Hi Friends! First off, thank you SO much for all the support shown on this post. Seriously, it made my week! I didn’t even share that post on social media and I’ve already received a ton of nice and supportive emails<3 I appreciate it so much that I’m doing a video all about this topic on Tuesday.

Annabelle’s Shoes c/o | Doug’s Shoes c/o | My Shoes c/o (Doug and I’s outfit is from TJ Max and Annabelle’s is from Walmart)

I love sharing the behind the scenes of what blogging/ vlogging life is really like. Honestly, I treated my channel and blog as a hobby up until 3 months ago when I went full time with it. I rarely ever looked at my analytics and kind of just went with the flow as far as sponsorships. If a good brand wanted to partner up and they’d email me, I’d accept (10% of the time), but I almost never reached out because it just wasn’t a top priority (Mom life always came first).

Ever since I took my little corner of the internet more seriously, my opinions on the whole ‘making money as an influencer’ topic changed drastically. This is a whole new world I’m just diving into even though I’ve been creating content for years. Really monetizing your platforms is truly a skill and there are no guidebooks online. Thankfully Doug knows the ins and outs of SEO, which helps us with Belle & Baby, but he also knows so much more about business negotiation and online marketing.

Throughout the past three months we’ve been in kind of a limbo. I’ve always been in charge of when things go live, answering my emails, responding to comments, etc. but as of this month he’s totally taken over. I’m just in charge of content creation and I can’t tell you how much it’s freed my mind. When he initially quit, I was still doing it all because it was hard for me to lose control over my other “baby” lol so he mainly focused on our other businesses. It wasn’t until recently that I realized I value being a traditional ‘stay at home Mom’ over anything else and I enjoyed my channel and blog so much more when I wasn’t in charge of monetary gain. As much as I don’t try and dwell on the naysayers, whenever I get the comment “she’s money hungry” or “wow another sponsorship” I just want to shake that person on the other side of the computer because that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I truly miss the days where this was just a hobby. No pressure at all to make money for my family. I don’t think it’s something anyone other than an “influencer” can understand as annoying as that sounds. After realizing this over the last three months, we have made it our #1 business goal to supplement our income in other ways so I don’t have to rely on my platforms.

I think it goes without saying, but I’m so beyond grateful I get to do this as a job, but I miss it just being a hobby. Anyways, not everything is as it appears to be. When you see an influencer receiving “free” stuff (nothing’s ever truly free!), people may get envious, but please don’t. Working with brands you love is such a blessing, but at the same time, there are so many other ways of making money besides promoting and sharing your family. I just wanted to shed a new light on this and right now we are riding this wave because the opportunities on the Youtube platform really are mind blowing, but it’s not the end all be all.

I hope you guys get what I mean! Anyways, like I mentioned in a previous post, Doug and I will be starting a new channel all about our businesses and mindset hopefully launching in September. I’m so excited!!