Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

May is my birthday month, but I’m sure you already knew that 🙂

I switched to Intense Debate for my comments last month, how is everyone liking them? Let me know! I want all honest feedback. Has it been easy for you to use?

April was good to us. Of course we had a lot of car related things to pay for (car insurance, new windshield, safety inspection, etc), we were still within our budget. We also made a lot in cash back rewards last month (mainly due to our vacation) and were able to get over $100 in cash back just for one month.

The weather was also pretty nice in April, and we barely had to use neither our AC nor our heat, thankfully! We should be having some pretty low bills for the next couple of months.

You can find my 2012 goals update here (I will not be updating this as often).

1. Reassess our budget and cut out $25. PASS.  I can’t think of anything that I cut out but our gas usage, AC and heat have all decreased, and we saved over $200 last month because of this.
   
2. Workout at least 2 times a week.  PASS. I’ve been running with my dog more and I’ve been doing some strength training and ab work, before and after work.
3. Run with my dog at least twice a week. PASS. See above 🙂
4. Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. FAIL. Haven’t even really thought about this.
5. Make an extra $500 this month. Almost PASS. See below!
6. Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. FAIL. I think once classes are done, I will be able to do this.
7. Get my front windshield fixed. PASS! Did this on Saturday.
8. Spend less than $500 on food and entertainment. PASS. We were pretty frugal this month with our going out. We still went out just as much, but we would pregame, go to happy hour, etc.
9. Eat in at least 5 times a week. PASS. And I’m still coming up with new meal ideas also! Love Pinterest 🙂
10. Make 1 vegetarian meal a week. FAIL. We had one vegetarian dinner this month. Not good!

1. Reassess our budget and cut out $25.  There’s always something that can be cut. Just not sure what yet…
   
2. Workout at least 3 times a week and run with my dog. I actually passed this goal last month! Let’s see if I can keep it up.
3. Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. This has been on the list forever, I need to get on this.
4. Make an extra $600 this month. For the past couple of months, I’ve been just barely under this goal. But I feel that since classes will be over, I’ll be able to do more secret shops.
5. Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. School is over next week, so I’m pretty positive that I can start and finish this month.
6. Eat in at least 5 times and make 1 vegetarian meal a week. This will be a goal FOREVER most likely. Something that we need to constantly be trying to do.
7. Do great on finals. My GPA for my whole MBA program isn’t as high as I wanted. It’ll be around a 3.6 for all semesters combined. Is that good? What’s considered a good MBA GPA?
8. Book our Vegas hotel and plane tickets.

• Twitter followers:  Goal was for 350, I’m currently at 293. I didn’t pass my goal but I still had a pretty big increase in April. My goal for May will stay the same – 350.
• Alexa rank: Goal was to be under 90,000. I’m right at 90K right now. I would like to be under 85K by the end of this month.
• RSS readers: Goal was for 650, I’m currently at 628. So close! I will keep my goal the same for May.

• Ad links/Sponsored Posts on my blog –$325
  
• Surveys -$9
• Mystery Shopping -$126