How does Hilary Erickson manage her blog finances and Adsense earnings?

I manage the “blog money” just like a real small business, not like bonus pocket cash.

For income, I have four main streams:

• Advertising (I’m with Mediavine on both Pulling Curls and The Pregnancy Nurse, not standard AdSense)
• Affiliate income
• My own products (mostly online courses, plus a few books)
• Occasional sponsored posts

On the expense side, I pay for:

• Hosting for sites, podcast, and courses, plus a tech person on retainer
• A CPA and accounting software (I do my own bookkeeping, CPA does taxes)
• Virtual assistants for Pinterest, SEO edits, email, and my kids for video editing and transcripts
• Insurance (liability and cyber), plugins/software (SEO tools like RankIQ, calendars), and some conferences/courses
• Legal work (trademarks, terms, privacy policy)

Everything runs through the business budget, and I treat it as a full‑time job with pretty regular 6–8 hour workdays, even though the income is mostly “passive” once content is created.

Is there a specific part you’re most curious about—ads, affiliates, or how I track and budget it all?