Hello!
This week’s email is a bit of a different one…
I’m writing it on a Megabus – which is the best way to travel 120 miles if you only have £3.
Actually, it’s the best way to travel 120 miles, full stop.
Especially for someone like me who’s really bad at driving.
I passed my test 15 years ago, but I’m seriously considering getting a ‘New Driver’ sticker for the back of my car so people might honk at me less.
Last week, I asked if anyone would like to see what my day-to-day looks like as a blogger who makes $60k per month.
Lots of you said YES, so here it is…
(If this isn’t your thing, no worries, come back next week for more actionable tips)
Monday
My week started when my alarm went off at 7.15am.
I know you shouldn’t, but the first thing I do when I turn off the alarm is usually look at my calendar, then my emails, then my socials and analytics.
I know, I’m not setting any kind of good example. But hey, it is what it is.
There’s no morning yoga, no affirmations, no cold showers for me. Just real, working parent morning shit.
I helped the kids get ready for school (asked them to hurry up at least 20 times) and then at 8.30am we got in the car.
After the school run, I went straight to the gym. I had 10 mins until my class so I looked at Twitter for a bit.
At 10am I went home to shower, made coffee and toast and started work at about 10.30am.
My first job on a Monday is always to write the Niche Site Lady newsletter. This gives the sponsors a chance to preview it before it goes out. The email can take 1-4 hours, depending on how in-depth I’m going that week.
At lunchtime, I had some errands to run. My husband came with me (we squeeze in time together any way we can) and we went to the estate agent, the shop and called at Subway for a salad.
I went straight back to work to finish the email and ate lunch while I worked.
I spent an hour or so replying to emails and my team members who message me on WhatsApp.
Next, I worked on updating one of my old articles that had lost traffic. That took about 3 hours.
I also checked my Facebook ads and saw that I’m paying 4 cents per click to a post that makes me 8 cents with Raptive ads. Eager to double more money, I ramped up the spend.
At 5.30pm my husband brought the kids home and I made us all hotdogs for dinner.
I helped with the homework, put the kids to bed and then settled down to watch YouTube videos (work-related).
I fell asleep in the human-sized dog bed and dragged my tired arse to bed at about 11pm.
Hours worked = 6
Tuesday
Tuesday was my birthday!
I woke up at 7.30am and enjoyed coffee and a crumpet in bed with presents. Then I laid in bed until 9am when I got up and had a shower.
I had a 10am call with my accountant but no other solid plans so I decided to give myself an easy day.
I spent four hours taking a course on digital PR. I’d normally only do things like this in the evening, but as it was my birthday, it was a bit like a day off.
I recently outsourced my PR and am waiting for the results of the first campaign (I’ll let you know how that goes).
Outsourcing PR is mega expensive, so I plan to have a go at doing it myself. And now I have the skills! Yay.
(I highly recommend the course by the way)
For lunch, I had Huel macaroni cheese, which is a bit like astronaut food, but I love it.
I took the dog for a walk.
At 3pm, I went to collect the kids from school. I brought them home and replied to messages while they got changed at ate snacks.
Then, I took them to their sports class. Parents can’t watch, so I spent 30 minutes replying to people who responded to my NSL newsletter.
At 5.30pm we arrived home. I cooked burgers and chips in the new airfryer (game changer), we ate together and then I put the kids in the bath.
I replied to some more emails while they were in there and then put them to bed.
I beat my husband at chess and we had an early night.
Hours worked = 2
Wednesday
I woke up at 7.15am but lay in bed on my phone doing what I like to call ‘chilling out but working at the same time’ – replying to DMs and checking stats.
At 8am I got my lazy ass out of bed and tidied the house.
I have a cleaner who comes for 4 hours per week which is fantastic. But she can’t clean when it’s messy. So I had a floordrobe situation to take care of before she arrived.
At 9am I replied to emails and Whatsapp messages from my team while drinking coffee.
At 9.30am I had a video call with a team member, followed by more coffee and toast.
At 10.30am I had a video call with a local networking group for 45 mins.
I did some little tinkering jobs on my site, like updating the social share buttons, changing some affiliate links and updating plugins.
At 12pm I went to the gym with a new friend I made last week from the networking group.
Then I hopped in the shower, got back to work at 1.30pm and had some Huel carbonara.
In the afternoon, I published blog posts until 5pm. My team does a lot of the work, so my job is mostly sourcing images, doing quality checks and adding internal links.
I went to pick up the kids, cooked noodles with vegetables and we all ate together.
I played chess with my daughter, listened to my son read and put the kids to bed.
Then, I lay in my human-sized dog bed (one of the best things I ever bought) and wrote an AI article while watching Married At First Sight.
Hours worked = 7
Thursday
I woke up at 7.30am but, as usual, struggled to get out of bed until 8.
I get 9 hours of sleep every night but I swear I need 10 to feel normal. I’d get so much more done if I didn’t need so much sleep!
I did some personal admin and ordered a food shop online before heading to the gym at 9am for a class.
By 10.30 I was showered and back at my desk. I ate some toast, caught up with emails and any help my team needed until 11.30 when I had a call with a new freelancer.
At 12pm made lunch (Huel macaroni) and ate it while I worked.
I spent the next four hours updating blog posts.
At 4pm I went to pick up my son. There’s a 45-minute gap before I pick up my daughter from her activities.
I took the dog so we could go for a walk, but it started to rain really hard. Instead, we read together in the car and then I did a bit of work on my phone while he watched his ipad.
We arrived home and with not much food in the house, I ordered a Chinese takeaway.
Then, I realised that I’d forgotten to take my daughter to her next club. Sometimes, life is just too much of a juggle that balls get dropped. I felt bad, but it happens.
I put the kids in bed to read books at 7pm and sat down to work. One of them climbed on a bookcase and broke it. Luckily nobody was hurt.
I spent two hours learning Pinterest from the resources people kindly shared with me from last week’s email and went to bed.
Hours worked = 6
Friday
My alarm went off at 6am for a 6.30am gym class.
I’ve never been to the gym so early and the contrast between the pitch black and empty streets and the loud, busy gym felt so weird. I enjoyed it though.
I came home, showered, got the kids ready and took them to school.
I was back home just after 9am. I’d been ON IT for three hours and not started work yet.
I spent the morning working on a YouTube video that I’d started two months ago but had been putting off finishing because I decided I hate YouTube.
At lunchtime, I nipped out to buy supplies for my daughter’s birthday party the next day. Ate Huel again.
In the afternoon I finished the goddam YouTube video. Hooray! I felt so relieved to have it done. It might be the last one I do for a while.
I replied to some emails and messages from my team and published some blog posts.
I picked up my daughter at 7.30 pm, had dinner, played chess and went to bed. Rock and roll.
Hours worked = 9
Weekend
I didn’t do any work at the weekend. Sometimes I do a bit, but not usually.
I spent time with my family. We had a birthday party for my daughter, played board games and went shopping.
I also went to a yoga class and took the dog for a long walk while listening to podcasts to help me learn Pinterest
I watched a movie with my husband.
It was busy, yet chilled at the same time. Like all good weekends should be.
Hours worked = 0
What I learned from documenting this
In total, I worked 30 hours this week. That’s a pretty standard week for me.
I usually take about one week off per month to travel as well.
My blogging business makes about $60k/month profit, so my hourly rate comes to about $500.
Honestly, I never thought I’d say that.
I’m SO lucky to have the life I have.
I love how flexible it is, how I have nobody to answer to, and how I have time to spend with my family.
Of course, this didn’t happen overnight.
When I started my first blog my day looked very different, and much longer.
I made about £1200/month working 3 days per week (8-5.30), looked after my toddler son for 4 days and worked on my blog at night.
Things were HARD back then.
And that makes me super grateful to have the life I have now.
Writing this down also highlighted how much time I spend replying to emails, DMs and Whatsapps.
I’m not sure what the solution to that is.
I try to reply to every email, but it’s not always possible, so sorry if I didn’t get to yours.
See you next week.
– NSL
P.S.
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