Of Monetizing my Blog (or should I put up some ads)

So recently I was chatting with someone and they asked, “Why don't you have any ads up on your blog?”. The honest answer was that I had never considered it and wouldn't even know where to start.

So after some thinking, I really started to consider the option. We're officially in a recession, I have a new addition to the family as well as 3 teenage girls with ever-growing needs & in general, my expenses have gone up.

But I'm not keen on the idea of turning my blog into some banner rotating link farm and bombarding my readers with crap at every turn. I think it would devalue the blog to some extent but there has to be a good balance. I'm also not interested in selling my soul to blog about crap that I would never use or anything remotely associated with that. This is my little nook of the web & I don't want it viewed negatively.

Again, I'm not even certain how to start but I do really want to consider it. I just bought the book Problogger to see if it can give me some ideas. Maybe you guys can give me some advice. A few extra bucks certainly wouldn't hurt & would definitely help in at least paying my hosting fee! :D