How Jannese Torres Created A Six-Figure Food Blog and Reached Coast FI

Could a food blog replace your salary? Since quitting her job to become a full-time entrepreneur in May 2021, Jannese Torres has generated over $1M in revenue. With a six-figure food blog, Jannese creates easy Latin recipes inspired by her Puerto Rican heritage. If making six figures as a food blogger isn’t impressive enough, Jannese stopped blogging at the end of 2020 and hasn’t created new content since. She continues to earn six figures a year by occasionally updating old posts and reshooting older recipes. If you’re interested in monetizing a food blog or earning passive income with a blog, keep reading Jannese’s incredible story.

Jannese Torres is the author of Financially Lit!: The Modern Latina’s Guide to Level Up Your Dinero & Become Financially Poderosa. She is a nationally acclaimed Latina financial educator, writer, business coach, and host of the award-winning Yo Quiero Dinero Podcast.

She became an accidental entrepreneur after a job loss led her to create a Latin food blog, Delish D’Lites.

Over the past decade, she has built over ten revenue streams.

Now, she helps side hustlers build successful online businesses that allow them to pursue financial independence and freedom – not only from the nine-to-five grind but to define what success means to them.

Jannese is passionate about educating marginalized communities on topics like entrepreneurship, side hustling, investing, and building generational wealth.

In this episode of Millennial Wealth Builders, Jannese Torres shares her journey from side hustler to entrepreneur. She shares how she makes six figures from a blog and other income streams like digital courses and downloads, sponsored content, virtual workshops, and more.

Continue reading or listen to the podcast episode here.

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In this episode with Jannese Torres, we discuss:

• What was money like growing up
• Why Jannese started side hustling, although she graduated with a degree in molecular biology and chemistry and was making $75,000 a year in her 20s
• How she knew she was ready to walk away from her 9-to-5 job as an engineering manager at a Fortune 50 company
• Why she started Yo Quiero Dinero Podcast
• How she shows up authentically as a content creator
• Tips for making money as a food blogger
• What you need to make consistent income as a blogger

How To Make Money As A Food Blogger

Jannese Torres is a former engineer turned full-time entrepreneur. While Jannese wasn’t profitable for the first two years, she eventually turned her food blog into a full-time business. It took a lot of work upfront, but now she earns six figures in passive income through her blog.

Jannese Torress: So my food blog was never meant to be a business. And I think it’s because I didn’t actually know I was creating a business. I think a lot of side hustlers are guilty of this. We’re just like, you know, creating these things, and we don’t have a plan for them.

But after getting laid off about six months after starting my blog, I realized I had no desire to go back to work.

So after getting laid off, I took a course in food blogging. I spent a lot of time on Google and YouTube, teaching myself how you actually monetize an online brand, like a blog. And after two years, I was able to monetize it.

Committed to leveling up her skills, Jannese also purchased a camera to take better photos and learned how to leverage SEO (search engine monetization) to drive traffic to her site.

By 2021, Jannese quit her job to pursue entrepreneurship at 36 years old. She currently makes over $10,000 in passive income per month with her six-figure food blog. She strongly believes that you cannot have seven-figure dreams with a four-figure work ethic.

What does it take to run a six-figure food blog?

Jannese Torres: Fear kept me behind the scenes for a very long time. And I think that’s also why I became a food blogger, because I’m like, nobody cares about my face. They just care about my recipes. And even as a podcaster, too, I’m like, nobody cares about my face, I just got to show up and talk on a mic, and nobody will ever see me.

But it wasn’t until I gave myself permission to go beyond that, that things started to really happen for me.

That work ethic is not going to be able to replace any number of courses that you buy, any number of books that you read, any amount of advice that somebody gives you.

You have to start implementing the stuff that you’re learning because learning it is not enough. At some point, we’re done with the learning. Let’s get to work.

Are blogs still relevant?

Yes! A blog allows you to have an online presence. Think of it as your digital address or headquarters online.

Jannese says a website helps legitimize a business or brand. It can also be used as a resume or portfolio showcasing your products or services.

How to make money with a blog? 

With a blog, you can monetize with display ads by driving traffic to your site. This is how Jannese brings in six figures from a food blog a year.

As her traffic grew, she was able to work with more lucrative ad agencies. Jannese started with Google Adsense, then qualified for Mediavine, and now uses Adthrive to display ads on her site.

Jannese gets approximately 4 million users to her food blog, Delish Delites, a year and generates over $100,000 in passive income per year as a result.

You can also monetize a food blog with brand partnerships and sponsorships.

Affiliate marketing is another great option for beginner bloggers since they do not have traffic requirements. 

Skills to monetize a blog

Learning SEO (search engine monetization) has been a game changer for Jannese.

While social media has evolved and can be extremely helpful, Google is still a superior way to conduct searches. Millions of people use Google every day.

SEO is all about attracting an audience to your content.

Find topics that are underserved and create content people are searching for. Provide them with answers to their questions and address their pain points.

Some of the tools Jannese has used to conduct keyword research include Google Trends and Yoast SEO.

Jannese Torres: In order to actually grow your income as a business owner, you have to get very clear on what you have to offer that can help people and then be able to communicate that. Because when it comes down to it when people spend money on anything, it’s an emotional purchase. If you’re able to connect on the emotional level with somebody and show them how working with you or buying whatever it is that you sell can have some sort of transformational impact on them, that’s when you start to see the return on investment.

Diversify income streams

Jannese Torres: Diversify your income streams. When I was just blogging, I was just making a certain amount of money. But when I gave myself permission to not only have this one identity, but also try something else, that’s when things started to really take off.

I think it’s important to give ourselves permission to evolve as business owners.

What I was doing in 2013 is not what I’m doing now. And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that.

If you’re not creating passive income, and you have to show up for every dollar that you earn; you have literally created another 9 to 5 hamster wheel for yourself. So, if you take nothing else away from that, as you’re scaling your business, you must incorporate some sort of passive income, or you’re going to be on the hamster wheel forever.

Preparing Financially For Entrepreneurship

One of the big things that kept Jannese financially stuck was having a bunch of student loan debt and credit card debt.

In the financial independence movement, there’s a recurring theme. If you want more options in life, stop owing people money.

Becoming debt free was a big focus for Jannese and achieving that helped her better manage the eps and flows that come with running a business.

Memorable Quotes From Jannese Torres

• There are so many ways to make money on the internet. It’s limited by your imagination. 
• Creating a passive income source requires upfront work. 
• As you scale your business, you must incorporate passive income sources, or you might be on the hamster wheel forever. 
• Search engine optimization is a key principle in creating digital content. 
• Get comfortable asking for what you need. 
• Outsourcing is more than just hiring people. 
• Strive to do the best you can. 
• It takes time to build anything that makes money. 
• Don’t give up when things get hard.

Tired of reading? Listen to the podcast episode on Spotify here.

Connect With Jannese Torres:

Website: Yo Quiero Dinero (personal finance podcast for Latinas)

Website: Delish D’Lites (Latin food blog)

Instagram: @yoquierodineropodcast

Twitter: @dineropodcast

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Danielle Desir Corbett

Danielle Desir Corbett is an award-winning and 6x grant-funded travel writer and podcast host who went from financial struggle to visiting 27+ countries all without waiting until retirement. Her story is proof that budget doesn’t limit adventure. Tune into The Thought Card Podcast for practical strategies to travel smarter and live on your terms. Say hello: thethoughtcard (at) gmail (dot) com.

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