June and July 2018 Money Report
We are way, way late with this, but the June and July Monthly Blogging Income and Money Report is finally ready for your reading pleasure! We have been publishing these monthly updates for the past five years – and we are still at it for many more to come. Check out this report to learn all about our money making, money saving, and investing for the moths of June and July.
In this report, I will show you how I manage to make $250+ per hour blogging in my spare time. I will also show you how you can start blogging with no previous experience and start making money with your new blog. So what are you waiting for? Jump in and check it out now!
This report is chock full of tips and tricks to start your own business and start making extra side-income for yourself. If you would like to check out any previous monthly money reports, go here: monthly money reports. Let’s start with a review of our goals for June/July 2018 to see how we did:
Actions Plans for June and July 2018
Here is a quick review of how we did with our goals for the months:
Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress
- Publish 5 regular posts for MoneyAhoy.com
- Complete – we published a bunch of articles for the months of June and July which helped us reach this goal.
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- Complete – I was able to get this in each and every day, so I kept chain unbroken
- Make over $2,000 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
- Complete – we knocked this one out of the park! The total combined income for the past two months is $11,333. Much more on that below.
- Review the book: Wealth by Virtue by Chad Gordon
- No Progress – I did not take the time to review this book. It was great and helpful, but I fear I’e gone so long without reviewing it that I may just have to let this one go :-(.
- Post two videos on my Youtube channel
- No Progress – I did not take the time to post any new videos. My plan is to make a new video on how to start your own LLC – I just need to jump in there and do it!
As you can see, we did not do that great in terms of goals for June and July. There were a couple longer terms things I wanted to take care of that I didn’t get to. You win some and you lose some I guess!
Now, let’s get onto the money details for the month!
Notes on Making Money for June and July 2018
June and July were fanstasic months for our money-making performance. June racked up the second highest total combined monthly income on record, and July wasn’t too bad either! These two months put together were well above the 6-month moving average, so I’m very pleased with that performance. Our goal for 2018 has been to hit over $2,000 a month in side-income. We were able to crush that goal with a total two-month combined income of $11,333.
This $11,333 was comprised of:
- $7,351 – Dividends
- $3,983 – MoneyAhoy.com income
As you can see, dividends were super-strong for these two months. That was mostly due to nearly all the stocks we own paying a dividend in June. MoneyAhoy income was also very nice for the two-month period.
For the MoneyAhoy.com income for the two months, all this money was made in both months with just a couple of hours of total work spent on the blog. That means I am earning well over $250/hour on the average by running my own blog!! If that sounds awesome to you, maybe you should start a WordPress blog with Bluehost yourself? Check out my article linked there to get started on your money making journey all for less than $4 a month!
Our 2018 monthly money making goal is to make over $2,000 each and every month of side-income money. At the beginning of the year, it seemed like this would make for a great stretch goal. So far we’ve been able to beat this goal each and every month. I was nervous there for a bit, but it has not been too difficult.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the total $11,333 in side-income for the month of June and July. I have included links as much as I can to help you learn and see how I am incorporating affiliate programs into this blog to generate side-income:
- Monthly Investment Dividends – $7,351 (Symbols: PEP, INTC, JNK, BND, EFA, EEM, VBKVTI, VNQ)
- How to start a LLC for Cheap – $1,801
- Sponsored Posts – $1,090 (see how to get sponsored posts on your blog for more info)
- Youtube – $233
- ShareASale.com – $200 – an affiliate network that helps you earn commission when you refer products/services.
- Amazon Affiliates – $76
- Advertisements in sidebar – $75
- SeedingUp Digital Content Marketing– $50
- MyFinance end of post ads – $50
- Google Adsense – $14
- Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – <$2
- How to Start Your Own Blog – $0
- TOTAL = $11,333
As you can see, dividends made a huge difference for the two months. The article about how to start your own LLC continues to do well as well as the article about how to save money on your dog’s heartworm medicine. YouTube income was pretty steady, and I did get a couple of affiliate commissions on my article for how to get your own 1800 number.
The plan, as always, is to to reinvest all the dividends and MoneyAhoy earnings we make now so we’ll have more money down the road. That’s right – we take all of the stock market investment dividends and reinvest them to put the power of compounding interest to good work. I also use the money made here with the MoneyAhoy.com blog and reinvest it back into the blog (see How to Pay Yourself from your LLC) or invest the profits into the stock market. The power of compound interest is an awesome thing!!
Did you notice that monthly dividend graph slowly increasing? That’s because we are continually investing each and every month! If you’d like to learn more about investing, read my FREE book: Stock Market Investing for Newbies.
Notes on Money Saving for June and July 2018
Money saving for the month of June and July was decent. We had several large expenses for the month including a new, used van for my wife. We have been saving up for the van for nearly two years, and we finally pulled the trigger. I didn’t really count this in the numbers as we paid 100% cash for it and had been saving for it all that time. So, our overall savings rate for the months of June and July was 49%. As mentioned earlier, our routine expenses are going to be higher each month going forward as we moved into a more expensive home compared to our home in Georgia. Sadly, homes in our area in Oregon run about twice as much as comparable ones in Georgia L.
For the month of June, we were able to get our expenses below the 6-month moving average which was a good sign. Now that we were solidly in Summer, daycare costs helped to spring July way high. Also, we went on vacation in July, so that led to much higher expenses in this month. We also decided to keep the old “junker” van for a while to haul our bikes and kayaks around, but we had to replace the timing belt on it. Not cheap!!
Here are some of the larger non-routine expenses that we had for the past two months:
- $773 – timing belt replacement on our old van.
- $130 – Tripple A (AAA) renewel. There are tons of remote places we drive through in Oregon, and we feel it is worth the money and peace of mind to be a AAA member. We haven’t had to use AAA service yet, but it’s basically just like safety insurance.
- $125 – My wife got me a new grill for Father’s Day. We had to leave our old one in Georgia because it was basically disintegrating! This one is pretty run-of-the-mill which is great! Who needs one of those crazy $500+ stainless steel grills? It just sits there collecting dust 99% of the time.
- $45 – Spent about this much on the Steam Summer Sale for computer games. I got a bunch of deals, and we had a couple point-and-click adventure games for the family to play on vacation.
So, we had about $26,000 saved in our new van fund, but we only ended up spending $20,400 on the new, used van. So, we rolled a bunch of that extra money just back into our normal savings. We got a 2015 white Toyota Sienna with ~37,000 miles. That seemed like a pretty average price to pay, and we are happy with it so far. I’m writing this book while we’re driving in our old van now with 243,000 miles on it as we’re driving for a bike trip with 4 bikes on the back. So, by keeping the old van it is helping us to keep miles off of the newer van and we can beat the hell out of this older one without worrying too much about it. It costs about $16 a month to keep the old van on the insurance, so that isn’t too much damage!
Notes on Investing for June and July 2018
For the months of June and July, we kept things simple and invested all the money into SPY – this is the S&P-500 index fund and pays an annual 2.5% annual dividend. This is basically like investing in the top 500 companies in the US (usually these are global companies).
I really believe in long-term investing over time to increase wealth. You won’t find me engaging in any crazy day trading or investing in the latest new-fangled crypto-currency or anything. I do think I may buy some shares of companies that I use which offer great services such as DropBox or Spotify, but just a little bit of $$$ with an idea that I would hold onto these stocks for decades. Investing for the long-term is pretty boring overall, but that’s what long-term investing is supposed to be! If it is too exciting, then you are probably doing it wrong :-).
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 and September 2018
We did sorta bad with our goals for the month of June and July, so I would like to try and keep the goals for August and Septermber a bit easier. Here are the goals I’m setting for August and September:
August and September 2018 Goals
- Publish 5 regular posts per month for MoneyAhoy.com
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- Make over $2,000 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
- Post one video on my Youtube channel
- Finish up new website (more to come on this soon!)
Other Points of Interest
We had a chance to have my parents visit and my wife’s parents visit in July, so that was nice to see those guys.
If you’ve been following along with our couch we ordered from Wayfair in April, well we still don’t have the final piece!!! The right-hand-facing chaise was delivered, but it had 4 or 5 holes in the fabric that were the size of a thumb. Crazy! So, we are set to get a replacement at the end of September. That would mark 5 months between when we ordered the sectional and when we have the whole thing in our home. This assumes, of course, that Wayfair doesn’t screw it up again! I think this is my one and only experience in using them for anything…
If you missed any of our articles for the month of June or July, you can check out here:
- Getting a Mortgage: Here are 3 Things You Should Know Before Shopping
- May 2018 – Blogging Income and Money Report
- 5 Technologies You Need in Your Small Business
- Should You Expand Your Successful Business Overseas?
- How a Lawsuit Can Derail Your Financial Plan
- 7 Awesome Money-Saving Tips For This Year
- Becoming a Landlord – Is this still a viable option?
- How to Make Money With Your Phone – Cool New App
- Why You Should Pay Off Debt Before Saving
- 7 Tips for Working With a PEO Service Provider
- Technology and Small Business Working Hand in Hand
You Can Make Money Online Too!
Are you interested in making over $250/hour by running a simple blog?!? I thought you might be! I truly believe that anyone can make money online if they are willing to put in the a bit of time and effort to make it a success. There are just a couple of simple things you need to do to start on your journey toward online success:
- Start your own online business – You can start your own business online in just a matter of minutes. Check out my guide on how to start own business online. I show you how, in less than 6 minutes, to form your own business as an LLC! This article will teach you all the benefits of owning your own LLC for your business versus just skipping ahead to step #2.
- Start your own Blog – The next step is to start your own blog. Whether you will be blogging or running some other type of online business, you will need to setup a blog for your business. I show you step by step how to start a WordPress blog with Bluehost! If you have never run a blog before or don’t fancy yourself a writer, don’t worry. It is really simple, and the learning curve is very friendly.
I started MoneyAhoy.com just over three years ago without knowing the first thing about blogging. In that amount of time, I’ve made over $60K and my monthly blog income continues to grow and grow – just check out the blue portion of the income chart above! I have also saved over $84K with all the research and tips this blog has helped me to implement! Starting your own blog can truly be a life changing experience!
If you have ever thought about starting your own business or blog, then now is the time to get started! Don’t wait until you have everything figured out, or you will never start :-). You can get started with your online business or blog with just a few hours a week and build it up from there. The sky is really the limit with your business and/or blog income. With a little bit of elbow grease, you’ll be on your way to making thousands of dollars a month in no time! Click here to form your own LLC and click here to start your own blog and get started making money today!
