October 2017 Money Report
The October 2017 Blogging Income and Money Report is now ready for your reading enjoyment! Check it out to learn all about my money making, money saving, and investing for the month. In this blogging income report I show you how I make over $250/hour blogging in my spare time. I also show you how you get get started with blogging and do the same! This money report is full of tips and tricks to teach you how to start your own business and starting making extra side-income in your free time. 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 October 2017 to see how we did:
Actions Plans for October 2017
Here is a quick review of how we did with our goals for the month:
Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress
- Publish 6 regular posts for MoneyAhoy.com
- COMPLETE – I published exactly 6 posts for the month :-).
- Create at least 2 new posts with affiliate links from ShareASale.com
- NO PROGRESS – unfortunately, I was not able to make any progress on this goal.
- Publish 2 videos on Youtube
- NO PROGRESS – I did not get any videos posted for October – I filmed a couple, but they are still in progress, so that doesn’t count.
- Exercise at least 15 minutes every day
- COMPLETE – I was able to hit this important goal 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 for the month as side-income was over $5,200!
I did not complete as many goals as I would have liked for October, but I was super busy with getting ready for a new job. I also had some cool side work that came up to develop a new website that paid well. That took a bit longer than I predicted, so it did not leave a lot of remaining time. Now let’s have a look at the money details!
Notes on Making Money for October 2017
October was a very nice month for making money. Our routine income was pretty much normal, but it was side-income that really shined.
Side-income for the month came in a the second highest on record at $5,253!! This was way above the six-month moving average, and I am honestly surprised at how high it was for the month.
The split for our side-income between MoneyAhoy.com, other side-income, and dividends was:
- $3,307 – MoneyAhoy.com income
- $1,046 – dividends
- $900 – yard sale profit
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 $5,253 in side-income for the month of October. 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 – $1,500
- I developed the website Made2Travel.org for a fellow reader that is starting his own business. Go ahead and check it out now – it’s pretty cool 🙂
- Monthly Investment Dividends – $1,046 (JNK, SPY)
- Yard Sale profit – $900 – we sold a bunch of stuff in anticipation of our move to Oregon.
- How to Start Your Own LLC for Cheap – $767
- Sponsored Posts – $675 (see how to get sponsored posts on your blog for more info)
- Youtube – $174
- ShareASale.com – $100 – an affiliate network that helps you earn commission when you refer products/services.
- SeedingUp Digital Content Marketing– $42
- Advertisements in sidebar – $25
- MyFinance end of post ads – $15
- Amazon Affiliates – $29
- Google Adsense – $4
- Stock Market Investing for Newbies
book – $0
- TOTAL = $5,253
As you can see, the website development and the yard sale are what really put us over the top. We knew that we were moving to Oregon, so we went ahead and sold a lot of larger items that we felt wouldn’t be worth the hassle to move. 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.
On the dividend front, our dividends are going to be a bit lower month-to-month since we reduced our holding of junk bonds (JNK).
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 October 2017
We had a pretty decent month this time around for money saving. Our routine expenses were kept pretty low on the whole – the biggest thing that drove this a bit higher was eating out costs. These were higher than normal since we had company, and I had to buy all meals out while traveling for my job interview in Oregon.
For non-routine expenses, we had a couple large expenses for the month. But, it was nothing too outlandish. Here were the biggest non-routine expenses:
- $145 – our son’s birthday present. He wanted an iPad, so I had the screen on mine fixed and gave him mine. That’s a whole lot better than spending $500+ for a new one! Win-win 🙂
- $120 – several miscellaneous costs associated with my wife transferring her Physical Therapy license to the state of Oregon before we move.
- $75 – Lowes – we had to buy some pine straw and a bunch of other little things to make our house look nice so that we could list it to sell.
- $50 – USPS – we sent out a couple packages to friends and family.
We now have a total of $19,131 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 ~232,000 miles on it right now, and it is still going strong! Now for the bad news when it comes to a new van. We are moving soon, and 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 84%. This was a great month for saving!
Notes on Investing for October 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, 2019. The right thing for most readers will be to save and invest like we have been doing over the past 4 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 AMD 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 November 2017
I did not do all that well for October in terms of goals. Unfortunately, November is going to be EXTREMELY busy with moving, starting a new job, and living out of a suitcase. So, goals will be set extremely light since I know it will be really hard to get a whole lot accomplished for the blog.
November 2017 Goals
- Publish 5 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
I’m writing this post from beautiful Oregon – here’s a pic of me at Newport beach earlier in the month.
Derek at Newport Beach
I’m now here in Oregon started at my new job. I’m living out of a suitcase for the next couple weeks until my wife and kids come over after the first of the year.
Here are all the spectacular MoneyAhoy.com posts for October if you happened to miss any:
- $10m Lawsuit Filed Against Israeli Binary Options Company
- How to Start a WordPress Blog – Hostinger Review
- Don’t Forget to Get the Most Out of Your Credit Cards
- Looking to Become a Driver on the Side? Invest in These Essentials
- How to Afford Preparing Your Home for an Emergency
- September 2017 – Blogging Income and 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 $41K 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 $68K 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!
