November 2017 – Blogging Income and Money Report

The November 2017 Blogging Income and Money Report is here and ready for you to check out!  Have a read to learn all about my money making, money saving, and investing for the month of November.  In this blogging income report, I will show you how I make $250+/hour blogging in my limited spare time.  I also show you how you can start blogging on your own and start making money for yourself!

This report is 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 November 2017 to see how we did:

  Actions Plans for November 2017

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

Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress

• Publish 5 regular posts for MoneyAhoy.com
  • COMPLETE – I was able to get 5 posts out despite moving across the country and starting a new job!
• Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
  • COMPLETE – I was able to hit this one pretty easily to keep myself in shape.
• Make over $1,200 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)
  • COMPLETE – I knocked this one out of the park.  Our total side-income for the month was $2,768!!

I kept the goals easy for the month since I knew I was going to be super busy.  I did a good job completing them, but maybe I set them a bit too easy?  Anyhow, let’s have a look at the money details!

 

 

Notes on Making Money for November 2017

November was a nice month for making money.  It was so nice in fact, that we set a new all-time high record.  This was due to a couple of factors: I got a final payout of my vacation from my old job while starting a new job.  So that was a small double dip.  My wife put in a lot of hours at her job, so that also helped to boost our income.  Side-income was also very nice at $2,768!

Side-income was a bit below the 6-month moving average, but I am still very happy with it!  The split for our side-income between MoneyAhoy.com and other sources was:

• $2,630 – MoneyAhoy.com income
• $138 – dividends

Yes, dividends were super-tiny for November, but I am expecting them to pickup for December.

For the MoneyAhoy.com income for the month, all this money was made in the month 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 income goal for 2017 remains to make over $1,000 each and every month of side-income money.  This would be MoneyAhoy income plus dividend payments.  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.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the total $2,768 in side-income for the month of November.  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:

• Website development – $1,100
  • This was the final payment and annual hosing for the website Made2Travel.org for a fellow reader that is starting his own business.  Go ahead and check it out now.
• How to Start Your Own LLC Online – $988
• Sponsored Posts – $202 (see how to get sponsored posts on your blog for more info)
• Youtube – $168
• Monthly Investment Dividends – $138 (JNK)
• Advertisements in sidebar – $75
• SeedingUp Digital Content Marketing– $47
• Amazon Affiliates – $26
• MyFinance end of post ads – $14
• Google Adsense – $10
• Stock Market Investing for Newbies book – $0
• TOTAL = $2,768

Website development (carry-over from last month) really helped to put some coin in my pocket.  I used my WordPress and web development skills to knock out an international traveling and dating site.  On the website front, if you are interested in starting a website, but don’t want to mess around with starting your own WordPress website, let me do the hard work for you!  Just contact me, and we can work out the details.

Dividends were very low for the month, but I expect that to pick back up now that I have rolled over my 401(k) into an IRA and have purchased several dividend paying stocks.  December is also typically a big month for dividends.

We are choosing 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 November 2017

November was a pretty terrible month for money saving in the grand scheme of things.  Our routine expenses were largely in control and normal.  But our non-routine expenses were sky high!  This is mainly because I have moved out to Oregon, but my wife and kids are still in Georgia.  As a result, we are paying tons of money for travel to see each other every ~3 weeks.  My wife and kids came out here for Thanksgiving, and I am heading back over Christmas to visit and help pack.

Here were the biggest non-routine expenses that ended up totaling nearly $4,000!

• $1,500 – Plane tickets for wife and kids to visit out here around Thanksgiving
• $899 – Plane ticket for me to fly back to Georgia over Christmas
• $277 – Hotel for wife and kids at the airport for two days (leaving and returning) since plan times were crazy
• $178 – Two days of hotel while coming out to Oregon
• $161 – Oregon rental car while waiting for my car to get shipped from Georgia
• $150 – Cash deposit to have car shipped out to Oregon
• $87 – Moving/packing supplies from Amazon
• $60 – Two checked bags I moved out to Oregon with just two suitcases full of stuff!
• $56 – Purchased a PO Box out here since we don’t have a permanent address yet

That’s just for the moving expenses!  We had one other fun thing happen – we took our son to Red Lobster for his birthday.  A family next to us came and gave him a $20 bill since it was also the father’s birthday.  We thought it would be a nice gesture to go ahead and pay for their meal to return the favor.  Well… once the check came for their meal it was $83!  Lol.

We now have a total of $20,131 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 over a year now, so we are getting close.  Her van has ~234,000 miles on it right now, and it is still going strong!  Now for the bad news when it comes to a new van.  We need to come up with some cash to cover expenses like a new down-payment on whatever home we buy in Oregon.  So, we will have to dip into this “new van fund” to fund our move.  We are trying to avoid selling any stock to raise cash, so this seemed like the best way.  After we move, buy a house, and all the dust settles, we will catch the van fund back up before continuing to invest.

Our overall savings rate for the month was 58%.  This was much lower than normal, but as you can see with all the travel, moving, and related expenses we will did pretty good.

Notes on Investing for November 2017

As I mentioned earlier, we are moving to Oregon!  As a result, we will need to raise quite a bit of cash to cover the moving expenses, down payment for buying a house, potential new furniture, etc.  In lieu of selling stock, we are deciding to take our savings each month and hold it in cash instead of investing it.  We will hopefully be able to save up enough so that we do not need to sell any stock and incur short/long term capital gains taxes.

I feel really bad about making this decision to put our stock market investing on hold, but I feel like it would be pretty dumb to buy a bunch of stock to turn around and sell it two or three months later to raise some cash.  Anyhow, this is just a short-term decision for us as we move.  I hope to begin investing regularly again by May, 2018.  The right thing for most readers will be to save and invest like we have been doing over the past several years :-).

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 single stocks like PIR 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 December 2017

I was able to hit all my goals for the month of November, so maybe I set them a bit too easy.  For December, I am going to miss about half of the month due to traveling back to Georgia and packing!  So, I think I need to keep the goals pretty light again due to this.  I also am trying to put in a lot of additional hours at work to get up to speed more quickly and start off on the right foot.  So, I am going to set goals on the light side again this month.

December 2017 Goals

• Publish 3 regular posts for MoneyAhoy.com
• Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
• Make over $1,200 / month in side-income (blog + dividend income)

Other Points of Interest

We sold our home for the asking price in just 5 days!!!  And it was a cash offer, so we saved ~$5,000 in closing costs.  WOW!!!  We really lucked out here.

I am still out here in Oregon with my new job living out of a suitcase 🙂  Our stuff won’t actually get here until mid-January, but it has been going OK so far.  I have gone about 3.5 weeks without seeing my wife and kids, so that is SUPER hard, but time is closing in when they’ll get out here.

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

1. Moving to Oregon!
2. October 2017 – Blogging Income and Money Report
3. Do You Need to Have Good Credit to Rent an Apartment?
4. Fundrise Takes The High Ground On Real Estate Pricing
5. Should You Give Your Kids an Allowance?

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:

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 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.
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 $43K 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 $69K 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!