September 2016 Money Report

My September 2016 money report is ready – better late than never right?  In this monthly money report I cover our money making, money saving, and investing performance for the month.  I also give you tips on how you can start your own side business and start making some $$$!

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

Actions Plans for September 2016

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

Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress

• Publish 6 posts for MoneyAhoy.com
  • COMPLETE – I had six posts for the month including one EPIC post on “How to Start a WordPress Blog on Bluehost“
• Publish 1 posts for HealthierDay.com
  • COMPLETE – my wife wrote one article about some leg pain she was suffering
• Create 1 YouTube videos for MoneyAhoy/HealtherDay
  • COMPLETE – I created two videos for the month.  Both were a review of the best vacuum cleaners for the money.
• Exercise at least 10 minutes every day
  • COMPLETE – I was able to take of this one without too much trouble.
• Put in 6+ hours a week on learning how-to and developing new computer games
  • No Progress – I did not devote any time this past month to working on game development :-(.

For the month of September I did pretty well with the goals I established.  I did not find the time to devote to game development, but I was able to hit my other blog related goals.  I am pretty happy with my results.  Now, let’s see how we did money-wise for the month of September:

Notes on Making Money for September 2016

September overall income for the month was great.  We had nice side-income and were able to hit a 3-month high – this was also the third highest month for income in 2016.  My wife put in a higher number of hours for the month, so this really helped to boost things.

The total side-income for the month was $2,165.  We got hit with a ton of dividends in September.  This helped to cushion a lower than average amount of earnings in the side hustle category.  Our total side-income was made up of $1,642 in dividends and $524 in various side hustles which I will detail below.  It was my main financial goal for 2016 to make enough from side-income to pay the mortgage each and every month.  We have another month where we’ve been able to hit that goal – this now makes it nine months in a row!  Have I mentioned yet that I love compounding interest?  Here is a breakdown of our side-hustle and dividend income for September:

• Monthly Dividends – $1,642 (JNK, PEP, INTC, VEA, VWO, VBK, VNQ)
• Start Your Own Online Business with an LLC– $277
• Sponsored Posts – $150
• Youtube – $68
• Ads in sidebar – $25
• Google Adsense – $4
• HealthierDay.com Adsense/Youtube- <$1
• Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – $0
• TOTAL = $2,165

Like I have been each and every month since starting MoneyAhoy.com, I am reinvesting the income we make month-over-month into the stock market.  This is why you’ll notice that the dividend income graph is every so slowly creeping up each and every month.  We plan to keep our investments for the long term and let the power of compound interest go to work.

Notes on Money Saving for September 2016

September was the best month for money saving so far this year!  Our total expenses for the month were $3,609.  We were able to trim a bit on groceries and we kept routine expenses low.  We did have higher expenditures with gas and eating out as we took a 3-day trip to Atlanta for our kids travel soccer.

As I mentioned, we were able to keep our non-routine expenses in check.  The largest non-routine expenses for the month were:

1. $145 – We registered the kids for recreational basketball.
2. $65 – Birthday presents for my wife.
3. $54 – Jug of Ivermectin and syringes for my DIY Dog Heartworm Medicine.  This should last us for several years!
4. $51 – We moved the family computer to another room and I bought some RG6 (Coax) cable to run for the cable modem.  I also created a video on how to create your own coax cable with threaded connectors to try and make this investment back over time :-).

We now have $5,600 saved up in our new van account to replace my wife’s van.  This is money that we are setting aside so that we can get a “new” used-van for the family maybe this time next year.  The plan is to set aside about $1,000 a month for that.

For the month of September, our overall savings rate was 75%.  It is hard to do much better than that!!  It doesn’t touch our best ever record of 82% savings in December of 2015, but it is certainly a result that I’m very happy with.

Notes on Investing for September 2016

For this month, I bought up 56 shares of VBK for about $4,200 for the month.  This is the Vanguard Small-Cap Growth ETF.  It is passively managed and pays out a 1.6% annual dividend.  If you did not already know, small-cap stocks are those of smaller companies (often “startup”) which have been found to grow more aggressively than more established stock (such as Microsoft or IBM) over time.  Of course, the down side to investing in these stocks is that they are more risky.  The higher the risk you take, the more pronounced the potential reward.

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 October 2016

I have put together some pretty simplistic goals for the month of October.  I think I will be super busy this month, so I am trying to be realistic with my time.  We will see how I do.

October 2016 Goals

• Publish 6 posts for MoneyAhoy.com
• Publish 1 posts for HealthierDay.com
• Create 1 YouTube videos for MoneyAhoy/HealtherDay
• Exercise at least 10 minutes every day
• Comment on over 100 blogs with links back to MoneyAhoy.com

I also want to shift my time so that it is more devoted to building up residual income versus just creating new content.  So, this means I will be spending more time marketing for MoneyAhoy.com and trying to focus on affiliate opportunities for the long term.

Other Points of Interest

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

1. How to Save Money on Heartworm Medicine for Your Dog
2. You Still Have Not Cut The Cable Cord?
3. August 2016 Money Report
4. 6 Ways to Save Money on Plumbing
5. Understanding Oil Wells and Gas Investments
6. How to Start a WordPress Blog with Bluehost

You Can Make Money Online Too!

Are you interested in making a couple thousand extra dollars a month?  I thought so!  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:

1. 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 form your own LLC online.  I show you how in less than 6 minutes to form your own business as an LLC!  I also discuss all the benefits of owning your own LLC for your business versus just skipping ahead to step #2.
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 on how you can start your own blog for as little as $3.49 a month!  If you have never run a blog before or don’t fancy yourself a writer, don’t worry.  It is really simple, and the growth 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 $20K and my monthly blog income continues to grow and grow.  I have also saved over $50K with all the research and tips this blog has helped me to implement.

If you have ever thought about starting your own business, 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 with just a few hours a week and build it up from there.  The sky is really the limit with your 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 get started!