May 2018 Money Report
The May Monthly Blogging Income and Money Report is now ready for your reading enjoyment. We’ve have been publishing these monthly updates for the past five years now – and we are still at it! Check out the report to learn all about our money making, money saving, and investing adventures for the month of May.
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 May 2018 to see how we did:
Actions Plans for May 2018
Here is a quick review of how we did with our goals for the months:
Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress
- Publish 4 regular posts for MoneyAhoy.com
- Complete – I knocked out 4 total posts for the month of May.
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- Complete – I was able to hit the exercise goal for the month. My wife and I also started walking for ~45mins most evenings to get some extra calorie burning in!
- Make over $2,000 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
- Complete – We made $2,318 in total side income for the month of May.
- Review the book: Wealth by Virtue by Chad Gordon
- No Progress – I did not get around to reviewing this book for the monty of May. I will see if I can get this done for June.
We did OK for hitting our goals for the month of May. I’m a bit disappointed that I did not make the time to review the Wealth by Virtue book, but I hope to get to this in June.
Now, let’s get onto the money details for the month!
Notes on Making Money for May 2018
May was an OK month in the money-making department. We had decent side income and a pretty routine income from our normal day jobs. Our total income for the month was below the 6-month moving average and the lowest since January, but we were still able to hit our side income goals once we neared he end of the month!
Side-income for May was $2,318. This was comprised of:
- $1,559 – MoneyAhoy.com income
- $759 – dividends
Dividends were light for the month of May as you can see. But, dividends should pick up nicely in June by several thousand dollars. MoneyAhoy income was pretty much just avreage for the month with nothing really out of the ordinary.
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. It is a large stretch, but I think with enough hard work we can hit it more often than we miss it. For the month of May, we were able to hit the goal. I was nervous there for a bit, but we have now hit the goal each and every month for 2018 so far!
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the total $2,318 in side-income for the month of May. 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:
- Steps to quickly start your own business online for cheap – $908
- Monthly Investment Dividends – $759 (JNK, BND)
- Sponsored Posts – $339 (see how to get sponsored posts on your blog for more info)
- Youtube – $134
- Amazon Affiliates – $111
- SeedingUp Digital Content Marketing– $34
- MyFinance end of post ads – $25
- Google Adsense – $9
- ShareASale.com – $0 – an affiliate network that helps you earn commission when you refer products/services.
- Advertisements in sidebar – $25
- How to Start Your Own Blog – $0
- Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – <$1
- TOTAL = $1,559
As mentioned, dividends were weak for the month – this was expected. The article on how to start your own business did well for the month. Youtube income and Amazon Affiliate income also saw a very nice jump. No new monthly records, but a very nice amount none the less!
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.
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 May 2018
Money saving for the month of May was not so good. We had several large expenses for the month, but we still managed to squeak out a total 59% savings for the month. 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.
As you can see, routine expenses are higher than they have been for a very long time. Expenses are also running higher because the kids getting out of school and having to foot the bill for daycare and summer camps. I may also have mentioned this last month, but our health insurance monthly costs are also going up by 47%!!! Not fun!
Routine expenses were also pretty high as we need to purchase several items for our new home. Hopefully we’ll get most of that completely taken care of in the next month and that will level out. I counted smaller items for the home as routine expenses and categorized some of the really large expenses as non-routine just to better track them.
Here are some of the larger non-routine expenses that we had for the past month:
- $2,232 – new couch sectional from Wayfair. We replaced our two couches that have lasted us about ~13 years. We were questioning if we should even move the couches to Oregon with us, because they were in pretty bad shape from general wear and tear and dogs chewing some holes in them (yes to read that right).
- $315, $200, $150 – basketball camps for the kids and wrestling camp for our son.
- $270 – ping pong table plus the delivery fee. We had ordered one through Walmart and went to pick it up, but it was damaged. So we ordered another one to have it delivered, but that one was also damaged! On the third try, we actually got one delivered that wasn’t messed up.
- $100 – Stuff from Amazon for our new home.
We now have a total of $25,131 in our new van fund. We continue to put $1,000 a month away plus any extra that my wife is able to work with her second job. We have been saving for a bit two years now, and we are really close to getting a new van for my wife. Her van has ~242,000 miles on it right now, and it is still going strong! Now that we have a home and have settled in, we are starting to search seriously for one. I’m actually typing this article up now while we are on the way to check one out. We’ll see if we can get lucky and find a good deal.
Notes on Investing for May 2018
For the month of May we invested in the Real Estate exchange traded fund (ETF) VNQ. VNQ is the Vanguard Fund Real Estate Fund ETF and pays an annual 4.6% dividend. It is basically like investing in commercial real estate with much of the appreciation coming from lease payments that roll into dividends and capital appreciation.
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 (which are continuing to take a huge hit by the way). 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 June 2018
We did so-so with our goals for the month of May, and I would like to try and improve a bit for June. Here are the goals I’m setting for June:
June 2018 Goals
- Publish 5 regular posts for MoneyAhoy.com
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- Make over $2,000 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
- Review the book: Wealth by Virtue by Chad Gordon
- Post two videos on my Youtube channel
Other Points of Interest
We had a very normal month without anything really out of the ordinary to write home about.
I mentioned up above that we paid quite a bit for a new couch sectional from Wayfair. Well so far, that has been a complete disaster!! We ordered the sectional on April 16th, and we are still waiting for it to arrive correctly. They lost 3 of the 5 pieces, and the chaise they delivered does not match the couch side piece! Then when correcting the order, they ordered the wrong thing again. So, hopefully we will have everything correct and to us by mid-July – three months after our initial order!
If you missed any of our articles for the month of May, you can check out here:
- MoneyAhoy.com is Five Years Old!
- March and April 2018 – Blogging Income and Money Report
- Your Complete Guide to Buying a Car
- IQ Option Receives Glowing Review From Experts
- The Best Ways for Online Companies to Attract New Customers
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 $58K 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 $80K 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!
