Is Making Money Blogging Realistic for the Average Person?

When I decided to bite the bullet and start my blog site, I did literally no research. I had tossed the idea around for a hot minute; a few people said I should write about my pets and the experiences/knowledge I have gained. That marinated in my head for several months. Next thing I know, I've paid for a premium site that I can design and change as I see fit, sell merchandise, and actually write my blog posts.

All seems simple enough, right? Mostly yes—it's simple. Write, proofread, publish, repeat multiple times. I figured one post a week is a good amount. Wrong—they say to be successful and even potentially make money, 3-6 posts a week are needed. Get a routine of scheduled posts. Say what??! More than one post a week? I have missed even getting that done. The best-laid plans go awry in my life. Set a day to focus on writing my blog, doing my bookkeeping, and anything else that needs to be done from a desk. That's been my "plan" for more than a year now, and it has yet to happen. I generally don't work on Fridays—that's the day for me to focus on this stuff. Somehow things happen, and I don't always get to sit down as planned. That's not to say that I am not getting things done—just not what I need to get done.

I have entered the phase of my life where I have multiple pots simmering very close to boiling over. So I shuffle them around as best I can and hope for the best. So far, it's working, sort of. I've been making sure my invoices are done, I'm getting paid, taking care of the house, the cats, and generally being a productive person. What falls to the wayside: anything that requires me to physically sit at my desk for more than 10 minutes. It's hard. I don't like to sit still unless I'm reading or sleeping.

I've been reading bits and pieces about how long it takes to make money blogging. 8+ months, $500 a month. That's a long time and not a lot of money. Yikes! What was I thinking? Truly, I have no idea. Other than that, I have lots of cats, lots of knowledge, and I want to share that. There is definitely more money in it; the more I invest time in it, the more I get back. For now, this falls under a hobby that I hope to eventually make money with.

So here I am, with no true blog followers (yep, I can see how many people have read/clicked on each blog I post!). I'm looking at all my friends who say they will read the blogs but don't. I get it, we are all busy with other things that grab our attention and time. We have to choose wisely where we spend our time. It doesn't matter that most of my blog posts are no more than a 4-minute read. I'm hoping that next year this changes and I get more followers. My almost New Year's resolution (since I'm deciding in mid-March) is to actively write a new blog post every week and be ready to gear up to having 2 blogs posted each week. Focus, focus, focus! I can do it.

One thing I did right - choosing my topic for blogs. Pet blogs are in the top 10 most-read blogs. So now, to get people to my blog. (Help a girl out and share my site with everyone you know!) There are over 90 million households that have pets - that is a pretty large amount - yet not surprising. I know more people with pets than I do who don't have pets. In 2020, pet owners spent over $103 billion on their pets. Again - not surprising. Pet care is not cheap; food, just like for humans, is not cheap and is going up. Not to mention the enrichment of toys and treats. My #purrfectdozen crew has two toy boxes filled with toys, a basket of meds, and a small pile of clothes/costumes.

So, is writing a blog worth it? I'll have to revisit that in a year when I've managed to post more than one blog a week. Fingers crossed it's worth it!

That being said, I guess it's high time for me to review some pet products and ask the #purrfectdozen crew to start doing things people want to read about!

If you have a pet item you'd like me to test and review, drop it in the comments or send an email. For cat-related items, I'll use my herd of 11 cats. For dog-related items, I'll use the upcoming pet sitting I have scheduled with my favorite pups!

Till our tails cross again,

Mel

#purrfectdozen #reviews #blogger #catlife #felines

Vet Merry-go Round - Clara's ride!

So, I wrote about the lovely merry-go-round of vet visits that happens in my house. They get jealous when one of them has to go to the vet, and I end up making 2-3 more unexpected vet visits. Clara was the last unexpected vet visit. It went mostly well. She behaved, which is always nice. Her annual visit and shots are now up to date. Her ears were the reason we went to the vet to begin with. Double ear infection. I could have made some serious money if I bet on that being the diagnosis.

I would have lost if I had to say there's a reason she keeps getting the double ear infection. The upside to finding a reason - there's a cure! Which is great, because these double ear infections cost me about $250 each time she gets them. My budget cannot afford that routinely. While checking out her ears, we noticed she has a polyp in her left ear. It's completely blocking her ear canal. So it has created the perfect environment to be a breeding ground for infections as well as being impossible to clean at home or at the vet's office, landing us with ear infections!

So, like anything medical, we are presented with a few options:

A. Let the polyp be, treat the ear infection, do our best to keep her ears clean, and hope for the best.

B. Let our vet attempt to remove the polyp, clean her ear, and hope that it doesn't come back, as they sometimes can. Especially since the way the vet takes it off, there's no guarantee it won't come back. They will remove it by doing a Polyp Traction, which is done with General Anesthesia, and basically, they just pull the polyp out of her ear.

C. Go to a specialist, have them remove it at double or triple the cost of our vet removing it. The major difference? The specialist has a higher success rate of it not coming back. They would do a Ventral Bulla Osteotomy. The big difference is that she is put under completely and they go in surgically through her chin/neck area to remove the polyp.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Making these decisions for our pets is always hard. They can't tell us their feelings; we have to judge what would be best all around for them and us (more so financially), but what will have the best results, recovery, recurrence, etc. Ultimately, in the long run, it would be cheaper to have the polyp removed. Polyps in the ear canal mean chronic ear infections. We are halfway to the cost of surgery with only two ear infections to date. I decided to let our vet remove the polyp. The ballpark figure is $800 - $1200 for them to do it. Weighing the risk of it coming back - she's an older cat (17+), so if it does come back, hopefully, it won't be for a while, and we won't need to do this again. The upside to our vet doing this surgery is that Clara is comfortable with them, knows them, and they are close.

Had we decided to take the specialist route, it would mean a visit to check her out, then going back for the surgery, plus a follow-up. Additionally, the cost would be $2,000+.

So, fingers crossed, I made the right decision. She goes for bloodwork and then back the next day for the surgery. They will keep her most of the day after it's done to observe her, and then she comes home. Say a prayer, and cross your fingers it goes smoothly.

Till our Tail cross,

Mel

#purrfectdozen #vetvisits #cats #feline #medicalprocedure

Vet Merry-Go Round

As you can imagine, with 11 pets, we could spend a lot of time and money at the vet's office just keeping them up to date on shots and annual wellness visits. Now, imagine a crew of pets that gets jealous when one of them goes in for an "extra" visit. Read on to see what happens when we get on the Vet Merry-Go-Round.

Clara waits for Dr. Alex to check her out

Let's just say we didn't even make it a full 7 days before I needed to schedule another visit. This is very normal in our house. One emergency visit usually is followed up by one or two more emergency visits. I know, with so many cats you might think, well duh, you are gonna spend a lot of time at the vet's office. Honestly, with as healthy as my cats are, we spend an awful lot of time and money on these impromptu visits. Sure, most times there truly is something going on and it needs attention. But there have been a handful of times when something is going on at home and it warrants a vet visit—only for us to get there and whatever was going on miraculously stops, or they are all better (this is Clara's MO).

We think Roughy has a UTI - he's urinating on the couch,

Roughy trying to keep cool, knowing he peed on the couch several times.

and when he's in the litter box, nothing is happening. Whisk him away to the vet, but first dose him up on some gabapentin and cross our fingers he plays nice with them today. He did a great job - mostly. They tried to pull urine to test - only to find a completely empty bladder. At this point, I say - makes total sense - he emptied his entire bladder on my couch a little bit ago. They do his exam in the back and want to give him some fluids. He decided no way was that happening and was ready to throw some paws around. By this point, they have stuck him in his most sensitive area, poked and prodded his body, examined his teeth - he was done. We left with him dosed up on some meds - get Roughy home and he's doing better from his suspect UTI issue (it only cost about $350 this time!)

Moving through the rest of the week, all's good—or so I think. Gene tells me that Clara's left ear is bothering her. Alright—just clean it for her. He has tried several times with no success—she won't let him really clean it, which is par for the course with her. She is slightly handicapped and doesn't groom herself very well, getting agitated if we try to help with the grooming. In all likelihood, she has an ear infection. We have her scheduled to go to the vet in less than 10 days from Roughy's vet visit. I'm putting money on a double ear infection.

Life's better when you travel in 3's!

I have this wacky theory in my house full of cats. Whenever one cat needs to go to the vet,

no matter the reason, it sets off a domino effect of vet visits. FOMO for cats sums it up best. They have no idea where their sibling is being whisked off to, why, and for how long. All they know is the "fancy bed" comes out and one of them disappears—returning a short time later. The return is a mix of things—frustration from being poked and prodded, feeling high on life from meds (if any were given), smelling like other people, and they get a little extra attention from us.

Till our tails cross again,

Mel

#fomo #vetvisit #catlife #catexpenses #purrfect #felinefriends