if you feel it’s worth it.

Thinking you’d like to make cleaning easier and more of a family affair — check out Family Routines.  We do a Saturday clean which has been a game changer, and it’s all outlined in that book (and only takes about 20 minutes).

The post Why I Don’t Have a Cleaning Lady appeared first on Pulling Curls.

Let’s chat about how I make money as a content creator.

Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson. I’ve been “blogging” since 2005 and I have taken it as a full time income with a couple of websites, a podcast, and courses. So, how does it all work?

This episode was inspired by my blogging for income series.

Big thanks to our sponsor The Organized Home Family Routines The Online Prenatal Class for Couples

In this episode

Get my content creator coaching at hilaryerickson.com

I am with Mediavine

I have a second site The Pregnancy Nurse

I work with Get Away Today, Bosch Mixers, Stitch Fix

WPTechs does my hosting and tech support.

I use Rank IQ

Jamie at Hashtag Legal does my legal stuff.

How many hours do content creators actually work?

My best tips for making it as a content creator.

Other things that might interest you

My family budget

How I am listening to my gut.

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.130] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, welcome to the final episode of season three, episode 150. Today we are pivoting. We are talking about how I make money. It’s a question I get a lot, and I think a lot of people are curious about it, so I thought it would be a good way to wind up this season. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:26.910] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary. Erickson, the Curly Head behind the Pulling Curls podcast, where we untangle pregnancy, parenting, home, and even travel. We know there’s no right answer for every family, but hopefully we can spark some ideas that will work for yours. Life tangled just like my hair.

[00:00:49.090] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, guys, before we get started, I don’t know if you understand how important reviews are in order for podcasts to get found, but they’re super important. I mean, I’m going to explain a lot of other things today, but let me just explain that reviews are super important. Thank you. For everyone who’s left one or who will leave one before we get started, I will say this is super awkward. I mean, I have always been really open about how much I’m making, what our family budget is.

[00:01:12.950] – Hilary Erickson

I have a family budget of our actual family budget that’s on my website. So I think finances are really important to be, like, free and open with. But it is still awkward. And I’m definitely not doing this to be like, ha ha, look how much money I make. Because let’s all take a reality check.

[00:01:29.080] – Hilary Erickson

Remember that my website was started in 2005, and while I did start amping it up really hard in 2014, you got to think it’s been 2014 until now that I’m more stabilized in all these different kinds of things. The website did not start making money overnight from about 2005 to 2014, probably in 2008, I think I started having blog her advertising on my site, and I would make about $30 every four months. Yeah. So highly lucrative. I remember once I was able to go buy a bra, and I felt really good about that. I did it for a long time because I love it. I still love it. It’s a great job. I absolutely love it.

[00:02:02.360] – Hilary Erickson

I love writing. I love graphic design. I love talking to different kinds of people. So I am doing the things that I really enjoy so often. I have friends that are like, “how do I make money blogging?” I’m like, “oh, do you love to write?” No. “Do you love graphic design?” No. I’m just like, “I have nothing for you.” Then I don’t know why you would pick this job.

[00:02:21.720] – Hilary Erickson

I’d be like, “oh, I want to be a nurse, or do you like blood?” No. “Do you like people?” No. I do think that there are things you need to love in order to be able to do this.

[00:02:29.820] – Hilary Erickson

And this isn’t saying that you couldn’t have a website, but if you want to be a blogger, which I think is officially my title, although I like to call it a media Empire. If you want to be a blogger, you really need to love writing, but you can be a YouTuber and really love video. There’s lots of things you can do. So first I want to start out that there are four streams of income for me personally. Now, there might be other types of income that people online are making money from, but these are the four main ones.

[00:02:54.710] – Hilary Erickson

So the first one is advertising. For me, that is ads on my website. I do not have sponsored ads on the podcast. That doesn’t mean that I’m not open to sponsored ads on the podcast, but I don’t think that my podcast actually gets enough listens at this point in time in order to make that an amount that I would be okay with, because I would be putting those people’s links on the podcast and I want it to be a certain amount in order to put a link on my website. So I’m kind of weird about that.

[00:03:20.860] – Hilary Erickson

Plus I sponsor each episode by my courses and we’re going to talk about that. But advertising, just full disclosure, I’m with a company called Media Vine. I’ve been with them for a super long time. I love them. I think they have blogging best interests at heart.

[00:03:33.300] – Hilary Erickson

I still think they’re kind of weird and every once in a while I feel a little skeedy and sketchy about them. But ultimately I think they’re the best advertising network out there because they are themselves. So whenever I have a problem, they’re able to fix it really quickly, whereas a lot of advertising agencies are part of a bigger advertising agency and so they aren’t able to pivot and quickly fix things that might be problematic. Love Media Vine. I believe you have to have 50,000.

[00:03:56.700] – Hilary Erickson

I think it’s sessions could be page views in order to be on Mediavine. If you have less than that, you could check out as Zoey. But I think you need to be really aware that it’s not going to be a whole lot of money that you’re leaving on the table by not having ads on. Before you get to that 50,000, it would be about 1000 a month, I think, if you had 50,000 sessions. Yeah.

[00:04:16.870] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, so that’s advertising. There are lots of ads you can put on your website that I choose not to, because I really see my websites as a way to lead people to my courses. And so while I think most people are blind to most advertising, there are some that I just find too intrusive that I don’t put on. So I could make more on advertising on my website, but I feel like it’s a happy medium. I do have it on both websites.

[00:04:38.210] – Hilary Erickson

I should mention this. I have two websites, so I have Pulling Curls, which is my main website. That’s the one that’s been around since 2005 and in 2020 I started the Pregnancy Nurse which is my second website. It’s only pregnancy and it has social media and all those different things as well. Anyway, both sites have advertising.

[00:04:56.020] – Hilary Erickson

I will say that if you make a second site it can sometimes be a little bit easier to get them on the advertising just because I have a relationship with Media Vine, but their line is that you have to have 500 first or second site. So something to think about. Okay, so the second stream of income would be affiliate Income and I think this is what is when I started affiliate income I was like is this an MLM? Because it sort of can feel MLM. But ultimately I am just advertising for these people in a genuine and honest way and I’m paid if people click through my links and purchase this product through that advertising.

[00:05:30.270] – Hilary Erickson

So ultimately I’m just an Advertiser for them. I partner with them. Some of these companies I’m really close with, if you follow me on Instagram, I’m really tight with Getaway today. They are in every single Disney post I do and I mean I’m so tightly tethered with them that if they went down it would be a rough go for my Disney post in general. So the affiliate companies that I work with are pretty limited at this point.

[00:05:51.940] – Hilary Erickson

I mean I’ve signed up and I work for a lot of affiliate partnerships, but in general, the ones I work with Getaway today, Bosch Mixers, Stitch Fix, Zion Healthcare I am an affiliate partner for them. It’s just a company that you believe in. These are all things that I used before, with the exception of Bosch. I didn’t use the Bosh until they sent me a Bosch full disclosure. But these are things I’ve used Getaway today forever.

[00:06:15.450] – Hilary Erickson

So when I found out that they had an affiliate program I was like, this is just absolutely perfect. By the way, if you go with Getaway Today and book a package with at least two nights hotel and two tickets, you can get $10 off your ticket order with Code Curls Ten. Anyway, they’re just companies I love so I’m tethered with them. There are ones that I use every once in a while that aren’t as close to me. Oh, there are some courses that I affiliate with that blend well with mine, like parents who are looking for newborn classes or breastfeeding classes.

[00:06:41.080] – Hilary Erickson

So I work with those in an affiliate partnership as well and then they affiliate with me. So that’s kind of a symbiotic relationship with those courses. If you have something that you want to affiliate with, you could affiliate just on your own Instagram, you just want to Google. So let’s say you love BIC Pens and you really want to be an affiliate with them. You could just Google Bickpen affiliate and just see what they have showing up.

[00:07:02.320] – Hilary Erickson

Most of them are on like big affiliate networks like Share Sale, Commission Junction, Impact, radius. And once you’re in those, you can usually sign up for another program pretty easily. Yeah, and these can be pretty lucrative if you play your cards right. I will say that my affiliate usage has gone down the more I have worked on the third income stream, which is my own products, which for me in general would be courses, although I do have a few books that I sell as well. So my courses I have an online prenatal class.

[00:07:27.220] – Hilary Erickson

I have the organized home. It’s a home organization class and I have a family routine. More like organizing the people in your home. I always say that I don’t think I’m a great parent, but I think I can organize the people in my home pretty well. So that’s my third income stream.

[00:07:41.030] – Hilary Erickson

It is my largest stream. It’s about 66% of my income. I started my prenatal class in 2015. It started as a book, then I added a few videos and I added more videos. So the beauty is with the courses, you can always adjust it and change it and make it better.

[00:07:55.320] – Hilary Erickson

And then finally, sponsored posts. Now, I do not do a lot of sponsored posts anymore. Every once in a while I work with Cricket and I do one. But in general I just prefer affiliate because it’s a little bit freer to explore the brand as I want to. Whereas a sponsored post often is very like you need to say X-Y-Z and I don’t love doing that.

[00:08:15.820] – Hilary Erickson

I’m also lucky that my courses have filled in my income enough to where I don’t need to do them. I definitely did a lot of sponsored posts in the beginning, and I’m grateful for the income and some of those companies I’m really proud to have been able to represent and some of them have disappeared, or I would prefer that I didn’t represent them. So I know a lot of people want to know how long it took to make a full time income off of this. So personally, in my mind, I think a full time income is about $60,000 a year. That would be a full time nurse’s income in general, plus or minus, probably more now, thank goodness.

[00:08:47.270] – Hilary Erickson

But it probably took me into 2017 to start making that. I would think about three years, keeping in mind that I also had years and years of blog experience and all that kind of stuff leading up to it. And back when I started, it was just easier on social media than it is now. So I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is difficult and it’s a lot more difficult now than it used to be. So we’ve talked about the ways that I make money.

[00:09:11.210] – Hilary Erickson

I do want to just kind of take you guys along for the costs that are involved with this type of a website media thing. First off, you have hosting. So I host a podcast. I hope I host my website and I host courses. Those are all on separate different hosting platforms.

[00:09:26.000] – Hilary Erickson

That’s not a huge amount of money. And I bundle tech into my website hosting so that he fixes anything that goes wrong with my site. I did that for myself for a long time, but it takes me forever. It’s not something I’m very good at or know very well. And so having a tech guy has been amazing and he’s awesome.

[00:09:44.840] – Hilary Erickson

I work with Thane from WP Tech. I’ll put the link in the show notes. Anyway, he’s amazing. I have a CPA and I pay for accounting software. I do all of my own bookkeeping.

[00:09:54.160] – Hilary Erickson

I do not hire any of that out. I do hire out my taxes. I have a guy that I trust too. I have as a CPA. So the CPA was my first hire and the tech guy was probably my second hire.

[00:10:04.450] – Hilary Erickson

They don’t work for me. I’m hiring their companies. But for a long time I did all of this on my own. In fact, I didn’t have hosting for a long time because I was on blogger for the first almost a year. And then I finally took the plunge and bought hosting and all that kind of stuff to make it go on WordPress.

[00:10:19.670] – Hilary Erickson

So I would not recommend being on blogger anymore. It has not proved super effective for most of them, even though there were a lot of diehard blogger fans out there, especially if you have advertising. It just is so much better when you’re on WordPress. It will pay for itself if you get some hosting. Okay.

[00:10:34.130] – Hilary Erickson

I also have two virtual assistants that work for me. One of them does Pinterest and she edits some of my posts for SEO. I have another one that also scans my email for me. She tries to take out any of the negative comments because they can really bring a person down. And she also does some editing for me.

[00:10:48.720] – Hilary Erickson

So those are the two people. And I also one of my sons. I have him hired on to do video editing. He does all of the video editing. He does a great job.

[00:10:57.520] – Hilary Erickson

If anyone is looking for a video editor, I could probably get you one at a good price. Just real simple editing. But he does a great job and he actually has his own YouTube channel that he’s along the way where he was editing my videos. He learned how to edit his own videos and he’s monetized. I am not monetized in that it’s not an area for discussion.

[00:11:14.720] – Hilary Erickson

And I also hire my daughter. She does the transcripts for the podcast. So hiring your kids, especially when they’re under 18, can be an amazing write off. So talk to your CPA if you want to do that. I also have insurance.

[00:11:26.600] – Hilary Erickson

I have liability insurance and cyber liability for the websites and all my social media. I am buying plugins or software to just run different things like I have some software that helps me with my SEO, which is search engine optimization. I use Rank IQ, which I absolutely love. I use like a calendar program to schedule people for the podcast. It’s just different things.

[00:11:47.060] – Hilary Erickson

I am a huge fan of getting lifetime licenses, which I often get off of like AppSumo or just when people are offering a lifetime license. I just love paying for it. I mean, it has come back to bite me a couple of times, but there are some software that I bought a lifetime license for that has just been amazing for me, so I’m really grateful for that. And then there’s the cost of taking courses and going to conferences, and that’s a real variable cost. I also find a lot of joy out of going to conferences, so that’s nice too.

[00:12:15.290] – Hilary Erickson

And I try not to take courses anymore. We’ll talk a little bit more about that, but I definitely have taken courses and some of them have been helpful. Some of them have not. And then legal. Jamie at Hashtaglegal does like my trademark applications.

[00:12:28.660] – Hilary Erickson

She’s written terms for my classes, terms for my websites, my Privacy policy, that kind of stuff. Not that it’s not important at all, but it sure doesn’t seem important. Okay, so I mostly want you guys to know that it is a slow, slow game. My website from 2015 till now has been about the same number of sessions. It hasn’t grown.

[00:12:48.590] – Hilary Erickson

2020 was a huge year for online courses, and it has shrunk since then. That can be disappointing. But one thing I’m big about is I have a big ultimate goal, especially for prenatal classes. I am super passionate about educating people for their delivery if they can pay me or not. By the way, if you’re out there and you’re looking for prenatal class and mine is out of your reach, although it is one of the most affordable ones online, please email me.

[00:13:12.170] – Hilary Erickson

We can make something work. It is a huge passion of mine, and so I love that. The other thing is you have to be really mindful about the requirements and everything. How to disclose your affiliate agreements and how to do that on your website, how to do that on TikTok, how to do that on Instagram and just being really clear and open and honest and upfront with your audience. I’ve heard of people like hiding the disclosure tab on Instagram stories or stuff like that not cool.

[00:13:37.020] – Hilary Erickson

That’s not cool, because not only do they not trust their audience enough to know that they’re being honest with what they’re showing to them, but it’s not cool to the FTC, that’s for sure. You could definitely get taken down for that. So also learning how to read contracts and when you need a trademark, when you don’t, when you need to turn into an LLC. There’s a lot of the business practices behind it that can be really frustrating and hard. So as fun as it seems to be like a media Empire mogul like me, there is a lot of behind the scenes website breaking.

[00:14:05.560] – Hilary Erickson

Thank goodness. I have tech just like reading the contracts, writing the contracts, and just trying to make it work. Like I work with affiliates and sometimes they work out great and sometimes they do absolutely nothing at all. So that can be hard and frustrating. And there are a lot of frustrating parts of owning your business.

[00:14:20.920] – Hilary Erickson

It is amazing. I love that one of the other frustrating parts is a lot of times people think that I’m just available because she just blogs. I think people think the website just makes money and it does in general. There is not a whole lot in my day to day that is affecting my website income. It is just the day today that piles up and creates the income.

[00:14:40.590] – Hilary Erickson

I think a lot of people think I just work a couple of hours a day. I would say that this is a six to 8 hours a day job. Not every day. I definitely take enough vacation to be like a C suite employee. So I’m probably off four to five weeks out of the year I take off, but I’m also on at 08:00 P.m..

[00:14:56.990] – Hilary Erickson

If I see an email come through that somebody is having a hard time getting on a course, I jump up and I work on it. That doesn’t mean to say that my VA doesn’t do a lot of those different things too. But also I feel on and present for this all the time. So going out of town is really important to me because it helps me feel when I’m not at home that it is more of a time off and I’m able to take that time off. Okay, so let’s circle back to blogging courses.

[00:15:20.050] – Hilary Erickson

Ultimately, I feel like blogging courses make it sort of like an MLM because I feel like people will be like, you know, I’ve been thinking about doing like a Disney Instagram or whatever and somehow something shows up in your feed. It’s a bajillion dollar course on how to be more present on Instagram or stuff like that. And I feel like they act like it’s so easy and that anyone, a monkey could do it and then you buy that course and you realize that it really is just a lot of consistency. I really feel like this boils down to showing up, being willing to try new things, and having your own voice. I feel like those are the three things that it boils down to because while I do similar content to a lot of people, my own voice is what makes pulling curls and the pregnancy nurse different than everybody else.

[00:16:03.160] – Hilary Erickson

And most of it I really couldn’t learn from a course. I will say that I did take a course in summer 2020 did not work out well. She said some horrible things about me when I said that the course wasn’t working and that has stayed in my brain and sometimes I think, well she mentioned that I should do this and that I would make more money doing XYZ and I’ll try it and it always ends up like biting me in the butt. So learning to listen to myself is something that I’m really trying in 2022 it’s so easy to think that somebody else has the big secrets, right? And I think that that is true.

[00:16:34.320] – Hilary Erickson

If there’s something that you’re just like, I have no idea how to make a segmented newsletter then I do think a course or some coaching can be very effective on a specific topic that you are struggling with. However, when you’ve done this as long as me, I feel like this just isn’t a whole lot that other people can offer and the reality is that it is 100% the consistency of showing up. I think a lot of people think they could be an influencer or a blogger and then it would just take a few hours. But it is a six to 8 hours a day job. Now I do take probably a full four to five weeks of vacation if you combined it all where I go somewhere and I can fit in lunch with a friend or I can fit in walking with a friend, but a lot of times when I go walking with friends I’m walking with business friends and so I’m talking business during the time and also his job never leaves at 08:00 p.m.

[00:17:24.890] – Hilary Erickson

When I get an email from a student saying they can’t log in like I jump off the couch and I fix it. So I’m still working, even though my normal hours that I’m probably working is probably about 535 40 05:00 A.m. To 03:00 p.m.. Now within that time I get dressed, I shower so I get up and I like to do some intention about my business and kind of make my to do list and really focus on what I want to do. I get kids off to school and I really like having different things of my day so I really like breaking up, riding with throwing in some laundry.

[00:17:54.700] – Hilary Erickson

I like that a lot of people don’t, but I do like that. So I’m not doing a ton of housework that is a podcast for another day, but I like being able to put in household chores during the day. So one other thing I wanted to mention you guys is I actually am starting an online content creation coaching of my own.

[00:18:12.180] – Hilary Erickson

It’s HilaryErickson.com Hilary only has one L hilaryerickson.com and the idea is for me to coach you on a specific subject and then we’ll do a follow up email like if you have questions after you’ve tried to implement it and then you’re on your own. The idea isn’t for me to get you to spend like thousands and thousands of dollars making me your monthly business coach.

[00:18:32.420] – Hilary Erickson

The idea is just to really help you. Let’s say you want to do a newsletter. Like, I’m really good on segmented newsletters because I literally write about everything. So I don’t want people who sign up for Disney to learn about pregnancy. Those people don’t want to know about both of those things.

[00:18:47.150] – Hilary Erickson

So newsletters like websites, landing pages, these are things that I’m all just like really good on. And while I don’t think I know any secrets, I could either go in and make some tweaks or give you some ideas on how to adjust it on your own or how to test things with your audience. I know online courses everyone thinks is like the be all, end all. But I think especially if you’ve done something in your own situation, you already have some information on your own. An online coach can really help you take that information and make it work in your business.

[00:19:14.780] – Hilary Erickson

Anyway, you can find me over there. It’s not going to be a big revenue stream for me, but I think I do have a lot of information that business owners could use. I also failed to mention that I actually have a blogging for income section of my website. If you look under, etc. Or miscellaneous, it’s kind of hidden.

[00:19:30.650] – Hilary Erickson

There’s a Blogging for Income section where I give my blogging income reports up until I started making $10,000 a month, and it just felt weird. So that might give you an idea of what I did, how it worked. I tell you, like all the plugins and all the things I started using, although it’s different now, but you guys might be interested in that as well. Anyway, that’s how I make money. Remember consistency.

[00:19:50.370] – Hilary Erickson

Remember to be your own voice and to try different things. Because for a long time, I mean, like a year I hadn’t been in it forever. I was like, I’m never going to write a book, never going to have courses, I’m never gonna podcast. I tried some of the things and I just thought, yes, that’s something I really enjoy. Keep it the things you enjoy.

[00:20:07.200] – Hilary Erickson

Also, it would be my fourth pillar, I guess, be consistent, be you try new things and then do things you enjoy. Because so often I see people that are like, I just want to be home with my family and that’s the way I’m going to make money. But they don’t love doing it and you’re going to burn out so fast. The other thing that I think has helped me from not burning out so fast is that I literally write about everything. I can hardly even think maybe sports, because I don’t understand sports, nor do I enjoy them.

[00:20:31.070] – Hilary Erickson

But I really write about travel, Disney, vaginas, pregnancy. If I get up and I’m like assigned, quote, unquote assigned, because I do assign myself stuff, a certain topic, I can push that to another day and write about Disneyland. If that’s something that I really want to do that day and so it’s been nice to do that. I know a lot of people say you can’t build a website that’s about anything and maybe you can’t anymore. I started when it was earlier but it’s really nice to be able to do whatever the heck I want because I talk about all the things.

[00:20:59.500] – Hilary Erickson

Anyway, I hope you guys found this helpful. If you did, come join me over on Instagram for the post about today’s episode. I would love for you to make a comment. Tell me what you enjoyed about this episode. If you want to hear more, I’m willing to do a part two if you guys have other questions. Otherwise we are actually taking next week off prepping for season four but we will see you in two weeks. I’m actually having Jen Hamilton. I don’t know if you’ve seen her on TikTok but we are talking about labor supplies and then the week after that we’re talking about spanking so season four has a lot to offer already. I hope I will see you guys inside.

[00:21:28.980] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. We know you have lots of options for your ears and we are glad that you chose us. We dropped episodes weekly and until next time we hope you have a tangle free day.

The post How I Make Money — Episode 150 appeared first on Pulling Curls.

Working from home brings a whole lot of positives and negatives. Today we are going to untangle how we navigate it both during quarantine and otherwise!

Today’s guest is Jamie Lieberman from Hashtag Legal. She runs her own that provides legal services for businesses ranging from multi-million dollar corporations to small startups. You can find them on Instagram @hashtag_legal and on YouTube. I will have to say that Jamie really boils down the nitty gritty law stuff (especially as a business owner) that I want to ignore but need to know about.

You can also find her talking all things business on the FearLess Business Podcast.

But enough about Jamie, let’s talk about how she manages life being a high powered attorney and mom to two little boys.

Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines. Being in a routine 100% makes my work/life work for me, and I can’t remember that course any more. Families love it, and they love how I really help you simplify your priorities.

In this episode we are talking about the:

• Perks of working from home
• Cons of working from home
• Extra issues we face(d) during quarantine
• How Jamie uses time blocking and her to-do list to help her be the most productive
• How Jamie will be working it now that she is renting office space as well.

Other things that might interest you:

• The Business of Blogging
• Setting Boundaries with Homework
• Using a Paper Planner to Organize (Epsidode 019)

Producer: Drew Erickson

**We are going on Hiatus until August 3rd so be sure to check out some other episodes of ours in the meantime. See you after out little summer break!

Check out my other parenting podcasts:

Check out all my podcasts:

Transcript:

Hilary Erickson 0:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the pulling curls podcast. Today we are talking about working from home. I think a lot of us are now newly experienced working at home parents and maybe you’re gonna find some solace in this episode. We’re going to talk about some of the pros of working from home because I think we can all agree that there are great things, being a mom working from home, some of the cons, and then my guest is going to talk about she actually just purchased office space so that she could go to an office every once in a while. So we’re going to talk about all of that. Let’s untangle it.

Welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast, where we untangle everything from pregnancy parenting, home routines, even some family travel because heavens knows our lives are tangled. I’m your host, Hilary Erickson.

Hey guys, before we get into the meat of this one, let me just ask you I beg you plead with you to leave me a review. I don’t have very many and it hurts my feelings. And you know, you don’t want to see me cry, do you? Leave me a review. Thanks so much.

Okay, so today’s guest is one of my favorite people. I always say that but this one’s for real. She is the owner of Hashtag Legal. She is a high powered attorney. In fact she’s my attorney. We are working on my copyright as we record this. She has a website hashtaglegal and she has a YouTube channel and an Instagram. If you are a business owner who is looking for legal advice, she’s your gal. She’s also kind of a pitbull. So if you’ve ever had to like, you know, enforce some sort of contract I’d want her on on my side. Today I want to introduce my friend Jamie Lieberman.

This episode of The Pulling Curls Podcast is sponsored by Family Routines: how to automate your housewife life. Ever wish life was more like you pictured it would be before you had kids? Being able to spend less time with the mundane tasks and more time teaching kids the fun and valuable life skills you know they need. Family Routines teaches families to simplify daily tasks into routines that help them feel more peace and joy. Save 15% with a coupon code UNTANGLED. You can find it at pullingcurls.com in the menu under Courses or in this episode’s show notes.

Hey Jamie, welcome The Pulling Curls Podcast.

Jamie Lieberman 2:01
Hi, thanks for having me.

Hilary Erickson 2:03
Now, Jamie, you’re gonna have to put your mom ears on because Jamie’s used to talking, you know, high powered attorney talk.

Jamie Lieberman 2:10
These days My mom ears are on all the time.

Hilary Erickson 2:13
But this is a parenting podcast. So Welcome!

Jamie Lieberman 2:17
Thank you. Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Hilary Erickson 2:20
Everything’s warm and cuddly on my channel.

Jamie Lieberman 2:22
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited.

Hilary Erickson 2:24
Yeah. Okay, so tell us a little bit about yourself, like what kind of business you have and the ages of your kids.

Jamie Lieberman 2:29
So I am a lawyer. I run my own law firm. We work with small businesses and entrepreneurs. And I have two boys who are high spirited and high energy, as we like to refer to them. One is in third grade and one is in kindergarten.

Hilary Erickson 2:43
Yeah. High spirited and it comes with the third grade and kindergarten boy, I’m pretty sure…

Jamie Lieberman 2:48
it’s a lot.

Hilary Erickson 2:49
It’s a lot.

Jamie Lieberman 2:50
It’s a lot.

Hilary Erickson 2:51
I think we’re recording this The day after teachers day so holla to all the teachers out there.

Jamie Lieberman 2:56
I’m telling you where it’s the whole week is Teacher Appreciation. And every day, we’re just like, thank you.

Hilary Erickson 3:08
If I thank you more, will you take them back? Exactly. I’ll make you a mask.

Jamie Lieberman 3:13
Anything.

Hilary Erickson 3:14
Yeah. Okay, so what are the perks of working from home because you work from home all the time. It’s not just now.

Jamie Lieberman 3:19
Right before we all you know, the world changed and we all went into quarantine. I did mostly work from home, I had office space, but when I rarely used although that is going to change for me the perk from working from home Honestly, I live in the New York area.

So one of the biggest perks was no commute. That was huge, because you can lose hours here to a commute. And so that was a big one. The other big one was flexibility. You know, if I, I mean, I do own my own business, so that’s helpful. But if I, if I wanted to, like pick up and go over to my kids school to read a story, I could and I would maybe only lose 20 minutes versus if I was in an office and had to plan you know, like a whole morning around it.

Hilary Erickson 3:58
Yeah. I love the flex ability of being able to pick my own hours and nobody really cares.

Jamie Lieberman 4:03
Exactly.

Hilary Erickson 4:04
And I would say we’re in a business where people don’t care when they get an email at 11am 11pm or 5am. For me, because everyone’s kind of working those random hours.

Jamie Lieberman 4:13
Yeah, it’s interesting. So I have sort of two sets of clients. One are online business owners who are much more say flexible or a lot less, you know, they kind of work all the time. And then I do have some very traditional like brick and mortar businesses that are local. And those can be they sometimes are like, wow, you work really late. Because I’m a night owl, I tend to work very briefly. So sometimes I hold back on those emails until the next morning.

Hilary Erickson 4:42
Yeah, that’s probably smart. Do you think they don’t like it that you email them so late? Are there-

Jamie Lieberman 4:46
No, I don’t think that they don’t. I just think sometimes, like they notice it, and if they mentioned it, then I’m like, okay, that means something to them and whatever it might mean something positive, it might mean something negative, I’m not sure but I try as much as I can. Just sort of Stay in the realm of working

Hilary Erickson 5:02
hours. Yeah. I mean, I want my lawyer working 24. Seven. But I only want them billing me for one of those hours.

Jamie Lieberman 5:12
Send me all the emails, but don’t send me the bill.

Hilary Erickson 5:15
Okay, so what are some of the challenges of working from home?

Jamie Lieberman 5:18
So I think the biggest challenge is people think you’re not working. They’re like, Hey, you want to meet for lunch like I do, but I can’t. And so I really am super scheduled. So every half hour to be more efficient, is scheduled in my day. So I don’t really actually get many breaks. That’s another thing. I feel like when you’re in an office, you’re more inclined to take more breaks.

I’ve worked offices for many, many years, I’ve only been working from home for maybe the last seven or eight, but I’ve been a lawyer for 15. So the first half of my career was like really traditional office working, and I took away more breaks when I worked there and I don’t do that as much anymore. So I definitely find them a bit over scheduled, which may be the nature of my business as well.

But Because you know when my I’m here when my kids walk in the door, even though we do have child care who helps they know I’m here. So I’m going to pause and to see them, I’m going to stop things like that.

So what would have been normally longer day for me, the hours have shifted a little bit that can definitely be a little bit challenging of people who think you’re either not working or trying to cram a lot into a shorter amount of time, because you’re sort of hyper focused on being at home and getting distracted by the things at home like Oh, let me just throw in this thing as laundry or like, I don’t I don’t allow myself to do that. Oh, you don’t

Hilary Erickson 6:33
know. That’s one of my perks. I get up and I do some household chore, but I really like mixing things up in my brain. So it helps me to like clean accounter then get back and whatever. Yeah,

Jamie Lieberman 6:43
yeah, I don’t I try not to me. I try not to do household chores is a break. For me. I try to pick something else. But I can see why. You know, it’s tempting at times. I’m like, oh, there’s a lot of laundry like I’ll be looking. Just throw it in real quick. So

Hilary Erickson 6:59
yeah. That’s my break. Now I feel depressed now that you said that was my break.

Jamie Lieberman 7:04
She should draw, write or have a cup of tea something. Writing is

Hilary Erickson 7:08
definitely not my break. That’s fair. That’s what she do for a living all the time. Yeah. So I have the same problem because I was PTO president before I really started upping my business game. And so constantly, I’m invited to come back and new PTO things. And so that has been really hard, because people are kinda like, well, you were building your business before? And I’m like, Yeah, but it wasn’t the same. And yeah,

Jamie Lieberman 7:30
do you get that a lot of school? I do. So yes. And then I also have the guilt of I can’t do that. So there are certain times where my schedule isn’t able to be flexible because of a deadline or a meeting or something. And so while I wish I was able to do all the things I you know, our PTO meetings are like 930 on Fridays, and that’s a time I can never meet.

So I’m just never able to do any of that. So I definitely do have that conflict where I feel a little bit guilty that I do. can’t make it to certain things or if I’m traveling because I do travel for work. And I miss something. I’m like, oh, man, I should be there for that. So I struggle with that a little bit as well. But I do get invited to a lot of stuff. I say no to so much. That’s hard.

Hilary Erickson 8:11
Yeah. But I think it’s it’s really nice that you get a prioritize, because if there is an event at school, I try and throw it on my calendar and make sure that I can work it around versus when I work at the hospital. You know, if I’m scheduled that day, then I’m scheduled that day. There’s no working around it. So

Jamie Lieberman 8:26
Exactly. Yeah. If I’m here, I’ll move things for school events, for sure. But sometimes I’m traveling and obviously that it’s sort of like working at the hospital. I can’t I can’t change that.

Hilary Erickson 8:36
Yeah, you could fly home

Jamie Lieberman 8:39
from California just to see a 15 Minute Book Fair. Definitely.

Hilary Erickson 8:44
Hold the book fair. The worst. All right. So any other challenge? What do you think your biggest challenge has been during this with the kids home all the time because I’m used to like adjusting during summer but I cannot take off six months of work time.

Jamie Lieberman 8:59
This is actually been probably one of the most intensely challenging times I’ve had in my entire career. And I’m talking about like when they took the bar. It’s, it’s a whole different world, I was very set in my very specific routine. I knew like, where the kids were, what they were doing when they were gone. When I was home, I built my entire world around that I live in, in New York area.

So I live in an apartment. And so now I went from working alone five days a week by myself and my house to now my husband, who’s also a lawyer is home. And my two children who, like I said, are very high energy boys. And we don’t have outdoor space. So and we’re in like, sort of the eye of the storm. And so we have a lot more things that we’re not allowed to do that a lot of people are allowed to do in other parts of the country. So that’s been a huge challenge.

Sitting down and really, essentially having to find time I used to have that now is spent with my kids, and they’re the priority. They need me. I’m going to be there and so we’ve sort of had to time lock and shift everything. It was just like this radical change in how I worked, how I did business, everything has changed. I do have a team that works with me.

So they’ve made a significant difference and a huge help but figuring out like what the new normal look like it took us quite, you know, we’re still working on it. We’re a lot better now. But it took at least a few weeks to figure out what would work where everybody wasn’t like crying, or yelling or frustrated or all of those things.

Hilary Erickson 10:24
Yeah, it’s hard because you want to be kids are the priority, but they can’t always be the priority and trying to let kids realize that you’re the priority this hour. But next hour you need especially because you know, I mean, you have a kindergartener, but for me, my kids are old enough to not ask me what they should have for lunch, right? Well,

Jamie Lieberman 10:43
mine are actually really self sufficient in that way. So they will play for hours by themselves. I am not a mom who will constantly tell her kids like what they should or shouldn’t do. And I’m not an entertainer. I love to play with my kids. I love to read with my kids. We do we’ve one of the ways that we take body breaks during school is we use when we can’t get outside in particulars, we play just dance, which is this video game where you’re like, you know, on PlayStation.

And I play it with that, because I love it. It’s really fun. And we do it together. And we’re trying to unlock songs together. And it’s great. But there are hours where we say to them, like you guys gotta go play figure it out, they made their they make their lunch, they make their own breakfast, like, I have really self sufficient and independent kids, you know, where I have to put up those more, they have to become the priorities when they need help with school, like, even my third grader is incredibly self sufficient.

But sometimes he’s like, I don’t get this, can you sit and help me? Whereas before, he would just call the teacher or go to the teacher. And so now we’ve sort of moved in, and sometimes the teacher can step in, but other times I come to so figuring out how to navigate that that’s challenging. And we’ve sort of figured it out. We my husband and I have time blocked it.

So like I take the morning and he takes the afternoon. That way we know we have a concentrated amount of time where we can just solely focus on our work and there’s one parent around if a kid needs help, bye We really try to empower them to be as independent as possible. Even the kindergartener.

Hilary Erickson 12:04
Yeah. That’s awesome. I mean, my kids are definitely self sufficient. My problem is that my workspace is our dining room. It’s always been that way. It’s just the way it is. I’ve thought about reconfiguring, but I have it set up there really well.

And they’re really good about when I have headphones on. It’s like, I’m gone. Yeah, that’s my rule. But it is hard. So if you’re a mom working from your kitchen table, COSATU, I will say at the beginning, there were so many emotions of things getting canceled so many tears over Carnival, and that at least we kind of moved fast up. I think my kids are just planning on everything getting canceled at this point. So that helps.

Jamie Lieberman 12:37
Yeah, we just had the final Well, it’s not the final but the latest one was our schools just got canceled. We’re recording this in May. Our schools just got cancelled on Monday. And that was we all knew it was coming. It’s not like any of us were surprised, but I feel like there’s the difference between the anticipation and then the actual event of it happening and I mean, schools got canceled through the end of the year and we go to school to the end of June.

We’re looking at another seven or eight weeks of home instruction. taking deep breaths. And yeah, so we we had that and that even though everybody knew and we mentally prepared for it as much as possible Monday was a Saturday.

Hilary Erickson 13:14
Yeah. And it kind of catches you off guard like you said like, as soon as they announced it, like I went out of my garage and I cried mostly for like the seniors and you know, the stuff that my kids were going to be missing out on. And I didn’t want them to see how disappointed I really was and all that I told them, it was sad, but it just caught catch me off guard for sure. Me too. Okay, so I like the time blocking that you and your husband have done what do you do? Let’s pretend like we aren’t important to you. Are there things you do that make it easier? It sounds like you have set boundaries. So that’s awesome with the laundry.

Jamie Lieberman 13:45
I do. I’m big on boundaries. We know each other so you know that that’s true. I schedule every single day and I plan it for the week. And then I revisit it for the night before and I time block everything. So I only take phone calls on certain days of the week. at certain times, so I know that that’s when my phone calls are going to be I have certain days set aside for sitting down and doing large, like blocks of work, whether it’s client work, or it’s review of work that my staff has done, or it’s creative work, like if I have to film a video or because we create a lot of content. And so I blocked that.

So for example, this afternoon, I’m going to spend two hours because I’m creating a course i’m going to spend two hours working on my outline, and then creating a bunch of downloads and I know that from you know, two to four today, that’s all I’m allowed to do.

So I’m not going to check my email, that’s a big thing for me, I do not stay on my email and all times I have certain times in the day where I check it, and that enables me to be more productive. I also have a master to do list and a daily to do list because if you’re going off your master to do list, you’ll just go crazy. So if you set like, Okay 25 things to do, right, like we always have 25 and this could be anything, it could be in your house, it could be your work, whatever.

But if you say on Wednesday, I’m going to accomplish these three things. You feel amazing when you processor things off, even though you’re looking at 22 other things you haven’t done, I used to just create this big list, I cross one thing off, and it would look like I did nothing. So I’ve sure I’ve really started big and I sort of think of it like a funnel and I shrink it down. But I know by the end of the week, all 25 will be checked off. If that’s a weekly goal. Sometimes they’re longer. And so then I feel a lot more accomplished. And I don’t feel so overwhelmed. Yeah,

Hilary Erickson 15:24
I think it’s extra hard because we own our own businesses. So there really is no one telling us these are the things I need you to accomplish. So we have to spend some time prioritizing, like what really is important.

Jamie Lieberman 15:34
I think that goes to home stuff too, right? Like how many times you look around your house and you’re like, Okay, that pile of laundry needs to be folded and that bathroom looks really gross. Or my son is wearing pants that come up to his mid calf like, you don’t I mean, and so you start to think like what’s the most important thing I’m like, Okay, I gotta hit the bathroom and I gotta get a new pants and that laundry just gonna hang out till tomorrow. Like there’s nothing

Hilary Erickson 15:56
I can do about that. That’s okay. Hey, those are manpreet and they’re coming back. In the sky,

Jamie Lieberman 16:01
right? These are three examples that actually happened today. Yes, my six year old pick on my husband and I’m like, look at this. But we’re not going anywhere. So he’ll be fine.

Hilary Erickson 16:15
Just turn him into cut offs. It’s almost summer. It’s fine. No, nope. Yeah, that only gets worse when they’re teenagers. Because all of a sudden, you’ll look up and you’ll be like, What? Where did those knees come from? I don’t know. Are there things you hire out in your house?

Jamie Lieberman 16:29
Yes, I do. I have a house cleaner, which is one of the greatest things I’ve invested in. I do have childcare help. So my kids get picked up from school by our babies or they did by our babysitter and she picked them up from school, she brings them home, she like feels with all their stuff.

So she like takes, you know, the lunchbox, we pack lunch, so like the lunch boxes and she puts all their stuff away with them. I mean, they do it together.

She reviews their homework to make sure it’s gotten done. And then she sort of scatters them to make sure they’re doing whatever needs to get done. And then she helps with Dinner, I often cooked dinner, but she sort of is around helping with stuff that needs to get done, which is incredibly helpful.

So those two things, and if I do, like if I’m traveling, she’ll handle everything for the kids. So or if I’m in a meeting and I’m going to be late, she’ll start dinner, things like that. So I do do that. Yeah,

Hilary Erickson 17:16
that is awesome. I feel like we should have some sad music inserted here for the babysitter. I know. I know. I miss her. Yeah, soon. I know. I keep thinking like, when will that come back? Who knows? We’ve been talking about it.

Jamie Lieberman 17:32
I know. Yeah.

Hilary Erickson 17:33
Okay, so you just got office space. You rented office space right before we went into quarantine. Excellent timing. Yeah.

Jamie Lieberman 17:41
Yeah. So how are you going to integrate that into this? Do you have any ideas I do. So my plan is to go to the office probably four or five days a week for at least a few hours. And I’m going to pick specific time blocks and I should back up my offices, three blocks from my apartment.

So there’s no commute. It’s really Really, really close. And so what I’m going to do is look at the week and see how it plays out. So if I need, I’m going to be doing all my recording from my office because it’s way cuter than recording in my apartment, it’s going to look a lot nicer. I’ve gotten light boxes, so it’ll look nice, all that good stuff. And so anytime I’m going to record, I’m going to make sure I’m there for that time.

I’m also going to, potentially My guess is and I haven’t quite obviously been able to integrate today yet, but I think where I’m going to spend my time at the office is going to be when I need to like put head down and do work. So I’m going to work around that because phone calls, taking phone calls from home. I’m a pacer. So like I walk around my entire apartment the entire time, I’m on phone calls, unless I need to take notes. So I don’t know that I’m going to do that in my office.

People around me may think I’m insane. So that’s probably how I’m going to deal with it. And I will be at least a few hours every single day some days longer than others. That’s awesome. It’s going to be exciting to have the office. But you’re not going to be required to be there right? Me personally.

Hilary Erickson 18:58
Yeah. Are you going to have a receptionist in the office, oh, no, we

Jamie Lieberman 19:01
have a receptionist. But she’s my whole team is virtual? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have a Virtual Receptionist, she’s awesome. They connect people write to us. And they’re great. But I’m not going to have anybody sitting there.

But I am going to do client meetings. So I do have many of my clients are virtual and all across the country, I do have a good set of local clients, and sometimes they need to meet. So I will definitely do client meetings, I’ll probably host will be able to fit like 1012 people in there. So we’ll probably host like small events in there as well. I’m in a number of local networking groups.

And I think that there’s definitely time or we’ll do like little masterminds or things like that at the office and we bought this like really beautiful table that’s still waiting to be put together. It’s just sitting there that’ll be able to fit a large amount of people and it’s it’s a it’s the office I rented is in this really cool like loft building like funky industrial space. And so it’s just one giant room that we’ll be able to sort of have like a lot of people there which is kind of nice.

Hilary Erickson 19:57
Yeah, that is so exciting. I can’t even know Imagine having an office. It’s very grown up and a high powered

Jamie Lieberman 20:03
Have you felt that way? You’ve also felt terrifying. We did go up there a few times because we’re able to get into the building and because the office is mine, I mean, it’s, you know, there’s multiple offices on my floor, but half the floor is actually taken up by daycare, so they’re not there. So we’re there’s like literally nobody on my floor. I’ve gone and even taken the kids just to get like a change of scenery and spent like a few hours there just working.

Hilary Erickson 20:26
Yeah, it’s been nice. I feel like that’s third grade math to put up a table like that.

Jamie Lieberman 20:31
We thought about it. There’s power tools involved in Hill Yeah, son of a gun, one of us will get injured and it would probably be me. We put together four chairs though he and the two kids put together the chairs using like the little Allen wrenches. It’s

Hilary Erickson 20:44
really funny. I hope people can sit on them again. All right. Any other tips for moms staying at home? Jamie, take a breath. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Yeah, especially right now.

Jamie Lieberman 20:56
Yeah, I think anytime that you just set whatever Your boundaries need to be because they’re different for everybody. I know what minor that’s really the most important thing is just having those boundaries sticking to them and not feeling bad about them.

Hilary Erickson 21:09
Yeah, but that really is the key. All right. Thanks for coming on, Jamie.

Jamie Lieberman 21:11
Thanks for having me.

Hilary Erickson 21:13
Okay, I hope you guys liked that episode. I really did. It’s interesting how Jamie and I have different boundaries. Like I really like to be able to do a household task and we don’t have a maid at this point in our lives. Although I’m starting to consider it. I’m not gonna lie to you. But it’s just interesting to see how people have different boundaries.

I got some ideas from Jamie but some of them I was like, that wouldn’t work for me and so hopefully you guys got some ideas that would work for you. Big thanks to Jamie for coming on. Definitely check her out. Follow her on Instagram. If you’ve ever thought of having your own business, it is surprising how helpful a lawyer can be in the business world can be in things that are even beyond what you would think of as legal. She just has great advice for me all around and she gives good advice on her Instagram and YouTube. So check her out!

Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines. If you are looking to work from home one of the most important parts of being a work at home parent is getting in a good routine and that course has all of my favorite tips. Check it out.

Okay guys, before we go I just want to let you know that we are actually going on hiatus for two weeks. We will be back August 3 with a brand new episode of season two of the Pulling Curls Podcast. In the meantime, feel free to check out all the episodes you missed during the year. There’s lots of early ones you probably didn’t listen to you but people love the Labor Bag one, they love the Kitchen Organization one. There is tons of good stuff in there so do not miss those previous episodes. Otherwise, I will see you on August 3!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Working at Home with Jamie Lieberman from Hashtag Legal — PCP 050 appeared first on Pulling Curls.

Maybe you’re writhing in the montony of staying home with small kids, and you’re wondering what you can do to contribute a little more, or get some spending money.  I’m going to share some easy ways to lighten the load or bring in some extra cash

Ways to for new moms to make money during naptime

Ways for moms to make money shopping

Paribus

Paribus is sort of a unique tool — but one that I think is pretty cool.

• Paribus finds you refunds when prices drop at online stores that have a price protection policy
• Paribus monitors your emails for receipts at eligible stores, then tracks the prices of the items you bought (so you don’t have to).
• When a price drops after you buy (within the time allowed in the merchant’s price drop policy), Paribus helps you get a refund for the difference.
• See the Paribus website for a list of online stores that Paribus monitors.
• Paribus is 100% free.

So, you know how you’re like — cool, if the price ever drops I can get back the difference, BUUUUT — you just don’t have time to sit around and monitor it.  Paribus does.  Pretty cool, right?

ibotta

ibotta allows you to match

• Store sales
• Coupons
• PLUS iBotta rebates

This gives you HUGE savings on things you’re buying anyway!

Let’s pretend a store has Chapstick on sale for 99 cents.

And you have a 25 cent coupon (knocking it down to 75 cents) and ibotta has a deal where you can get 75 cents back.

All combined, you end up paying 25 cents.

With ibotta, you just scan your receipts and it does all work of matching up their deals.  Pretty great!

Related Post: Grocery Price Comparisons

Ebates

Once again — Ebates allows you combine sales WITH cash back, for huge savings — probably some of the best in the business!  Just as I logged in right now I’m seeing 6-10% back on stores I shop at frequently — and while percentages change pretty frequently, that can be a HUGE savings for your family!

You can even get a browser extension where you can have coupons and rebates automatically applied as you shop with Ebates.

**The key to saving with these companies is to sign up and USE it right away. **

If you just sign up today and don’t use it, you’ll never get into it. 

Sometimes there is a bit of a learning curve, but worth it if your family is getting “free money**  So sign up today and then GET GOING with whichever ones worked for you:

• Paribus – Cash back directly with stores
• ibotta – scan your receipts to save
• Ebates – save at the stores you’re already shopping at

Don’t forget that over-buying doesn’t help anyone — be sure to check out how many outfits your kid needs.

My friend Lydia has a lot of great money-saving apps as well!

How to make money as a stay at home mom

All of those are good ways to make money, but it’s mostly making money BACK.

Taking surveys from home can be a great way to earn some extra cash.

Is this going to make you a millionaire?  No, but it can pad your family’s budget by a few meals each month.  Plus, I found them to sort of engage my mind and interesting.

Two of them that I like are

• Opinion Outpost
• Survey Junkie

Honestly, I’d sign up for them both — that way you can get more opportunities that way.

My friend Lydia has a great post on some other side hustles.

How to make money while pregnant & unemployed

I will say that getting a job WHILE you are pregnant can be hard.  Clearly, all of the things in this post can work for you — but a few other tips from the Pregnancy Nurse:

• Be honest with you about what you will and won’t do — if you really can’t be on your feet too much, don’t interview for jobs that require that
• Be honest with yourself about how late you plan to work, and if you hope to work after you have the baby (although everyone is aware that things change post-baby)
• You aren’t required to disclose that you’re pregnant in an interview, feel free to wear clothes that hide it as much as you can.
• Keep in mind that if you haven’t been at a business as an employee very long, there are policies that may require you to not take too long of a maternity leave, or they may be able to terminate you.

Other ways for new moms to make money from home

Babysitting

I always used a friend to babysit for me when my kids were tiny.  The hours I needed a sitter were always during the day.  I enjoyed that they were in a safe, loving environment — and also that it was less than a company daycare.

If you’re looking to babysit — I’d just start to put it out to friends.

If you’re looking to do it as a business then you’ll want to consult your local laws for that.  But infrequent babysitting can probably skirt that.

Perks to babysitting

• Your child gets some socialization
• The money (make sure you’re on par with other pricing)
• You get to stay at home and get things done ta home
• You get to help a working mom know their child is in a safe place.

Virtual Assitant

This is a nwer-type position.  It is where you work as an assistant to someone online.

I mostly know about this for bloggers.

They will use Virtual Assistants (VA’s) to:

• Write posts
• Schedule social media
• Bookkeeping
• Take photos
• Respond to emails
• and more!

But, this type of work could extend to any business that needs help that could be done off-site.

Again, if you’re looking for this type of work I’d start to put it “out there” with friends and possibly social media.  If you have bloggers you follow, you could always comment on their social media to say you’re looking for an opening.

FYI — before you email me, I currently don’t use VA’s.  This is 100% me and my family.  So, no openings here.

Blogging

While I don’t think this is a great fit for everyone, it has certainly worked for me.

Entering the world of blogging is a bit more than I want to dive into in this post — but I did make a “Fired-Up” blogging guide — giving you a few simple steps to getting started, as well as my #1 tip for doing it!

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And finally, a reminder that you ARE contributing to the good of the family.  I am currently in the reverse situation where I now make the majority of the money, and my husband does more of the house/kids.  He is an equal contributing partner.  Always remember that.

If you liked this post — check out my abundance budgeting template and my other finances posts below that.

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The post Ways for New Moms to Make Money from Home appeared first on Pulling Curls.

I had always wondered what full-time bloggers did all day.  What did blogger time management look like when you worked for yourself?

And for that fact — what is it like being home all the time and being your own boss.

So, today’s it’s a behind the scenes look at Pulling Curls — the blog I started in 2005.

My morning looks mostly like yours.  I get up, I sometimes work out.  I shower/get dressed.  I do a quick check of email and blog stats and then it’s off to the races to get kids off to school.

My kids go to 3 different schools (since they’re each in elementary, middle and high school respectively).  It takes about an hour for all of them to be in school, so we make lunches in shifts, but my final one usually gets himself out the door pretty well on his own.

At this point, it’s about 8 am.

Each day I try to create a to do list of 5 things I’d like to get done for the blog and 5’ish things I want to get done around the house.

Unless I have meetings/conference calls my day usually proceeds like this (many days have a meeting or a conference call):

I try to get an hour of writing first off in the morning.  And by writing, I mean writing posts, making images for the posts, SEO’ing posts (SEO stands for “search engine optimization” — it’s how you get picked up by search engines like Google).  That type of a thing.

I try to be almost a month ahead in my posts.  I just like to have it all planned in advance so if I were to get sick or have an emergency, I’m not in blogging limbo with nothing going up.

Then, I usually throw in some laundry or do my 10 minute tidy.

Then, spend an hour working on projects.  Things like my courses, or newsletter sequences.

I then try to get a small workout in (I do a workout program that is split into doing small exercises throughout the day — I do the majority in the AM, but I like the idea of revving up my metabolism a few times during the day).

I often have a little snack at this point as well.

Then, it’s back to the computer for an hour of social media management.  Each day I have a task assigned to it and just focus on that area.

• Monday:  Optimize popular posts/seo/fix ads/email sign ups
• Tuesday: Weekly Newsletter
• Wednesday:  Pinterest
• Friday: Facebook/Twitter

(I normally work Thursdays, so nothing is assigned that day)

After that, I try to get up and do a few things around the house (making sure I know what’s for dinner).  I mostly alternate between large blog tasks and small household tasks.

Then, my final task is answering emails.  I get a TON of email and I do answer every one.  However, the majority are group emails asking me to write about a product or idea.  I have canned answers, but I do try to answer for each one.

For your info — I don’t take guests posts on the site, and I, in general, don’t do product reviews.  I do write sponsored posts but companies pay me to be featured on the blog and I only allow it if they are a good fit.

Hopefully by 3 pm when kids are coming home I’m fairly done with the main blog stuff.

Sometimes I do some light designing on the laptop.

Sometimes work overflows into dinner time…. and life goes on.

But I REALLY try to have the main work done by 3 pm.

The truth is I love being a blogger.  I do work as a nurse once a week, and I really don’t think I would want to work as a nurse full time.  I love being able to be home with my kids, and the flexibility this affords me — even if it is sometimes hard to work with them home (especially during the summer).

Lately, I’ve heard a lot of blogging whining — about how hard it is.  But I am firmly in the camp that I have a cushy gig.  My hours are flexible, I can write about what I want and I have a super supportive family.

Hugely grateful.

There is the side that things never “turn off”– but I really think that by being pre-scheduled a few weeks and assigning certain tasks to certain days (just like I do my cleaning schedule) life runs REALLY smooth in my blogging land.

Of course, sometimes I have to photograph what we’re having for dinner.

I no longer follow Facebook on my phone (although I can look at it through my browser).  I really enjoy Instagram, so that is something I do in my downtime, and I find it fun.

Twitter is a bit nebulous to me — but I do try to jump on when I have a few minutes during the afternoon to see if anything exciting is going on.

I am addicted to watching my blog statistics during the day (to a fault).

My husband works part time and does the majority of the housework on the days he is home.  Cleaning, and putting in the laundry.  I do more of the organization and pitch in when I can.

He is absolutely amazing.  He also does editing and is an awesome sounding board.

I do love seeing clean counters, so I often do the bathrooms when he’s at work.

I haven’t thought of getting a maid.  If my husband wasn’t as able to do as much, I’d expect my kids to chip in more to even-out more of the duties.

I am completely in love with my robotic vacuum though.  We are still working on a name for him.

Anyway — that’s the usual day in the life.  Throw in a sprinkling of talking to brands, and PTO work — sometimes lunch with a friend and there you have it.

Working from home is work — but it’s flexible work that can allow you some freedom.

If you like tips about time management, and working for yourself don’t miss my blogging for income newsletter.  It’s all the stuff someone else would charge you $100 for — sent straight to your inbox, for free.

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The post Blogger Time Management: Behind the Scenes at Pulling Curls appeared first on Pulling Curls.

This was a good month guys.  I have a goal to hit 100k this year, and while I am not quite on target, I am still really proud of what I am making and how it supports our family.

I hope you enjoy this income report — if you do, please consider sharing it in your favorite groups.  It means a lot when I see shares… blogging isn’t my target market, but I do feel it’s important that people understand it is a viable income option.

Ok, onto the numbers.

Hits

170,175

Hits are down.  This past month I decided to really decrease the amount I was looping through Board Booster — and I’m starting to think that might not have been my smartest move.  I’d like to keep my pageviews well above the 200k mark, and sadly — that’s not the case this month.

I’m increasing my looping and I am working to keep pinning the best stuff to the boards (I do all but my own board on Tailwind) that give me the best hits.

That’s the plan, anyway.

Ads

$1600

I use MediaVine for my ads.  I am consistently seeing other ad companies vie-ing for MediaVine clients, but I just heard some pretty horrible stuff about some of those other companies from a non-blogger (he’s actually a marketer who works for sites).

Happy as a clam at MediaVine.

Affiliate Income

$2021

One of the places I was earning the most affiliate income is slowly fading. I am hopeful I can pump some juice into it — but I need to keep diversifying.

Amazon was great — sort of randomly.  One day, someone order $3k of furniture.  Huzzah — right?

BUT, at the same point, I want to only stand behind companies I love.  I recently tried to list 5 products in each of my blogging categories (parenting, pregnancy organized home) so I could hit those points in my emails when it fits well.

Always a balance, right?

Own Products

$1300

A GREAT month for my own products.  I was well over a thousand, even after paying my affiliates (the number above is my income AFTER affiliates — which I paid just over $50 to this month).  No major launches, but a few good sales.

I am A/B testing some sales pages and that seems to be helping.

I am planning on re-launches of both of my courses in this upcoming year, so I am hopeful they will both do well.

I do have a brand new book just for people who want to sell online classes (it would also be a great book for someone wanting to launch an e-book as well).  You can learn more about it below — but be sure to get my free launch checklist right here:

Sponsored Posts

$1700

A good amount in Sponsored posts.  I don’t usually adore writing them, but when I have a great fitting option it is a GREAT way to not only increase my income, but help my write great content!

Total income: $6700

Breakdown of % of income:

• Ads 24%
• Affiliate 30%
• Sponsored 26%
• Self 20%

I am really thrilled by how these are starting to balance out.  It’s nice to have strong, balanced income.

Total Blog CPM: $52

Everyone seems to have decreasing traffic.  The key has to be making more per visitor.  This is one of my higher blog CPM’s.  Good news.

Let’s talk  a little bit about courses.

Courses are certainly one of the ways to increase your blog CPM.

Like I mentioned above I am selling a book aimed at helping those who are considering writing an online course.  It is dauting.

• All the steps
• The options
• The platforms

So many wheels in motion — how can you be sure you’re doing all the right stuff?

After talking about it at Snap I realized that a lot of people really want to create a course — because they have something they’d like to share.

It seems like most information on creating courses is created by people who write money-making courses themselves.

But, my book is created by someone who’s creating courses for moms and pregnant ladies.  Whatever your niche, this one is going to give you a realistic idea of what’s involved.

You can see it here:

Interested in learning more about blogging — the only way to find the new posts is by joining my newsletter.  Be sure to sign up here:

The post May 2017 Blogging for Income Report: Sell what you know appeared first on Pulling Curls.

This post includes TONS of info!  As always, it includes my traffic and income — but this month I did a quick jot down of my expenses, my big win on Instagram and also shared a bit about becoming an S-corp.  I hope you find it helpful!

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Let’s get started:

Traffic

Sessions: 154,000

Pageviews: 204,000

Traffic is up about 6%

Guys, I swear the less you pin, the better your traffic.

I had boosting how many pins I was looping with Board Booster — but traffic started to go down.  As soon as I halved my boosting, and took a pinning slot off of each day ALL of my pins are doing better.  Huzzah!  #moreclicks

Note:  FYI, I use Tailwind for most of my pinning, and Board Booster for a small amount of looping (although I heard Tailwind is adding it to theirs soon also)

Ad Income

$1,579

RPM is up a bit and with traffic being higher my ad revenue is up 13% from the month before!

Note:  I use Mediavine for almost add my ads (I sometimes put up an ad run directly from a company separately, but I didn’t have that this past month)

Self Income

$1,029 — this is up about 13% also.

Good:  I brought down the price of my prenatal class this month, and that helped sales considerably.  I also ran a PDF sale which allowed customers to get the full pdf in addition to the course.  That way it seems like they’re getting MORE in addition to the discount.

Bad:  I installed a plugin called “Clean Talk” mid month (to eliminate spam comments) and my sales entirely disappeared while it was on.  No one emailed me — but I got ZERO sales the entire time it was on.  So, no idea — but that is a week or so entirely lost.  Sad face….

Note:  I paid out affiliates $131 of this.  If you’re interested in becoming an affiliate email me!

Affiliate Income

$2100 — down 3%

Note:  I find that programs that are directly with specific companies do the best for me.  I am working on adding more affiliates to my blog (but I must admit I have a rough time finding good fits — so if that’s your problem, just keep trying and looking for new programs!)

Sponsored Post Income

$3250

I don’t love that this is taking up so much of my income, but I do love the income.

I have really be blessed (or, some might say lucky — but I choose the word “blessed”) to have some very good-fitting sponsored content offered to me lately.  I am grateful for it.

Total March Income

Just over $8000

This is extra exciting as I am aiming to make over 6 figures on my blog this year.  I am fairly on track (I had planned on having a bit less in the first few months of the year).

Expenses

I’ve had the request for what expenses I use for my blog.

I’m going to give you a basic idea.  I do purchase a lot of my expenses for an entire years but I am going to try to split that out a bit for you

Hosting $45/month — I use BigScoots and ABSOLUTELY LOVE THEM!

Newsletter: $79/month (I pay less because I bought a full year) — I am also just about ready to head to the next tier — and that will be $99/month — I use ConvertKit and while it is PRICEY — it really helps my courses sell better.  It is well worth the price if you plan to sell, in my opinion.  If you’re considering it — email me and I will be happy to give you details.

I obviously also pay for a domain name.  I also own the name HilaryErickson.com — but I’m not using it yet.  I use GoDaddy for my domains.

I use Thrive for my sales pages.  This past month I bought Thrive Ultimatum, that will allow me to use timers and the scarcity principle a bit more.  I use Thrive Content Builder for my landing pages, I use Thrive Quizzes a few spots on my blog and I am eyeing Thrive Leads for more email uses.  I’m a big fan of their stuff (if you can’t tell).

I paid about $21 in Paypal fees (I use Lifter LMS to host my courses, so that is my main cost for running them).

I use Wagepoint to pay my husband and myself (which can save you money if you become an S-corp — which was a worthwhile huge PAIN) — that cost about $25/month.

I spent $155 on advertising (that includes Tailwind, BoardBooster as well as Facebook/Pinterest ads)

Note:  I have decided to STOP running both Pinterest and Facebook ads this month.  I have found them almost entirely fruitless, so I’m adjusting on that one.

I have signed up for a newsletter course that I am REALLY excited about.  The main things that attracted me to this is:

• Her target market isn’t bloggers
• She gets a TON of click-throughs from her newsletter, and I’d like to work on that
• My sales funnels don’t work as well as I wish they did — I’d like to adjust
• Above, you can tell that I spend a fair amount on my newsletter each month, I want to be sure that I’m using it to capacity.
• She used to be an L&D nurse.

I have been paying Adobe for photos $9.99/month, but they just increased my plan so I am canceling that.  I use Stencil for a lot of my photos (and love how many photos are free from within their system).  I also have a lot of photos on credit from Deposit Photos.

Also, last month I bought a new camera to do video a bit better on my blog.  It was pricey.  I’m in love with it already though.

I also pay for PO box, and a few other things.

OH, and I pay for a CPA (more on that below) — I think about $800 for my business taxes (I also have him do my personal taxes for another $400).  That’s for the full year.

I am headed to Snap this coming month.  It’s the main conference I am going to — I am SPEAKING this year on Friday AM!

I’d love to know if any of you are going!  I did buy some clothes for this event, as it is a write-off.  But, I wouldn’t REALLY call that a blog expense.  Just a perk of the biz, am I right?

Big win with Instagram

I am growing my Instagram following, and I must say that I am thrilled to be getting some Instagram offers that are a nice chunk of change.

I use MassPlanner to grow my followers, but I’ve also been using Hashtag Hacking from Amber Simmons to help me grow engagement.

I have used her system and doubled the # of likes on my photos.  I’m excited to keep growing with it!  The book isn’t pricey, but it is simple to follow.  I keep the hashtags in my google keep folder to add (on my phone, I also have the main ones assigned to a hotkey that I can use easily on my android keyboard).

A note on becoming an S-corp

I made the decision to become an S-corp last year.  I have basically just held my breath until I had the final #’s from my CPA for tax time.

The news was good.  Good enough I bought that new camera and I also bought a new laptop last month (which I type on right now).  I think that becoming an S-corp was a great choice — but it didn’t come without its own downfalls.

I did have to hire a CPA, I have always done my own taxes, but I was totally over my head on this.  He also helped me become an Scorp (if you’re just becoming an LLC, that can easily be done on your own).

I had to start payrolling myself and my husband.  It was a HUGE pain to set up (and I do mean huge).  I finally figured out two website that have saved my bacon:

• Waveapps — I use this to do my basic accounting.  I had purchased Quickbooks but it doens’t integrate well with paypal which was a BIG problem for me (since I get a fair amount of income from Paypal).  It was also hard and made me want to cry.
• Wagepoint — they do my payroll.  I had tried to do it with WaveApps, but they only tell you how much to pull out to pay and then you’re required to pay taxes on your own.  No bueno.  I really like Wagepoint — very user-friendly, and customer service has been great.  I am still a little paranoid they’re stealing my money, but I am not sure how I’d ever entirely get over that.

Anyway — my CPA said that if you’re netting much over 15k you want to think about becoming an S-corp.  Just something to think about.  If you’re consideirng it, I 100% recommend you talk to a CPA — no matter how cheap you are.  Making a mistake could cost you a lot!

Phewsh!  that was a long one!  I hope you made it to the end.  I try to make these as valuable as humanly possible.  Again, I’d love it if you’d share them.

If you’d like more info about blogging and how to make money doing it — sign up for my newsletter.  This is truly the only way you can REALLY be notified of these news posts.  I don’t post them on my home page — so this is truly a hidden gem.  Plus, check out all my other blogging for income posts below that!

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The post March 2017 Blogging Income Report appeared first on Pulling Curls.

Things are totally improving.

Things are getting better, and they started getting better in November.  Stay tuned, because I am going to cover what I did after I give my income report.  You won’t want to miss it:

As a reminder this income report is made possible through my Blogging Income Spreadsheet — it calculates all my percentages and makes blog tracking SO easy!  Grab it today to make 2017 your best year yet!

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Sessions: 134,000 (up 33%)

Wait, who’s not on their feet standing up and clapping?  BECAUSE I AM.

Ad Revenue: $2100 (up 67%)

Thank you very much end of third quarter, plus I ran an ad campaign for my church that adds a little to the bottom line

Own Product Sales: $700 (up 30%)

Ok people.  I had pretty much given up hope on my prenatal class.  I’d ran ads, I’ve tweaked the page endlessly.  And then a friend said she was making the foray into trying marketing and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse to work on my FB ads for a month.

And they. are. working.  We only started them on December 26th, but it made my conversion rates are probably triple what they were before!  Stay tuned for what we’re doing and what’s working.  Some thoughts early on:

• I changed the header of the page to state the real reason people need to buy it
• I turned the video on auto play.  Which I absolutely hate, but ultimate bundles says it helps sales, and I think they’re right
• I’ve been running small sales and putting my timer up there, always helps!
• Pricing has ZERO to do with it.  I ran a HUGE 50% off sale on Black Friday with NO better results than regular sales.  So weird.

I sold 5 classes on Dec 31st and that trend of 2-5 classes selling/ day has continued.  And I am SO. FREKAING. JAZZED.  Stay tuned for next month where I really dive into this one!

OH, and I had a total drop off of sales from about the 15th to the 17th or so.  I think people just weren’t thinking prenatal class (and I’m very grateful they picked up).

Affiliate Income: $1800

I love my affiliate income, but one that I made a good amount with for a long time has just zeroed out.  I even wrote a new post about it — nada.

Just a reminder that my OWN products are where it’s at.

Sponsored Posts: $2800

You’ve gotta take ’em while you have ’em — but they’re not my favorite to write, for the most part.  I appreciate the companies willing to work with me, though.

Note:  I have raised my sponsored post rate, and I really only take ones that are a good fit, or will pay a HUGE premium to be on my blog.  I price each post separately.  Based on their fit, how much I want to write it and how I think my readers will identify with it.  Anyway, price yourself what you’re worth!

Total Income: $6800

THA-RILLED with this!  Yes, a good amount goes to taxes, but I am happy to see income up.

I’m not going to lie, as I saw my sessions dropping it really hurt my heart to see my income going with it.  BUT, income fluctuates, grateful for what we got in December.  My goal is to hit 100k in January, though quality, honest blogging.  We’ll see if I make it

Some of you might think this includes my new product launch (which I am accepting affiliates for) — but that did not launch until January 2nd.

It, FYI, was a mess, for the first morning people couldn’t buy unless they were logged in (which most people couldn’t, since they didn’t have an account). Anyway.  Lame — so grateful for Benjamin at Spark Logix — he’s been really helpful with my WooCommerce questions.  But, that class is converting really well.  The best of any of my launches.  Super proud and happy.

I have also bought Rachels’ Moolah class for upping my FB game.  I am really liking it so far.  Like all good classes it’s changing my entire blogging game.  Good stuff!  You can tell that I’ve changed my FB profile and cover page on my FB page.  All changes for the good.

Also, I am using Mass Planner to automatically invite people to like my page that have had any reaction to my FB page.  It has also helped raise my Instagram and Twitter numbers.  Now, I just need FB to follow.

OK, back to Pinterest

How I resurrected my Pinterest Traffic:

Be sure to get my most RECENT tips right here:

Back story:

I had great traffic in early 2016.  Right up until mid-June, when things just DROPPED.  I had been getting 6-7k/day and suddenly I was getting 4, and then down to 3, and I was starting to see more 2k days than 3k… and I was starting to get sick inside.  I had talked to Kate Ahl at Simple Pin a few times, and she recommended I switch to Tailwind.

I pooh-poohed it.  I hadn’t had great luck with Tailwind   I had done the free trial, and hadn’t noticed those pins had done any better.  I was pinning with Board Booster for so long and had done just fine.  I was just sure that wasn’t it.

I even had a back and forth with Dennis from Board Booster (who I love).  My repin rates vs the average were HORRIBLE.  It wasn’t just me.  He was stumped!

But, it was November 11th.  I had gotten a message from someone on Pinterest about a Tailwind study she had done where she had seen better click throughs on Tailwind.  Plus, I talked to someone else who said that I really needed to work on key-wording my pins.

And finally, I signed up for Tailwind.  I was ready to invest to see if it would work.

And it WAS an investment.  I turned off all Board Booster’ing, except for looping, and a few other boards (I still think looping works, it’s made my pregnancy one be a great traffic driver for me).  And I sat down and started scheduling Tailwind.

At the same time, I started keywording pins like crazy.  Descriptions went from “Here’s a great way to meal plan for your family, it’s stress-free and super healthy”

“Here’s a great way to meal plan for your family, it’s stress-free and super healthy”

to

Meal Plan | menu | tips | budget | healthy | family

Yup, total sterile, and sad.  My pins had always been VERY conversational so this was a big change.

And a super annoying one, that is still taking quite a lot of time.  But it is what it is.

To start-up scheduling on Tailwind, I mainly watched their videos and a few YouTube ones.  I have a very weird system in my head how I want pins going out.

My Weird Tailwind Plan:

You may or may not follow me here, but I have pins set into 5 basic groups:

Most popular pins:  These pins get the most traffic for me from Pinterest — these pins go out to my 4 best boards once a month.

Best of pins:  These pins get the most repins from Pinterest (and no, these aren’t the same) — these pins go out every 5 days to the boards that they best fit on.  Plus, it might include a few popular and I just have to hope they don’t overlap.

Mediocre Pins:  These are pins that don’t do so hot, but I am willing to worth with them, and maybe try again. — I schedule these pins out every 15 days to the boards they fit on

Niche:  These pins only do well on niche boards — when I schedule them, I space them each 10 days apart, ONLY on Niche boards.

Deleted:  These pins are dead.  {sound of taps in the distance}  I do not pin them at all.

Anyway, that’s how my system goes.  I’m keywording every pin that goes out before I schedule it.  I use the interval scheduling option, and I am sure to change up the boards I am starting with so that pins aren’t going to the same boards every day.

I pin everything but popular or new content on my open time slots (I pin popular and new content as “optimized” via Tailwind)

I pin about 15-20 pins/day through TW.

I still also loop, and I pin some things with Ahalogy (my user name there is Pulling Curls)…

I ALSO have started deleting pins.  It does a couple of things for me:

1. I am REALLY seeing the ones that I do well with, and the boards/pins that don’t do well.
2. I think it gives me better credit on Pinterest.

I don’t delete until at least 10-20 days after the pin went out.  And only zero’s, so take that as you will.  I don’t think pin deleting will solve your problem (I had tried it previously with little help).

I also don’t delete them on my own boards (I move them to a board that holds extras of those pins).

And I know some of you are thinking this is a cyclical fix, and I guess it COULD be — but I slowly saw traffic go up after the change, and then about 1 month after the full change over — it was like a switch flipped.  Whamo — traffic is doing well!

Also, a lot of my traffic is pregnancy related, which isn’t particularly seasonal…

So grateful, so thankful for everyone who pushed me to make a change.  It wasn’t fun — but worth while.

The 4 fixes, I’d say (to summarize) is to:

• Pin using Tailwind (especially if you feel like Board Booster isn’t working anymore)
• Pin less (I swear the less I pin the better things do — to a point, definitely use your best-performing boards)
• Loop your own boards (I also created boards that loop that contain ONLY my content)
• Keyword pins

I have no idea if it will work for you, and — frankly — I can only cross my fingers and hope that it keeps working for me.

Either way, I am sure to remember that traffic has ups and downs and I REALLY should not to take the day to day (or instant) numbers too hard!

I hope you found this income report helpful!  I do them monthly and I’d LOVE to have you join along!  I’d also really appreciate it if you shared this in your blogging groups.  I don’t write this stuff to keep it in a bubble — sign up! And, you can see my other income reports below that!

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