How Kelan Provides for His Family
Kelan and his wife run the Savvy Couple blog, a personal finance blog that helps families organize their lives, simplify their finances, and find the time to do more things they love.
They make money through the blog by providing content to help readers go from surviving to thriving with their finances.
What Kelan Kline Did Before The Blog
Kelan graduated college in 2012 and says he jumped through a bunch of different jobs. He was an insurance salesman, a UPS driver, an office manager, and later a law enforcement jail deputy.
At the time, that is what Kelan considered to be his dream job, to where he would then go to road patrol. Kelan worked in that profession for about two and a half years, but around the one year mark, he realized law enforcement was not the thing for him.
He wasn’t fond of committing to other people, having people tell him when he had to work, and the terrible work environment with forced overtime. Kelan also hated that he rarely saw his wife, who, at the time, was working opposite shifts as a teacher.
Being their first year of marriage also, it was a stressful time for the Klines. They finally decided to sit down and talk about how their lives should look because they knew that wasn’t it.
Kelan and his wife sat down at the table, talked about, and planned what their life would ideally look like in the next couple of years. Most importantly, the steps that it would take to get them to where they wanted to be.
Dustin worked in the jail in Fresno, California at one time in IT. He was able to be around the officers and deputies and thought it was a great place to work.
Dustin had to go to the jail area numerous times to set up computers and remembers it was just too much. He agrees with Kelan that it was not for him, and he can see why Kelan wouldn’t like it either.
Kelan compared it to almost as though you are doing time with the inmates, and he just got to a point where he realized it wouldn’t cut it for the next 25 years, so he needed to figure something out.
What Kelan’s Business Is And How It Makes Money
In the beginning, the Klines started the personal finance blog as more of a passion project. Kelan and his wife had seen other bloggers online making money and the idea was great for them because they like to budget their money, live frugally, and live on less than they earn.
They love to be in charge of their life and money. Over time, the blog was generating income from ad revenue and affiliate marketing. For the first nine months, the blog didn’t make any money, but they were working on it at night and on the weekends.
Their hard work paid off because on the ninth month mark; they began making money. Not even two weeks later, Kelan was ready to quit his job and talked to his wife about it. What Kelan did was he left the jail deputy position and went into managing an office part-time.
He felt strongly that he needed to just get out of the deputy environment. Brittany landed a full-time teaching position, so Kelan thought he needed to search and get back who he was.
He felt he lost his identity and wanted to get it back. The whole time, they were saving up and budgeting their money for Kelan’s exit strategy.
When The Klines Started The Blog
The Kline’s started TheSavvyCouple.com back in July of 2016. Kelan’s wife was getting bored being at home in the summer, so they decided to brainstorm business or side hustle ideas they could do online.
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During this time, Kelan was also enrolled in school, working towards his home inspector license, something he thought would also enable him to be his boss. He was ready with the license, paperwork in hand, but they decided to start an online business. And they are pleased that they did because there is so much more freedom.
Dustin believes that as fathers, they have the responsibility to provide for their families. Some people can quit their jobs without a safety net, but that was not possible for him.
He worked hard to get his rental property business up and running and then quit at 37. He now has 30+ rental properties generating a lot of passive income for him every month, and he does not have to work much at all.
How to Get Started With A Blog
Step #1: Choose What You Are Most Passionate About
Kelan thinks that the most important thing to do first is to find out what you are most passionate about and what you love to do. He says this is important because it may take you a while before you begin to see revenue from your side hustle.
He says it is essential that you are passionate enough to work on it and serve people just because you love doing it.
Step #2: Choose Your Medium
There are three mediums and platforms to serve an audience, such as audio, video, or text. The next step would be choosing the most comfortable way and what also serves your audience the best.
Kelan believes the most significant thing is just getting started. He thinks that many people get caught up in trying to make things perfect right off the bat.
Keland and Brittany just went for it and learned as they went. He says taking action is more important than sitting back and making a detailed plan initially.
As someone who is not necessarily a perfectionist, Dustin likes to make sure that things get done correctly. He thinks that doing it right the first time is important, so you don’t have to waste time going back and fixing it.
His dad taught him that if you are going to do it, do it right and do it right the first time.
How The Savvy Couple Serves People
Kelan and Brittany began making their products. They think that many people struggle with sitting down with their spouse and talking about finances with pen and paper.
So with that, they have created printables for people to use that help with big things like paying off debt and a new one they created for meal planning. They make it super easy for people to take baby steps and form good habits, and make changes in their life.
Start Creating A Lot of Content
For the first year, Kelan and Brittany published three articles a week and would have a guest post every Wednesday. They were using the strategy for creating a ton of quality content, in the beginning, to see what resonates with the audience and what people relate to best.
When Dustin began Master Passive Income in 2016, he would put out an article once a week, thinking it was a lot of work. He then went to publishing one article a month.
He assumed people would be coming back to read the next article. Kelan says that is not the case. He thinks about 80% of people who visit your site will never come back again.
Building an email list is important in this case so that the readers have an opt-in and never miss what you are publishing. Kelan and Britney have a list of 20,000 people they serve and love and give their everything.
They treat their email list readers as friends or a part of their family who they are trying to help through a rough time or transition in their lives from surviving to thriving.
Deciding What to Write About
Kelan says it circles back to you are passion. Asking yourself what you can talk about at length or what people always ask you for help. For example, if you are a person who can keep your grocery budget low, write an article about that, and teach people how to do it also.
Another idea Kelan has is to go to Google and search keywords that you would be curious to know about and read the articles that come up.
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How Much Content to Publish
For the first year of your blog, Kelan thinks you should publish as much quality content as you can. Even though they began with three articles a week, they found that it was a little overkill for their site and did not have to continue doing that.
Kelan thinks that if you can publish one quality article a week, you are on your way to building your tribe and getting traffic to your site.
For clarification, a quality article is an article that serves a purpose. It should help your readers solve a problem that they came to your site for a solution.
Kelan says that it should also be an in-depth article and probably over 1,000 words. It should answer all of the questions that the reader has about the problem they wish to solve. Finally, you would want to offer a solution, your own products, or affiliate products.
Ensuring you hit the headline on the head is something that Kelan believes will help your article. Creating a click-worthy headline is important to get people to your site.
The formula that Kelan and Brittany use is curiosity+value=clicks. After the headline, the featured image is also significant as well as H2 headers that are easy to read. Additionally, you would have a lot of white space and make the article interactive by asking questions.
Kelan Kline’s Favorite Way to Monetize
As most bloggers do, Kelan and Brittany started by running ads in the blog. They were using many “Pinterest-Worthy” articles to get the traffic to increase and get onto Mediavine. After they did the ads, they moved on to affiliate marketing.
Last year, their biggest year, they focused a lot on sponsorships, which is Kelan’s favorite way to make money with the blog and the business. They began partnering with companies that they already know, love, and already use.
They were getting the company’s products in their audience’s eyes by using their blog’s platform and encouraging their audience to start using the products.
Pro Tip: Sponsorship Is Different Than Affiliate Marketing
Kelan says that sponsorship is a one-off marketing campaign that you write a direct post just for the sponsor, or it could be a Facebook ad, social media amplification, or email marketing.
To find those companies, Kelan says there are many different sponsorship networks that you can apply to and join. Kelan also has an article on the FinCon website with all of the ones that are a part of The Savvy Couple.
When you apply, Kelan says to make sure you link all of your social media accounts and analytics so that companies know what you are all about and the kind of traffic you are getting.
Another way Kelan says to find sponsors is to go onto other blogs within your niche and type in “sponsorships” in their search bar. That will give you a good idea of what companies are looking for sponsorships and which ones are spending money with bloggers to make money.
Besides Dustin’s rental property investments, he also loves to teach people how to invest in rental properties and how to quit their jobs. One hack he gives his students is about how to find good deals.
He tells them that they should find a wholesaler and get on their list of contacts.
What You Should Charge
Instead of having a price sheet or spitting out a number, Kelan says it is just like a negotiation at a garage sale.
Pro tip: Hold Your Cards Close To You And Ask Them Their Budget First
When making new deals, Kelan will ask the company what their budget is and how much they have to work with them. He will then put together a proposal and a package to move forward.
For example, if their budget is $300, Kelan will likely charge that or above to make it look more enticing to the company. This technique has added thousands of dollars in revenue for the blog, which is why Kelan says it is so important to ask them their budget first.
Dustin and Kelan both like the act of negotiation. Dustin’s wife does not. Since Dustin is the only person in his company, he has a different outlook on budgets.
He says that he would have a smaller budget being that he is so frugal. Larger companies have separate budgets meant for things like sponsorships. The more prominent companies may start low and know that they can go higher, but they will let you know what works for them if you just ask.
How To Scale A Blog
A big thing that Kelan and Brittany did was all of the money from the first year went directly back into their business. They did this so they could focus on paying for tools and freelance writers.
From there, Kelan only took $1,000 from the business for the following six months. They didn’t begin taking much from the company until they made around $10,000 a month.
Kelan urges to stay frugal and treat it like a business and continue to invest money back into it.
Other Ways To Invest In Your Blog
Kelan says that time is the biggest enemy of business owners, so a huge thing they invested in was outsourcing. They use the Eisenhour chart, which is four quadrants where you lay out what your day looks like making sure you are focusing on your urgent and important tasks.
For Kelan, his high ROI task is focusing on sponsorships. He knows that if he can get sponsorships, he can create a high hourly rate for his income. If he can outsource the tasks that are eating up most of his time with a virtual assistant, it allows him to focus on the sponsorships.
One cool thing that Kelan and Brittany do is hire from within their network or their audience. They feel that it is important for them to hire someone that knows the business the way they do.
Be Cautious With Who You A Working With
In the beginning, Kelan believes he would have said yes to any sponsorship because he just wanted to make money. However, now that they have grown and have cash built up, they are more cautious about the sponsorships they use.
They would instead use companies that they know and believe do the most good for their audience. Kelan says it is OK to be picky with who you work with to make sure it aligns with your brand.
If Dustin is asked if he accepts sponsored posts for Master Passive Income, he usually says no. However, there are companies that he loves that he would have on the blog for free because they serve his audience.
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Beyond the Blog
The Savvy Couple also has a Facebook group called Family, Finance, Freedom, where they are posting articles and answering questions often.
They have a blogging group called Blogging with Purpose that they are also inside frequently answering questions and helping blogger begin their blog and make money online. Kelan and Brittany have two core opt-ins with their email list. The main one is the budgeting template that leads to their budgeting binder.
There is an eight-day sequence where they provide a lot of quality content and then finally ask for the sale. They offer it at a discounted rate to ensure the audience can get the products in their hands.
This year, Kelan is continuing to work on digital products that help readers get organized on top of their finances. In the long term, he and Brittany want to create a retreat called The Savvy Couple Retreat.
The retreats would be local and in different areas of the country. Eventually, they will also build a membership type program where the viewers will pay a fixed monthly price to be in the community.
Dustin’s brother loves playing poker, and he plays and teaches people online. He also has a podcast called The Smart Poker Study. Dustin’s brother was a part of Patreon, where people can donate money to him.
He was only making about $200-$300 a month with that, but Dustin encouraged him to create a membership. He now is making $2,000-$3,000 a month by switching business models.
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What Kelan Does To Give Back
Kelan and Brittany are a part of a handful of different groups at their church. They are also a part of a “pay nothing” group where they donate a lot of stuff regularly. This year, they went from surviving to thriving themselves to help people do that locally and online.
Kelan’s Steps to Get Started
Step #1: Write It Out
Sit down and purposefully write out what you want your life to look like in the ideal situation. Ask yourself what each hour of your day would look like, your morning, etc. The more detailed, the better because then you are focused more on the goal.
Step #2: Don’t Overthink It
Don’t overthink and just get started. Once you have your goal and know what you need to do to get started, just do it. Taking action far outweighs being perfect. That will continue to drive that progress forward.
Step #3: Be Persistent
Be persistent. When they began doing this, Kelan decided if it took five years or ten, he would do whatever it took to make it happen.
Kelan’s Advice To His Younger Self
He would tell himself to start a blog. Back when Kelan was 13, his dad showed him eBay for the first time. They started selling stuff on eBay together, and he loved it. He didn’t need a high school or college job because he made money from eBay and Amazon.
He remembers that even though he knew about blogging, he blew it off and thought it was stupid. But now, he would tell his younger self to start the blog.
Dustin has been encouraging his children to get into blogging, and he even purchased each of them their domain names. It only costs him $10 a year, and he is teaching his kids how to blog. He doesn’t even care if they use the domain, but it is there if they want it.
The One Tool Kelan Uses The Most
Kelan uses simple whiteboards and currently has three in his office. He likes to use them for braindumps and tasks he has to do, and that it easily erases. Kelan believes a whiteboard helps someone with ADHD that needs to write something down quickly before they forget.
Additionally, anything that you can use to give you positive ROI in your business or increase the time you have available for things you like, use those tools.
The NonFiction Book Kelan Recommends
The book that changed Kelan’s life was Work Less, Make More by James Schramko. The book is about the Eisenhour chart and focuses on increasing your EHR, Effective Hourly Rate. 
Effectively, anything you can do to increase your hourly rate, you will be able to work less, make more money, and have more free time.
Where You Can Find The Klines
Kelan and Brittany are on all social media platforms and available at thesavvycouple.com. They also invite you to join their Facebook group Family. Finance. Freedom., or send an email to savvyklines@gmail.com.