June 2017 Money Report
Well, it’s been a while, but the June 2017 Money Report is now ready. Read on to learn more about how I successfully make over $250/hour blogging in my spare time. I also discuss out money making, money saving, and investing performance for the month. The money report is chock full of helpful tips on how you can start your own business and start making extra money! Let’s jump right in, but first if you’d like to view any previous monthly money reports go here: monthly money reports. Let’s start with a review of our goals for June 2017 to see how we did:
Actions Plans for June 2017
Here is a quick review of how we did with our goals for the month:
Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress
- Publish 6 posts for MoneyAhoy.com
- COMPLETE – I was able to complete 6 articles for the month on the blog.
- Read the book: Manifest $10,000 by Cassie Parks
- COMPLETE – I read the book, and it was pretty interesting to say the least. I would give the book maybe a 2.5 out of 5.
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- SOME PROGRESS – I had several missed days of exercise for the month, so I gotta mark this one orange.
- Get to 3,600 Pinterest followers
- COMPLETE – MoneyAhoy has over 3,700 followers on Pinterest.
- Make over $1,200 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
- COMPLETE – we totally blew this one out of the water – read on to find out just how well we did.
We kept the goals a little easier for June, and we did really well at hitting them. We had a busy month, but we were still able to do well here which feels good. We have a busy month of July coming up too, so we will try to keep the goals realistic as well :-).
Now let’s get onto the money discussion!
June 2017 – Money Report
Notes on Making Money for June 2017
We had a really nice month for total income in June as you can see in the graph above. MoneyAhoy income and dividend income was on fire and the combined amount set a new high record! This nearly doubled the previous high record which is crazy!
Total side-income for June came in at $5,469. This was a new record amount of total side-income plus dividends and blew the previous record out of the water. This additional income helped to push our total income for the month above the 6-month running average. The split between MoneyAhoy.com income and dividends was:
- $3,595 – dividends
- $1,874 – MoneyAhoy.com income
For the MoneyAhoy.com income for the month, all this money was made in the month with less than 6 hours of total work spent on the blog. That means I am earning over $250/hour 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 new income goal for 2017 is to make over $1,000 each and every month of side-income cash (MoneyAhoy.com blog income plus dividends). You can see that we are averaging more than this if we can continue our money-making momentum, but I’d like to try and make $1,000 each and every month (even in the light dividend months) just to prove I can do it. Hitting this monthly goal for June was easy!
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the total $5,469 in side-income for the month of June. 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 – $3,595 (INTC, JNK, EFA, EEM, VBK, VTI, VNQ )
- Starting your own LLC on-line – $1,118
- Sponsored Posts – $375 (see how to get sponsored posts on your blog for more info)
- How to Start your Own WordPress Blog – $130
- Ad Brokering – $100 (helping another blogger get in contact with advertisers)
- Youtube – $82
- SeedingUp Digital Content Marketing– $42
- Advertisements in sidebar – $25
- MyFinance end of post ads – $9
- Google Adsense – $5
- Amazon Affiliates – $2
- Stock Market Investing for Newbies
book – $2
- TOTAL = $5,469
As you can see, that’s a lot of dividends. It would be tempting to take those dollars and spend them right away. But, we are choosing to invest them 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.
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 2017
Our total savings for the month was not all that great :-(. We had a couple of large routine expenses and non-routine expenses that really caused us to spend quite a bit for the month – basically the highest spend in a year.
The largest routine expenses we had were associated with a hotel, restaurants, parking, and gas while the family and I visited my sister up in Pennsylvania. We spent over $675 for a five night stay in a hotel, had a couple meals out to eat, and parking/gas charges related to getting to the airport. It was totally worth it though. I got to see my new niece, and she is a cutie.
For non-routine expenses, we had a couple heavy hitters. Here are some of the biggest ones:
- $750 – grooming fees for our two dogs ($130), and vet payments for both of them when they got terribly sick! I plan to do a whole complain-post about this one coming up soon.
- $700 – I bought a sea kayak I found on craigslist that I hope to put to good use as it cools off a bit in the coming months. The sea kayak is normally $2,000 new, so I got a pretty good deal on it. I also had the seller throw in a fiberglass paddle for free!
- ~$100 – wedding anniversary present.
We now have a total of $14,600 in our new van fund. We continue to put $1,000 a month away so that we will have enough to replace my wife’s van when the time comes. We have been saving for a bit over a year now, so we are getting close. Her van has 226,000 miles on it right now, and it is still going strong! In just a couple more months, we should be able to have enough set aside for a pretty decent one. If we decide to continue holding out longer and continuing to save, we’ll just be able to afford one that is much nicer. Basically, it is just a question of “when to cash in the chips.”
Our overall savings rate for the month was 48%. This is a bit on the lower side due to the pretty high expenses for the month. I hope to get our savings rate even higher in the months to come. We know that spending is going to be high for July with our trip to Ireland, but we’re going to do our best to save where we can.
Notes on Investing for June 2017
For the month of June, I purchased 42 shares of VBK for a total of $5,980. VBK is the Vanguard Small-Cap Growth exchange traded fund (ETF). This fund is a passively managed fund which tracks an index which follows smaller companies (higher risk and higher potential reward). This ETF is currently paying an annual dividend yield of 1.00%.
You won’t find me engaging in any crazy day trading or investing in single stocks like SnapChat or anything. 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 July 2017
We know July is going to be really busy as we are on our Ireland family vacation. Because of this, we are going to set the goals pretty low so that they are realistic.
Here’s what I am thinking:
July 2017 Goals
- Publish 6 posts for MoneyAhoy.com
- Publish 2 videos on Youtube
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- Get to 3,800 Pinterest followers
- Make over $1,200 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
Other Points of Interest
A point of interest for the month of June is that the MoneyAhoy YouTube channel hit over 1,000 subscribers in June!! I plan to do a celebratory post on this soon. If you haven’t subscribed yet, go ahead and do it now!
Here are all the great MoneyAhoy.com posts for June if you happened to miss any:
- A Quick Guide to Establish an Emergency Savings Fund
- What Are the Safest Online Payment Methods?
- What to do When Your Insurance Doesn’t Cover Mental Healthcare
- 5 Signs You’re a Good Fit to Work Flexibly
- Here’s Why You’re Behind on Retirement Savings
- May 2017 Money Report
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 and setup your own LLC 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 on your own 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 $35K 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 $59K 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!
