Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. Definitely a packed weekend that went by too quickly.
Our good friends got married over the weekend and we spent a lot of time with good friends. It was a pretty cheap weekend also which is always nice!
We looked at more houses online but didn't really see anything that we like still. Luckily we're not 100% ready to buy right now so I'm glad we don't like anything!
I don't know if any of you have even noticed, but I deactivated my blog's Pinterest profile a couple of days ago. Lets just say that I had a mini freakout. The other day I noticed that I was replying to my friends pins on Pinterest under my blog profile (and not my personal). Some of my friends know I blog, but none know the name Making Sense of Cents. However, this friend is someone who I am very close to and I haven't told her that I blog at all. So of course I naturally freaked out because my blog link is in my blog's Pinterest profile. I plan on reactivating it this week, but I'm just hoping she doesn't find it (I did delete all the comments that I left her). What a close call! As you can tell, I'm still not fully ready to have my friends read my blog. It's still all very personal! Sometimes I do wish I wasn't such an anonymous blogger.
Spending
We did do some spending this weekend but not a whole lot. I spent $70 at the store and bought some clothes, but I plan on returning some of it as I didn't like it anymore after I tried them them on when I got home.
We also did buy a curl bar and weights for it, which cost $86. We had $30 in rewards thankfully or our total would have been more than $100. Still a lot, I can't believe how expensive fitness equipment are.
Extra Income (does not include salary from our jobs)
I received approximately $1,121 in payments in the past week. I do think this last week of the month will go out with a bang as I usually get paid in the last week for several assignments.
Affiliate income is going really great and I'm glad I started working on this. I do have bigger plans for this and hope to see this area of my extra income to continually increase. A couple of days ago some of you had your Page Rank decreased, and this only gives me more motivation. How have you been doing with your affiliate income? Are you trying to grow this?
My friend came in town and we talked about our future business plan. We are doing some major research first and luckily with the job I currently have, I research companies and industries all day long and can get this done pretty quickly since I know where to look for reliable resources (and have access to all of these resources). She did mention a website that I've never heard of called Kickstarter. Have any of you ever used it? Apparently from what I remember is that you can fundraise money for your future business. Nevermind, I thought it was a something similar to peer to peer lending for entrepreneurs.
Food
We have a meal plan this week! I found some really tasty looking recipes and am excited for our meals for this week. I bought enough groceries for the next two weeks and I'm pretty excited about this. Our fridge and pantry are SO packed and I hope we actually eat nearly all of this instead of letting things go to waste like usually.
We have been doing really good with eating in. We went out to eat this past weekend (but not during the week) and ate and drank pretty cheaply. How are you doing with your food budget?! If you have any tasty looking recipes from last week, please share your blog post in the comments so that I can add it to my meal plan for future weeks 🙂
- Monday: Burgers and fries
- Tuesday: Chicken and Spinach Taquitos
- Wednesday: Penne with Pesto Cream Sauce and Chicken
- Thursday: Breakfast for dinner with Banana Pancakes
- Friday: Lemon-Ricotta Pasta with Scallops
- Saturday: Out to eat
- Sunday: Jalapeno Popper Chicken
Wedding
I haven't made any new wedding plans recently. There are just so many other things going on that I'm just not worried about the wedding. I'd rather save the planning for when I have time to have fun with it and am actually awake! Also, a lot of people have asked (yes, I actually get e-mails about this) why we are waiting so long to get married. Honestly, as I've said before, getting married wouldn't change anything for us (except the legal aspect), as we are already completely open about everything and committed. However, I AM excited to plan a fun party where I get to have fun with all of the people that I love. I have been considered a part of W's family since day 1 and love being able to be a part of such a wonderful family.
Some of you have asked that we share our engagement photos, and trust me I will. So sometime in May look out for those pictures because those will be good 🙂
Being healthy
This is probably the best category in my weekly blog posts. I've been doing pretty good with this. Having the treadmill in our basement is nice and I try to squeeze a mile in whenever I have some time to spare (such as between writing blog posts, making dinner, etc), along with designating time after work every now and then.
We also bought a lot of fruits and vegetables last night and I don't think we bought any snacks. We are really wanting to be more healthy. I have a goal to lose 5 pounds but also to get more toned all over. I really need to start a workout plan and a more clean food plan.
Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?
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Your extra income is drool-able.
I made the decision to be anonymous. Given that I write a lot about investments and actually list my numbers for people to see, I think anonymity is the best option. It also lets me not get into arguments with friends about whether or not I can afford something. I don't need someone checking my portfolio and then telling me I'm a bad person for not wanting to spend a thousand dollars in Vegas.
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I agree, I don't want someone weird to find out about my blog either, and I don't want people to treat me differently because they know everything about me.
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
Good job on your extra income!
I love breakfast for dinner. My kids will eat eggs or pancakes for dinner any day. It's easy and it's cheap!
Cheap and tasty! 🙂 Thanks Holly.
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
Great work on the income again. I really have started to ramp up my affiliate advertising and have seen some success with it and in light of last week it has lit a bigger fire under me to focus more and more on it. Sounds like a close call with the Pinterest thing, I am still somewhat anonymous on blogging, my family knows I do but does not know the site or anything like that. I think I am going to keep it that way for the time being
Thanks John! And yes it definitely put a fire under me also.
I haven't done any work towards affiliate income for the past couple months. I do know that if you can get it set up, it can definitely be a huge cash inflow each month.
I've heard of kickstarter but I'm not really a fan. I just don't like the idea of a bunch of people donating to me to start a company. Or maybe I just know too many people looking for money on there who really could self-fund their project 😉
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Yes I agree about the affiliate income! I really need to get that started even more.
And ahhh I did not know it was like a donation company. I assumed it was more of a peer to peer lending for entrepreneurs where she would have to pay it back later (I have the cash but she does not). Good to know DC.
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I completely disagree that it's donations, there are so, so many upsides to kickstarter. For some categories, things are more like donations, but by far and away it works as a test platform, a way to build a loyal consumer/fan base AND a way to raise capital. All of those things are in exchange for perks/rewards, aka stuff in exchange for cash.
I could go on about this for quite awhile 🙂
Good to know Anne! I honestly have no idea and had never heard about it until recently.
Yeah, I write about entrepreneurs all day long so I'm probably a bit more plugged into this, but it's not charity. Ever heard of crowdfunding? (Google it if not.) Kickstarter is like the grandaddy of CF. You donate money to projects, but it's more investment, less charity. There are rewards you get based on how much you put in (though you can choose not to take one) as Anne says. Heaps of stuff online about crowdfunding if you want to learn mre.
Yeah Anne told me about it in email. Thankfully I have you guys! I only called it a charity because that's what someone said in a snarky email to me this morning.
Good to know. Thanks!
Actually, one of the best uses I've found is for the inventor's dillema. This is where it cost you $10,000 to make the first widget, but then copies cost you a few dollars each. Since no one will pay you $1000 each if you only make 10 widgets, you're left with the choice of not doing it at all or buying 10,000 widgets and hoping you can sell them. With kickstarter, you can have people "sponsor" you, and in return they get a widget or two. What you are then doing is preselling the items. If you don't have enough people pre-buy to make it worth it, you find this out before you fill your attic with thousands of widgets to remind you of your failure.
I'm working on a board game and looking at Kickstarter. Someone writing a book might look at it as well.
Good to know! Thanks for your comment. I think we might use it. Good luck with your board game and book 🙂
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Go you! I'm currently not making any extra income except for my staff writing which is peanuts, I do it because I like it not because I make anything tangible lol. Doing well with health since re-joining WW, down 5.4lbs in 3 weeks…can't wait to get to goal!
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5.4 pounds is awesome! Good job Catherine.
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
I want your dog.
I've seen Kickstarter a few times before- I think for people who wanted to take their online businesses into a storefront, but needed help with rent for the first few months.
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Yup, he's a cutie!
Not that I'm the most anonymous person in the world (other bloggers seem to know me, heh), but I browse with multiple browsers. In Firefox? DQYDJ stuff. Chrome? Personal stuff… and never the twain shall cross.
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Yeah that's what I usually do, but with Pinterest if I receive an email and click that I like it, it'll merge and cross over. Awkward/hard to explain!
That's a good idea for keeping things separate! It can be so hard to juggle multiple identities online. I have my IRL profiles, my blog profiles and also my work social media profiles that I manage.
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There are quite a few friends of mine who know about my blog, but I said it 100 times over to NOT post any article on FB. One morning I woke up and saw that one friends posted a link about the top personal finance bloggers and tagged me. I flew out of bed and frantically tried to untag and delete the post. Luckily it was 6 am my time and most of the people I don't want to see are on the west coast (and it was only up for 15 minutes), but I nearly had a heart attack!
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I would have had a heart attack!
Like always great job on the side income, that's awesome!
I sometimes want to blog openly, but I know I won't be as open and vulnerable if I do.
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Thanks Allison!
Nice work on the extra income front. With my site redesign, I plan on adding some ways to capitalize on affiliate marketing. I don't know how it will go, but it is worth a try for sure. Last week's motivation is quite helpful.
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That's great. I need to really start ramping up my affiliate income.
I like being anonymous. It gives me the ability to talk about whatever I want.
I actually had the exact same thing happen on pinterest. Pinterest was connected to my personal facebook account and to my blog. I had to go back and delete all my facebook friends and disconnect it from facebook.
Ugh yup that's what happened! I had a heart attack.
Yay for extra income! Always love checking on how much weekly butt you're kicking.
We actually wrote a post that we'll be posting this week about being private about ALL personal finance stuff with friends and family. For being as obsessed about PF as we are, we've told maybe one or two friends about how we got out of debt or why we kept turning them down for eating out at expensive restaurants. And then the blog? Yeah, haven't told a soul about that. So I'm glad to know we've got some good company in that boat. 🙂
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Thanks Johnny! And I had no idea that you guys haven't told anyone about your blog. Glad to know I'm not alone!
I'm still semi-anonymous, and I plan on keeping it that way for now. I like that I can share whatever I want and not feel like "Oh no! What if so-and-so reads this!" I just don't want to deal with that.
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Yup I agree!
Yeah, that's more or less how I operate. I'm trying to decide how open I want to be once we go travelling in May, because it'd be handy to have friends keep up with our progress on our blog (and I'm definitely not starting a separate blog for that).
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I've been thinking about the anonymity dilemma as well. I'm not sure how my friends would react, and I wouldn't be too comfortable about sharing details about my personal finance. On the other hand, some of my close friends could really learn a thing or two. Maybe I'll end up deleting financial details and go public.
Question: how much time do you usually spend writing a blog post?
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This is exactly how I feel. My friends always ask me questions and I wish I could just refer them to my blog.
And it really depends. Can be anywhere from an hour to a TON of hours. Not sure if that helps you but it would be hard for me to say on average since I don't keep track.
Kickstarter is a long, long way from a charity! Plus, I'm not just talking about their income tax status. I'd be more than happy to expound on the subject, if you are interested.
Yes I am definitely interested 🙂
Your extra income figures are making me realize that I need to offer more services on my site if I want to increase income in the short term; especially with all the recent hoopla surrounding the Google updates.
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Yes always diversify!
Nice work on the income. Sometimes I wish I could go bakc to anonymous, but I do enjoy knowing that family and friends are getting some help from my blog. Last week's scare has also motivated me to setup a killer affiliate page and direct people toward the products and services that have served me well financially. It's a win-win, because I get to talk about how i manage my money more, and they get to use something that'll help make budgetin easier and more fun 🙂
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Yeah I'm still back and forth. I just know that once I go public, I can't go back!
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
It is such a horrible feeling when you get your anon and real accounts mixed up… I remember liking things and tweeting things from the wrong browser before… gut wrenching! Luckily i deleted in time 🙂 Congrats on the extra income!
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Thanks!
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
Nice job on extra income! I'm not a very anonymous blogger but I prefer to keep the names of my family members and the location private! Your menu looks great too! I tried this pasta pesto dish before, it's pretty good.
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Thanks! And good to know that it's good, I can't wait to try it.
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
Great job on your extra income. You're doing fabulous! I am not an anonymous blogger since I chose to put my real name on book. 🙂 So I don't worry too hard about separating personal from blogger, but I can imagine the distress of mixing them up. Your dinner menus sound great – and weekly meal planning is such a lifesaver, isn't it?
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Thanks! And yes meal planning is wonderful.
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
On food we tend to cook simple dishes like pork chops, chicken, and steaks. The fancy recipies are nice for once in a while, but because there is a long list of ingredients you have a lot go to waste or you end up buying expensive stuff that sits in your pantry forever. If you keep it simple (a Betty Crocker or Joy of Cooking cookbook is a must) and just add some frozen vegetables and rice or potatoes, you can cook a lot with just a pantry full of the essentials and a few spices.
We tend to do a lot of simple recipes also, it's easier that way 🙂
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
I am also looking at increasing my affiliate income from my websites as I feel this is the best way for me to generate income going forward.
Iy you are interested a few of us in the PF community have just completed a collaborative personal finance ebook that will be released in a few week and we are looking for more affiliates.
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Yes I am definitely interested! 🙂
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
Haha never heard of kickstarter… nice! Glad you're still making an extra thousand a week. That's like 52k a year! 🙂
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Thanks Lance!
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
Creating extra income is something that my wife and I are just now working on. Reading your posts have really inspired me to try really hard it so we can pay off our debt faster.
Creating a meal plan is a great idea. It's something that we've dabbled with in the past but never enacted. It's hard to do when we don't eat a lot of the same foods, although I suppose that's not a good excuse. Good luck with your income.
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I'm glad I've inspired you to work on your extra income! I was inspired by Crystal over at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff and it worked well for me 🙂
My recent post $1,121 in Extra Income and Life Updates
Healthy, ha what's that? I've been doing pretty terrible with my eating lately. All that clearanced Valentine's candy is not doing me any favors. I've been so tired between work and my class my will power not to eat the whole bag in one sitting while reading boring text books has been basically nil. Congrats on your income update. As always I'm super impressed and inspired.
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The clearance V-day candy was bad for me, I ate way too much! Who can turn down a $3 box of chocolates? NOT ME!
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Killing it again with extra income. Good luck with all of your other projects and goals.
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Thanks Kim!
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Great job, I love reading your updates! I've been working a lot on the "being healthy" side of things recently and I'm going to be blogging about it soon! Keep up the good work, it is very inspiring.
Thanks Nick!
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I do not really pushing affiliate income as such. It does grow slowly over the period of time and I am quite happy with it.
Perhaps this due to fact that it doubled last year 😉
All extra income I am treating like a lottery win and not counting on it. However our expenses are tracked and haven't really changed because of it.
Albeit we moved to an expensive area almost two years ago and a lot of our expenses shot up by 50%.
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Good for you sounds like your plans are falling in to place with the eating healthy, wedding and blog. We are always trying to eat healthy and live a busy lifestyle that includes keeping fit. One of my fans asked me how we can live on such a small grocery budget and believe me many others have done better. The key is we stick to the basics, home cooked meals, fruits, veg, dairy etc and meal plan like you do. As for anything to do with monetizing the blog, since I don't do it, I have no comment. Cheers and keep up the great work.
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That extra income is awesome. I'm glad you are having success with it. It looks like you have all the basics down. Keep it up!
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