August and September 2018 Money Report
Welcome to the long awaited August and September Monthly Blogging Income and Money Report! 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 months of August and September.
In this report, I will show you how I manage to make $200 – $300+ per hour blogging in my spare time. I will also show you how you can start blogging or start your own business with no previous experience and start making money today. 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 August and September 2018 to see how we did:
Actions Plans for August and September 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 per month for MoneyAhoy.com
- COMPLETE – we had 12 posts total for the past two months, so we hit the goal
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- COMPLETE – I was able to hit this each day to keep my weight in check 🙂
- Make over $2,000 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
- COMPLETE – we knocked this one out of the part again with $7,750+ for this two month period – more on that below.
- Post one video on my Youtube channel
- COMPLETE – I did get one video up on How to Save Money on Heartworm Medicine for Your Dog
- Finish up new website
- COMPLETE – My new website YourSmallBusinessCoach.com is up and running now (still have a bit of cleanup, but its ready to open now)
We knocked our monthly goals out of the park for this period by completing all of them. That feels great to get them all done – I think it’s been a good while since we’ve achieved that :-).
Now, let’s get onto the money details for the month!
Notes on Making Money for August and September 2018
August and September were decent months for overall total household income. They were a bit on the lower side because my wife took several weeks off for vacation with the kids and her parents which came out to Oregon to visit.
Total side income for the two months as also pretty inline with where it has been trending for the past six months. No new records, but dividends plus MoneyAhoy.com income averaged just shy of $4,000 monthly. Not too bad!!!
Our goal for 2018 has been to hit over $2,000 a month in side-income. We were able to annihilate that goal with a total two-month combined income of $7,756.
This $7,756 was comprised of:
- $3,367 – Dividends
- $4,389 – MoneyAhoy.com income
As you can see, both dividends and MoneyAhoy.com side income were strong for these two months.
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 a cost to you of 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 $7,756 in side-income for the months of August and September. 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:
- Investment Dividends – $3,367 (Symbols: PEP, INTC, JNK, BND, VNQ)
- How to start an LLC for Your Small Business – $2,225
- Sponsored Posts – $1,330 (see how to get a sponsored posts on your website for more info)
- ShareASale.com – $300 – an affiliate network that helps you earn commission when you refer products/services.
- Youtube – $275
- Amazon Affiliates – $89
- Advertisements in sidebar – $75
- MyFinance end of post ads – $46
- SeedingUp Digital Content Marketing– $32
- Google Adsense – $16
- Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – $2
- How to Start Your Own Blog – $0
- TOTAL = $7,756
Very good results across the board to me. As you can see, there is pretty diversified income from several different streams. This is important for stability to not put all your eggs in one basket when making money online. Some income sources can dry up without much warning, so you can understand why diversification is important.
My plan has continued to be to reinvest all the dividends and MoneyAhoy earnings (after expenses) 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! We are at the point now where we are averaging a bit over $2,000 a month just in dividends! If you’d like to learn more about investing, read my FREE book: Stock Market Investing for Newbies. I put hundreds of hours into making a stock market investing book that is easy to understand, and I give it away for free just to help you guys improve your long-term finances!
Notes on Money Saving for August and September 2018
Money saving for the months of August and September was pretty good if I do say so myself. We’ve been focusing on trimming back our monthly routine expenses, and did an OK job of keeping our non-routine expenses in check (expect for one item I’ll detail below). We were able to get our routine expenses for September the lowest they’ve been in six month which is great! Our overall savings rate for these past two months averaged 59% – pretty good :-). With family visiting in August, that drove expenses up a bit with more groceries, eating out, hotels, and gas but things didn’t get too out of control.
Here are some of the larger non-routine expenses that we had for the past two months:
- $1,116 – We returned our sectional couch to WayFair as they discontinued the end chaise before we could receive that piece! We had six months of headaches waiting for our sectional and finally pulled the plug with Wayfair. Never again with that company!!! So, we bought a sectional that is locally made in Oregon. This was a bit more expensive, but it will actually fit our needs better and support the Oregon economy.
- $296 – Getting license plates and registration for my wife’s van.
- $120 – Birthday presents for my wife’s b-day.
- $116 – Family picture (we haven’t had one done is 2-3 years).
- $105 – Soccer registration for our daughter.
- $78 – Beachbody 3-day Refresh for my wife to try out.
Notes on Investing for August and September 2018
For the months of August and September, I continued to keep things simple and invest 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 think this is Warren Buffet’s recommendation for 98% of Americans that want to invest, so why not right?
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 startup like Snap Chat (down over 90% at this point since their IPO). I do think I may buy some shares of a company that I use which offer great services such as Spotify. I use this basically every day, so I think it may be a good long-term investment. 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 October and November 2018
We did well completing all of the goals for August and September, so I think I will keep these goals on the easier side just to ensure I can do well to achieve them again. It’s always nice to get energized by good momentum. Here are the goals I’m setting for October and November:
October and November 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
- Publish 2 new posts on YourSmallBusinessCoach.com
Other Points of Interest
I started a new website devoted to helping people start, run, and improve their small businesses. You can find it here: Your Small Business Coach. I still need to add in more detailed pages to it (like about and contact pages), but I have a couple articles up now just to get it started. Please go ahead and check it out and be sure to send me any feedback!
If you missed any of our articles for the month of August or September, you can check out here:
- Reduce Your Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Costs
- Funding Your Retirement: Financial Vehicles to Get You There
- 5 Inspirational Entrepreneurs You Probably Haven’t Heard Of
- Top 5 Money Making Apps For iPhone and Android Users
- How to Trade Forex News and More
- How to do Matched Betting in America
- The Dangerous Trend of Workers Using ADHD Medication
- June and July 2018 – Blogging Income and Money Report
- Tips to Make your Kid Financially Ready for College
- Cheapest Cities to Live in the US
- 5 Cheapest Cities To Live In Uk
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 $65K 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 $88K 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!
