To monetize or not to monetize?

Hi Everyone!

I’m still on my semi-hiatus and it’s felt really good. I took a step back from NetGalley and have almost completely disconnected from the blogosphere. I’ve just been able to relax a bit and not really stress about getting ARCs read on time, etc. I’ve also been able to read some books that I’d been meaning to read, but hadn’t been able to get to (and even reread a couple of old faves!).

But there are some changes looming on the horizon. Baby is due in May and at that point I’ll be quitting my full-time job to become a full-time mama. I feel that at this point I will need some kind of project for myself and I hope that reading and this blog can be that project.

Now I come to the question in my title. I’ve briefly thought about upgrading my WordPress account in order to monetize in the past, but I didn’t feel that I posted regularly enough or generated enough views for that to really make sense. Now I find myself thinking about it again and I just wanted to find out what experience you guys have had with monetizing/not monetizing.

To those who decided not to monetize:
What made you decide not to monetize? Do you ever see yourself monetizing in the future?

To those who did decide to monetize:
What made you decide to monetize? Do you feel that it’s worth it? How much time per week do you spend working on your blog? (And if you don’t mind my asking) how much do you generally make per week?

Thanks for the help!