July 2015 Money Report

It’s time for the July 2015 Money Report!  There is lots of great stuff to share this month, so just in and check it out!!

To view any previous monthly money reports, check these monthly money reports.

Actions Plans for July 2015

We will start with a review of my goals for the month of July to see how well I hit them:

Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress

• Write 8 posts for MoneyAhoy.
  • Complete – I had 8 posts total for the month of July!
• Register new health blog domain and get the WordPress site setup.
  • Complete – After evaluating more than 500 potential names, we landed on the site name HealthierDay.com !  Go have a look and let me know what you think!
• Create two new videos on money saving/making/investing for my MoneyAhoy YouTube channel
  • No Progress – I did not get to producing any videos for the month of July 🙁
• Switch our cell phone plan from AT&T over to Cricket and save $48 a month
  • Complete – you can read about our entire hellish progress here: Cricket Wireless Review – Should You Switch?
• Read the book: Learned Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman
  • Some Progress – I made it part way through the book, but have not finished it yet.  My wife has decided to read this, so she is hogging it at the moment 🙂

It looks like I completed ~3.5 out of the 5 goals for the month.  It was really important to me that we finalized our plans for the health blog and got the site registered.  We were able to do so, and I really like the name!  There will be more to come on this soon, but if you get a chance you can go check it out now:  www.HealthierDay.com

 

Now, let’s see how we fared financially for the month of July:

 

 

Notes on Making Money for July 2015

Our total income was up quite a bit for the month of July!  My wife has been working a lot of extra hours over the Summer, and it really helped boost our monthly income.

You can see that dividends really shot through the roof in July!  That was VERY nice to see that things are starting to pick-up the pace in this area.  I continue to reinvest all the dividends that get paid out to take advantage of compounding interest.

Strictly speaking for side-hustle income, MoneyAhoy tied the all-time money making record at nearly $800 for the month.  This was the first time in MoneyAhoy.com’s history where the income from this blog was enough to pay our monthly mortgage!!!!!!  That is a huge accomplishment that I set for myself, and I’m very proud of the progress this blog has made over the past 2+ years.

Let’s break down the details on side-hustle income for July:

• Monthly Dividends – $1,710
• Sponsored Posts – $520
• Create your own LLC Affiliate Links – $188
• Youtube – $35
• Google Adsense – $19
• Ad in sidebar – $25
• Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – $6
• TOTAL = $2,502

Total side income (dividends plus side-hustles) came in at $2,500+ for the month!  That’s like having a second job where I get paid hundreds of dollars an hour!!!!  Now, if only I could make this much side income every month 🙂

Notes on Money Saving for July 2015

Total expenses were higher than normal again for the month.  This is mainly due to three factors:

1. Summer childcare – $790 for the month (we were watching our niece for the Summer, so we had the rate for three kids).
2. Cricket Wireless sign-up – $550 for the month.  We should be reimbursed for half of this from my in-laws.  We each got new $130 phones (my wife’s old phone had a cracked screen and I had one of those old slide phones).  We also had to pay the first month’s service up front, so this $160 can really come out of this amount ($40 x 4 phones).
3. Gas was about $200 higher for the month since we took a trip to the beach for 4th of July and took a trip up to Richmond, VA towards the end of the month.

 

Overall we had a savings rate of 77% for the month!  I am more than happy with that!

Notes on Investing for July 2015

For July I purchased 270 shares of JNK for a little over $10,000.  JNK is the SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond ETF.  That’s fancy talk for Junk Bond ETF.  JNK pays an annual dividend of ~6.1%.

We march ever closer to having our cash at ~5% and the rest of our money invested in stocks, bonds, and real estate.  We are very close to hitting this target now.

If you are interested in stock market investing but don’t know where to get started, check out my excellent book: Stock Market Investing for Newbies.  It will get you up to speed with stock market investing very quickly!

Actions Plans for August 2015

Here are my goals for the upcoming month of August:

• Write 8 posts for MoneyAhoy.
• Roll-out our new HealthierDay website related to all things health!
• Create at least 2 new posts at HealthierDay.com
• Cancel our Kindle Unlimited membership (a post about this is planned soon)

With the roll out of the new site, I am keeping my goals kinda light for the month of August.

Other Points of Interest

If you hadn’t noticed up above, we finalized the name and registered the new blog HealthierDay.com !  This new health blog will focus on all things health and body such as:

• food
• diet
• fitness
• weight lifting
• mindfulness and meditation
• rehabilitation (dealing with and preventing injuries)
• kids health
• our personal monthly health progress report

We wife and I are really excited about working on this new blogging project.  Wish us luck!

If you missed any of the below posts for July 2015, be sure to check them out:

1. 16 Ways to Successfully Throw a Wedding That Fits Your Budget
2. Best Disney World Money Saving Tips
3. Cheap Tricks to Cool Yourself Down on the Hottest Days
4. How Meal Prepping Can Help Your Weekly Food Budget
5. Is Gold Still a Safe Investment Option?
6. Creative Ways to Upgrade Broken Household Items
7. Is Forex Market Trading Right for You?
8. June 2015 Money Report

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