March 2014 – Money Making, Saving, and Investing Report
Welcome to the March 2014 Money Making, Saving, and Investing Report!
March 2014 was an interesting month overall for me – income and savings were both down, but I did really well with my goals 🙁
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Actions Plans for March 2014
Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress
- Finish the book: The Four Pillars of Investing
– COMPLETE!
- You can read my book review here.
- Sell at 5 things on Ebay – COMPLETE!
- Here’s what I sold…
- Wii game – Super Money Ball: Banana Blitz – $7
- Lot of 3 Holographic Pokemon Cards $2.50
- Wii game – Rayman Raving Rabbids – $7
- Corsair Computer Power Supply – $111
- Wii game – Wii Sports – $20
- Here’s what I sold…
- Finish chapter #5 of the Investing for Beginners book that I’m writing – COMPLETE!
- Post at 5 additional monetized YouTube videos – COMPLETE!
- I posted nine monetized videos total
- Get all of my MBA assignments done on time – COMPLETE!
- Got everything turned in on time and put forth good effort here.
I achieved all of the goals I set for the month! I think that’s the first time I’ve been 100%! Let’s look at the specifics for March 2014:
Notes on Making Money for March 2014
March saw income drop down back to normal levels. I got a raise at the end of February, so that’s always good 🙂 Google Adsense revenue was just shy of $50, so this was the best month yet for blog ad revenue 🙂 Amazon Affiliate income was still just around $2. YouTube income was only ~$5, and I had no article income this month 🙁 Ebay sales were OK at $145 because I had one large item sell. When all the dust settled for March, my total side hustle income was $203. Dividend income saw a nice pop and came in around $190 for the month – nice!
Notes on Money Saving for March 2014
Routine monthly expenses for March were nicely under control compared to previous months.
We had two big non-routine expenses for March that threw our expenses much higher than normal. We took a weekend trip to meet my Sister in Annapolis which ran ~$300 if you consider gas, hotel, and restaurants. Also, our house came with a hot tub when we purchased it. Well, it decided to die and the bill for repairs finally came through. After eight house calls from the repair company (please don’t get me started) and more than $750, the damn thing is finally fixed!
Because of these large non-routine expenses, our savings rate for the month was only 51%. Not bad, but not all that great either…
Notes on Investing for March 2014
For March, I picked up 101 shares of VEA at a price of $41.30 for a total of $4,171 invested for the month of March. VEA is the Vanguard FTSE developed markets ETF. This stock pays a quarterly dividend (3.3% annually). This ETF gives me exposure to Europe, Australia, and Japan. Ideally, I’d like to have 15% of my portfolio allocated to developed markets outside of the US. I feel like VEA is perfect for that sort of thing.
Actions Plans for April 2014
- Read the book: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
- Sell at 5 things on Ebay (I need to list a bunch more stuff – I’ve been slacking here)
- Finish chapter #6 of the Investing for Beginners book that I’m writing
- Post at 7 additional monetized YouTube videos
- Develop and post math & science tutoring “brochure” – that’s right. I’m going to try my hand at tutoring!
- Finish my MBA!!! Only one more week to go!!!
Other Points of Interest
- Here are the posts I created for the month of March:
- Save Money and Lose Weight Today!
- How to Get Sponsored Posts on Your Blog
- How To Save Money at the Grocery Store (guest post)
- Money Saving Idea – Pirating
- Book Review – The Four Pillars of Investing
- How To Save Money On Shoes
- How to Punish Your Child – Charge Them!
- I purchased a nice microphone (Audio-Technica ATR2100
) to perform MoneyAhoy videos and gaming videos with. This should greatly improve my YouTube sound quality.
- I was also able to break below 135,000 on my Alexa ranking! I’m making steady progress here thanks to the Yakezie challenge!
What are your money saving, money making, and investing plans for April?
Wow, congratulations on a super productive month and being only a week away from completing your MBA! I’d love to hear more about your monetized YouTube videos. Best of luck with your April goals. Keep up the amazing work!
Addison @ Cashville Skyline recently posted…Wading into the Kiddie Pool of Dividend Growth Investing
Addison,
Thanks for the words of encouragement Addison. I’ll write up more about the videos I post in the April monthly review 🙂
You did great for the month of March, Derek! I like how you’ve got the charts/graphs all set out. We’re still recovering from super high heating bills this past winter, but hoping to do better financially in May. 🙂
Laurie @thefrugalfarmer recently posted…Garden 2014 Update
Laurie,
Thanks for stopping by. I’m right there with you on the super high heating bills! Thanks for your compliments 🙂
Congrats on almost being done with the MBA. That’s got to be a big relief off your shoulders!
MMD recently posted…Can the Experts Really Help Us Find Good Stocks to Invest In? Letâs See for Ourselves
Thanks MMD – not 100% done yet, but I’m sure our final presentation and paper will go smoothly 🙂 It is a great weight that will be lifted off of me and my fam!
$111 for a power supply – that must have been a heck of a power supply!!! I’m currently going through a round of selling things on craigslist too…and it’s not going very well. I did sell an old cell phone but the rest of my stuff is still sitting out there. It’s probably time to refresh my listings.
Brock @CleverDude recently posted…Sampling Grapes In the Produce Section: Smart, or Just Being Cheap?
Brock,
It was 850 watts. I had one fail, so I bought a second one while the first was out for warranty repair. Instead of repairing, Corsair just sent me a whole brand new one – so it’s been sitting in the closet for the past 2 years collecting dust. I finally decided to sell it 🙂