Hello Everyone,
Dave Gates reporting in for my sixth Jewel-Osco Saturday Morning Sampler Savings Report.
Are you wondering what this is all about? Well for starters, I though it would be interesting to report how much I’ve saved by redeeming the coupons for free items at our local grocery store.
Secondly, I like building blogs and this experiment offers me the opportunity to create content and learn new skills.
We live in the Chicago-Land area and one of the major groceries stores is Jewel-Osco. This year I signed up for their MyMixx rewards program and downloaded their smart phone app.
A lot of blogs publish income reports on how much their blogs are earning. I’ve decided to take this concept and turn it around a bit.
Instead of reporting on how much my blog is making, I plan to report on how much I’m saving by redeeming coupons for free items. It’s just a little experiment, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you have any questions about any of the information from this report, please leave a comment and I’ll reply very early in the morning before the wife and kid wake up.
This report includes the following.
- SAVINGS THIS MONTH
- YEAR TO DATE SAVINGS
- NUMBER OF COUPONS REDEEMED
- LIST OF ITEMS
- WEBSITE TRAFFIC
- EMAIL LIST
- BLOG UPDATES
- MOVING FORWARD
SAVINGS THIS MONTH June 2017 ($10.26)
YEAR TO DATE SAVINGS ($93.64)
June = (10.26)
NUMBER OF COUPONS REDEEMED THIS MONTH = 4
LIST OF ITEMS
1. Zinco Coconut Water Beverage ($2.99)
2. Zinco Chilled Coconut Water 16 oz ($2.00)
3. Kraft Trios 1.5 oz ($1.79)
4. Philadelphia Bagel Chips & Dips ($2.49)
WEBSITE TRAFFIC
Traffic Overview
Any blogger will tell you there is a lot of work behind creating the articles and maintaining a blog. But it is actually fun and interesting. There are many ups and downs along the way. June turned out to be a challenging month. I took a week off from the day job. Although we didn’t travel, we ended up doing some light remodeling at home, this included my home office.
If you are enjoying these reports please share and comment. I’d really appreciate it. One change I’ve made to this report is to include both last month and this month snap-shots. I think this gives a better idea how we are growing.
May 1-30, 2017
June 1, 2017 – June 30, 2017
Here are the top traffic sources from last month.
Mobile vs desktop traffic
EMAIL LIST
One of the things I find most challenging is developing and growing a mailing list. I’ve signed up and registered for an email newsletter service with MailChimp.
My plan is to track the growth of this list. Since I joined in January, we have a great base to start with. I One reason I haven’t been focusing on it is because I’m working adding more content and articles.
I’ve also wanted to redesign the home page to include a better opt-in button or banner. Now that we have the home page done its time for tweaking things.
For all you long time bloggers, I know you’ve always said to start growing your email list. Well, now is your opportunity to join my list and help me grow this thing.
June 2017 – no changes from last month. I’m still stuck on 4 faithful subscribers.
BLOG UPDATES
I’m still loving my theme from Studiopress. I highly recommend them.
During the month of May, I redesigned the home page. I hired someone to do this for me. At the time I didn’t think about how it was configured. The new home page turned out fine, but it also meant that I lost other settings and configurations.
Mainly google analytics was not reporting correctly. So that must have meant that the old existing page was configured with my analytics account. Since I’ve added this back I now have a better idea of traffic and statistics.
June was a slow month for redeeming free items. I also started to remodel my home office, which meant I took down my computer and put it away for the duration of the remodel. I was late in getting my articles out which I think also affected my traffic and social engagement.
I’ve been working on the monthly report you are reading here.
I think I also need to promote this page a little better. “How to Start Your WordPress Blog Today.” Yes, I’m still happy with their hosting and services.
LESSONS LEARNED
The purpose of this report and doing all this work is to report how much money the free items add up to. So it really doesn’t matter if its a Saturday Morning Sampler Item or a MyMixx item. If I can clip the coupon in the MyMixx app and get the item for free, I will include it here.
I realize I need to be more careful when updating important parts of the blog. Since I’ve updated the main homepage in May I’ve lost my google analytics, and any reporting I had since the update. Now that Google Analytics is tracking and reporting, I’ll be able to see where I need to make improvements.
MOVING FORWARD
The plan for now is to continue visiting my local Jewel-Osco on Saturday morning’s for their Free items. Six months have gone by pretty quick and I’m amazed at how much I’ve saved and how this blog thing is turning out. Half way through the year already, hard to believe.
I’ve also added a lessons learned section to this report to reminder myself of various things. It’s also a great place for you to reference my exact thinking and process for this project and reports.
I’ll also be working on tweaking the blog, newsletter and writing. Stayed tuned, and please leave me a comment, don’t be shy!!
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