July 2016 Money Report

Our July 2016 Money Report is ready to go.  It was an interesting month to say the least.  Jump in and check it out now to get info on our income, savings, and investing.

To view any previous monthly money reports, check these monthly money reports.  Let’s start with a review of our goals for July 2016 to see how we did:

Actions Plans for July 2016

Here is a quick review of how we did with our goals for the month of July:

Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress

• Publish 8 posts for MoneyAhoy.com
  • Almost There – I had 7 articles total for July
• Publish 1 posts for HealthierDay.com
  • Complete – We had 2 articles total for July
• Create comments on  30 other blogs to build link juice to MoneyAhoy
  • Some Progress – I had 15 comments on other blogs
• Create comments on 30 other blogs to build link juice to HealthierDay
  • No Progress – I didn’t get around to posting and HealthierDay comments on other blogs 🙁
• Create 1 YouTube videos for MoneyAhoy/HealtherDay
  • No Progress – I did not take the time to make any YouTube videos either
• Exercise at least 10 minutes every day
  • Complete – I was able to get this one done.  I am probably averaging 20 minutes of exercise/weights a day
• Put in 4+ hours a week on learning how-to and developing new computer games
  • Complete – I put a huge focus in this area.  I probably averaged 25+ hours a week for the month.  That’s why I didn’t get to a lot of the other goals above 🙂

I did not do so hot with my July goals as you can see.  The wife and kids were out of town for ~2 weeks in a trip back to Richmond.  So, I used those huge blocks of alone time to devote towards working on developing a new computer game.  See the other points of interest section below for more specifics.  No regrets!!!

Here’s how we did money-wise for the month of July:

Notes on Making Money for July 2016

As you can see from the graph above, we went from having the highest income on record for June to the lowest monthly income in nearly two years for July :-(.  Ouch!

The main reason our monthly income being so low is that my wife was off work for the second half of June and half of July for various vacations.  Because she’s hourly, this translated to her making less than half of her normal monthly amount.  She did take on a second part-time job, so that should help a bit going forward if she can receive some routine hours.

The total side-income we had for the month was $1,515.  Not a record, but not too shabby either IMHO.  This was comprised of $837 in dividends and $679 in side hustle income.  As you’ve read, my goal all along for 2016 is to try and earn enough with dividends and MoneyAhoy.com income to pay our home mortgage bill each month.  We are going strong at 7 months in a row where we’ve hit this goal.  It is all very exciting as we are getting closer and closer to financial independence each and every month.  Here’s a breakdown of our side-hustle and dividend income for July 2016:

• Monthly Dividends – $837 (JNK, SPY)
• Sponsored Posts – $380
• Startup your on-line LLC today – $222
• Youtube – $45
• Ad in sidebar – $25
• Google Adsense – $3
• Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – $3
• HealthierDay.com Adsense/Youtube- <$1
• TOTAL = $1,515

We continue, month after month, to take our routine dividends and reinvest them into stocks so that we can take advantage of compound interest.  This is allowing our investment portfolio to grow and grow for the long term.  I know I have said this 100 times, but I really love watching that monthly dividend graph get higher and higher over time :-)!

Notes on Money Saving for July 2016

We were a bit higher on our total monthly expenses for the month mainly due to routine expenses that you would expect to incur in the Summer:

1. $240 – Summer daycare for two weeks in July.
2. $200 – extra gas expenses for July associated with driving around vacation.  My wife drove up to Richmond and back – that’s ~1,000+ miles!
3. $120 – extra expenses associated with groceries for vacation.

Our non-routine expenses were on the lower side for the month (yeah!), but here were the big hitters:

1. $400 – Had to replace both front CV joints on my wife’s 2004 Toyota Sienna.  One of them literally fell apart in the mechanics hand, so it’s a really good thing we did this as it could have cause a severe accident had it failed while she was driving at high speeds!
2. $300 – Kids back to school clothes.  We normally get most of these from yard sales, but my wife decided to splurge a bit at the outlet mall close to Richmond and stock up.  Can’t say I necessarily agree, but what is done is done :-).
3. $150 – Kids soccer uniforms.  Required for their travel soccer season that we signed them up for.

I hope to see our expenses drop back off in August as the kids are back to school (no daycare) and we get back to work (less driving around and gas).

We have about $3,500 in our new van account saved up at this point.  Now that we changed the CV joints and had the tires rotated, it drives very smoothly.  I think we have 2-3 years left on it before we start to get into major problems.  By that point, we’ll have way more than enough to get a nice used one.

For the month of July, our overall savings rate was 53%.  This isn’t really counting the $1,000 for the new van as we know we’ll spend that some time soon.  That’s pretty good for the month.

Notes on Investing for July 2016

For this month, I bought up 110 shares of JNK for about $3,925 for the month. JNK is the SPDR Barclay’s Capital High Yield Bond Fund (otherwise known as junk bonds).  This is an ETF that is passively managed and is currently paying an annual yield of ~6.67%.

If you truly want to gain financial independence, then you need to learn more about investing to build your long-term wealth!  Investing in the stock market is one way to build up your passive income stream.  Check out my free stock market investing Ebook to get started on your own stock market investing journey now!

Actions Plans for August 2016

Below are my goals for the upcoming month of August.  As you can see, I am shifting efforts a bit from commenting on blogs to build link juice to working on the new computer game.  I really enjoy this, and may be able to monetize this at some point :-).  Hopefully the reduced time spent on marketing for MoneyAhoy.com does not cut into my long term monthly income too much.  If so, I may need to adjust how I spend my free time a bit…

• Publish 8 posts for MoneyAhoy.com
• Publish 1 posts for HealthierDay.com
• Create 2 YouTube videos for MoneyAhoy/HealtherDay
• Exercise at least 10 minutes every day
• Put in 6+ hours a week on learning how-to and developing new computer games

Other Points of Interest

Below is a cool animated gif of the main computer game project I’m working on in Game Maker Studio.  It is still VERY far from finished, but several concepts are starting to come together.  It’s really cool when you get what you’ve visualized in your head working on the screen :-).

Here are all the great MoneyAhoy.com posts for July if you happened to miss any:

1. Reasons to Invest In Financial Planning Services
2. Energy Saving Myths That Might Be Costing You
3. The Second Biggest Financial Mistake You Can Make
4. June 2016 Money Report
5. 4 Essential Questions to Ask Before Getting a Loan
6. 4 Ways to Save Money During the First Year of College
7. Top 9 Wall Street Movies of All Time