August 2014 Money Report

Here’s another monthly Money Report coming at ‘ya!  This time it’s the August 2014 Money Report!  This month was a real outlier to say the least!  Read on to find out why.

To view any previous monthly money reports, check here.

 

 

Actions Plans for August 2014

Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress

• Take a vacation!
  • COMPLETE!  We had a great family vacation to Florida.  That extra tutoring money I made last month really helped here!
• Get our current house in Virginia listed for sale
  • DONE!  We got our house listed 8/3/14 – it was an ordeal, but we were able to pull together and get it in great shape.
• Find a new house in Georgia that is substantially cheaper than our current one (we’re talking half the price or more!)
  • YES!  We found a house in Georgia and put a contract on it.  It is LESS THAN HALF THE COST OF OUR CURRENT HOUSE!  More to come here in a future post!
• Finished the book the The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill
  • COMPLETE!  I made it through this book.  It was a bit better than the other Napoleon Hill book in my opinion, but nothing to write home about.
• Support my wife in finding a job in Georgia (like she really needs my help 🙂 )
  • ACED IT!  This one is going to make for another great post.  Major respect to my wife – she actually found a job before we physically moved down to Georgia!  Talk about good luck!!

 

There you have it – I set the bar pretty low because I knew that August was going to be super busy.  The good news is that we hit all of our goals for August.  That’s the first time I’ve hit all my monthly goals!  Maybe I was a little too easy on myself?

Notes on Making Money for August 2014

My wife officially stopped working at her full time job on 8/3/14.  Surprisingly, our income was actually higher for the month because she cashed out all of her accrued vacation.  I’m a little nervous about living on just one income for the time being, but I think we’ll be OK.  Side-hustle income was severely hampered due to our summer vacation and not having any time for tutoring.  Here are the side-hustle income highlights:

• Monthly Dividends – $72
• LegalZoom – $43
• Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – $27
• Ad in sidebar – $25
• Youtube – $20
• Google Adsense – $18
• Amazon Affiliates – $3
• TOTAL = $136

Total side income (dividends plus side-hustles) came in around $136.  That’s the worst performance of 2014, but it was really a “special cause” month with vacation and getting things ready for our move.  I had basically zero time for tutoring (a big money-maker last month).  So, I’m not that worried about it 🙂

Notes on Money Saving for August 2014

Routine expenses for August were the lowest since I’ve started tracking!  That’s what happens when you pull your kids out of daycare and save nearly $1,400 per month!  That’s one great benefit of my wife leaving her full time job.  Most other routine expenses were pretty much inline with previous months.

We had all kinds of non-routine expenses for the month.  Many of these were related to getting our house ready to sell.  Here are most of the larger ones where we had to shell out big bucks:

• Treating the house for potential termite activity – $825
• Vacation money (cash) for groceries and eating out – $600
• Vacation home rental (second portion of payment for 10 days) – $600
• Power washing the house (getting house ready to be listed for sale) – $350
• Legoland tickets while on vacation – $180
• Oven control board (crazy this failed one month before we needed to list our home for sale) – $136

With all of these non-routine expenses, our total savings rate for the month of August was only 31%.  Non-routine expenses for September will probably be high as well, but we should come out in a much better place once we are 100% moved into our new home and sell our hold home (fingers crossed).

Notes on Investing for August 2014

For the month of August, I made the conscious decision not to invest in the stock market.  With moving, we knew that we would need $30K – $40K cash for a down-payment on our new home in Georgia.  To keep things simple, we decided to just hang onto our cash for the month.

My plans are to invest double the normal amount in September (to catch things back up) once all the dust settles with the move.

If you are interested in investing in the stock market but don’t know where to get started, check out my book: Stock Market Investing for Newbies.  It will get you up to speed in no time!  I highly recommend it 🙂

Actions Plans for September 2014

This money report is late to the press for September, but here are my goals.  I downloaded a lot of Ebooks from Amazon Kindle Unlimited to listen to on the trip down to Georgia, so my goals include a lot of reading 🙂  Here they are:

• Start my new job and make a great first impression
• Close on our new home in Georgia
• Read the book: Instantly Raise Your Self Confidence
• Read the book: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
• Read the book: Managing for Success: Practical Advice for Managers
• Read the book: The Seven Things Your Team Needs to Hear You Say
• Read the book: The Art of Influencing Anyone
• Read the book: How to Win Friends and Influence People (50 Page Summaries)
• Get moved into our new home
• Get our old home in Virginia sold!

Because September is going to be another transitional month while we get settled into our new home, I focused on self-improvement type of goals vs. direct money making, money saving, or investing goals that will take up a lot of my time.

Other Points of Interest

• I made the long trip down to Georgia on 8/31/14 to start working.  My wife and kids will come down two weeks later to join me as we close on our new home.
• For the first two weeks of September, I’ll be living in a motor-home!
• It was a slow month for posts in August with all that I had going on.  Here is a listing of the posts I made:

1. Moving to Georgia – Triple Win
2. How to Save Money on Summer Vacation
3. July 2014 Money Report

What are your money saving, money making, and investing plans for September?