Like I mentioned in my post about my new full time job, I fully plan on continuing to blog and grow my online income. In fact, it’s a huge priority for me. I’d like to still make at least $1,000 a month with my online income now that I’ve finally hit that mark.
Online Income Update February 2014…..
Figuring Money Out Blog Updates
Goals:
- Enter blog into blogger carnivals again! – Pass! I need to be better about this though. I forget until the last minute.
- Increase Alexa Rank to under 350,000. – Pass! Y’all my Alexa rank is 296, 572!! I’m so close to under 200,000!!!
- Increase visits to 3,000. – Fail. I need to work on getting more people here.
- Write 2 more reviews. – Pass! I wrote about Scottrade and ReadyForZero, two services I use and enjoy.
I posted some great content last month. My favorite posts from January:
Side Hustles Update
As a reminder, services I’m currently offering:
- Blog Setup
- Blog Post Writing & Editing
- Website/Blog Management
- Blog Monetization Management
- Social Media Management
- Blog commenting
- Virtual Assistant
If you need help with any of these things, let me know! I’m happy to help.
February Online Income
So how did I do in December? The numbers please…
- Advertising Income – $706.26
- Affiliate Income – $329.81
- Writing Income – $300.00
- Products Sales – $15.00
February Income Total – $1,351.07
Online Income Thoughts
I had my best month ever for online income and finally hit over the $1,000 mark! Woot.
I’m hoping to continue at this rate for a while because it’s a great supplement to my new full time income and will allow me to do some more things that I want. While I’d love to keep growing it as well I would at the very least like to stay at this $1,000 a month in online income mark.
I’m really thrilled about the increase in affiliate income. I’d like to keep increasing that and earning more via affiliate marketing. However, I’ve noticed a lot of the payouts can be a bit late or even kind of random, so I know some months will be better than others. Still, hurray for the bump in affiliate income!
Since this online income business has very few expenses I get to keep almost all of the income (after taxes of course). It’s a definite boost to my bottom line and I thank all of you for supporting me and my online income growth!
It’s funny how quickly some things happen.
I haven’t applied for many jobs in the last few months. I simply had no desire or need to do so since I’ve been doing okay keeping my spending low and piecing together online income and side jobs. However, last week I decided to apply for a full time position that sounded interesting.
I applied and a few days later had an informal interview with the owner. By the end of the chat I was hired. It wasn’t very official but my boss already had approved of me since she knows me and her opinion carried the most weight with the owner. The power of networking and having a good professional reputation is definitely a real asset!
The job itself is something my skill set was perfect for and it has a huge opportunity for growth since it’s for a startup. Yes, that means it’s also a risky position, but one that will be challenging and exciting. Since I have the backup of my online income I’m not worried about taking the risk and trying to do something that might end up failing. I’m expecting us to succeed and do great things though!
That’s one of the great things about building a side business/side hustle. You have something to fall back on that allows you to take some creative risks and chances. While I wasn’t originally looking for a full time position anywhere I’m thrilled to be able to take this position. It will be a great personal and professional growth experience for me.
I still plan to keep doing what I love, and blogging and working online. I still plan on being at least part-time self-employed! If anything this will give me even more to blog about here as I’ll finally have extra money to invest and do some cool things with. If I’m crazy I might even try to continue living on just my online income and bank my full time salary for a while (hard but possible!) Either way, I’ll get to put myself first and make some major strides in the area of savings and investing!
Right now I’m making my grocery shopping list. However, instead of my normal way of shopping where I just write down what I want, I’m actually taking the time to check out sales and my clipped coupons first. I’m trying to keep my grocery budget lower than normal without cutting the quality.
Keeping my expenses low has been on my mind a lot lately and I’m just now finally getting the hang of it. Sad for a personal finance blogger to say, right?
At my last full time job I never really needed to worry about it because I always made enough to cover whatever I wanted to buy. My income was so much higher than what I needed that I simply didn’t think about it.
Times have changed and I now piece together freelance work, online blog income, and side jobs in the real world for my income. It’s enough to get by on easily but I want to save as well. This means I have to keep my expenses much lower in order to keep saving. Keeping expenses low means not spending unconsciously like I used to do.
It means shopping with a grocery list. It means checking out sales. It means preparing food at home. It means thinking twice before buying something. It means avoiding shopping for fun. It means being mindful of purchases.
I’ve set my monthly spending budget including rent and all things at $1,450. Last month I spent a total of $1,119. This was EXCELLENT and several hundred dollars extra have gone into savings thanks to this diligence of keeping my expenses lower than my income for the month. I’d definitely like to keep this up so I’m going to continue to focus on keeping monthly expenses as low as possible!
