Happy Birthday MoneyAhoy!

Happy Birthday MoneyAhoy!

MoneyAhoy just turned one year old over the weekend!  It’s been a great year overall and I thank you for joining me on this blogging adventure.  My goal for the blog was to help myself and others save money, make more money, and invest it!  This blog has been great for me personally, hopefully it has helped you in some way as well 🙂

Join me for a walk down memory lane as we  look back over some of the highlights of the past year!

Top-5 Posts

Here’s a listing of the top most popular posts for the past year:

1. Save Money on Cable – How to Watch Cable TV for Free by Switching to Online TV – I created a list of websites that allow users to watch online cable TV for free.  This post was extremely popular over the months.
2. Do You Need Short Term Disability Insurance? – This analysis was able to help me uncover that we didn’t actually need short term disability insurance.  By eliminating this, we’re saving $826 a year!
3. Progressive Snapshot Review – I love the Snapshot device.  It has helped us to save $60 a year.
4. Does High Deductible Car or Home Insurance Actually Save Money? – This was an analysis I performed to see what the best deductible would be for car and home.  It turns out my wife’s gut reaction was correct and going with a crazy high deductible is a terrible idea in the long run!  Just two months later I was hit by a deer randomly on my way to work.  I’m glad I didn’t go with the conventional wisdom and take out a policy with a super high deductible 🙂
5.  Frugal Guide for Buying a Used Car – Over the past year I was able to snag a great deal on a Corolla by using this guide I put together.  Check it out if you’re in the market for a new used car!

Money Results

Through the focus, motivation, and education that this blog drove me to achieve, I was able to achieve the following:

• Saving – We were able to save an additional $4,500 a year on all kinds of stuff.  Check out the Money Saving Master Table for the best ideas that I’ve found.
• Making – MoneyAhoy has motivated me to generate nearly $1,900 in additional side hustle income.  This is anything from Ebay sales, sponsored articles, and adSense/YouTube revenue.
• Investing – Our investments have generated $870 in dividends and more than $3,100 in capital appreciation!  Because of stupid investing mistakes years earlier, I was really damaged goods when it came to investing.  This blog helped me to get over my fixation with timing the market and develop healthy investing habits.

If you total everything up for the past year, MoneyAhoy.com alone has directly led to a $10,000 increase in our net worth!

What’s Next?

I’ve got a number of things that I’m currently working on in the money saving, making, and investing arenas.  Here are a couple of the major things I have planned for the next year:

• Continue to look for ways to save, make, and invest more money and blog about them here 🙂
• Write a beginner’s book to stock market investing (currently starting on the last chapter of the manuscript)
• Continue to crank out YouTube videos on saving, making, and investing money
• Start marketing my math/technical talents through tutoring (already have one potential client)
• Downsize our house – we plan to relocate if the right opportunity comes along.  Downsizing will help us across to the board and should save us thousands annually.

I hope you’ll stick with me over the following year to see what type of progress I’m able to make with all of these things.  Now that I’m finished with my MBA, I should have a lot more time to devote to this blog and other money making pursuits.  If you have suggestions on how I can make the blog even better, please comment here or send me an email!!

Check out these other great MoneyAhoy posts:

MoneyAhoy.com is Three Years Old! MoneyAhoy Featured Article at DealSpotr.com! MoneyAhoy.com is Two Years Old! MoneyAhoy.com is Four Years Old!