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Work is Picking Up and Weekly Update

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 48 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Camaro

Many people have asked if that is our house in the background. No, it is not (we live about 10 miles away). Yes, that is our car though.

Hello! I hope all of you had a fun (and productive!) weekend. I know I did. I went out on Friday night for dancing with my friends. Then the rest of the weekend was filled with working and relaxing.

The weather is still all over the place here. I’m ready for it to be Spring! Yesterday it was 60 degrees and then at night-time it dropped to ZERO DEGREES. Who is ready for nicer weather?

 

Spending

Spending in the past week was higher than normal. Lots of wedding spending was made in the past week (see tomorrow’s post about my wedding), and also Wes was sick.

Wes was sick last week (he has had a stomach bug FOUR times in the past 4 weeks), so we decided that it was time to go to the doctor to see what was up. They prescribed him some medication and if he doesn’t get better in the next 14 days then he has to see a stomach specialist.

We also bought two new tires for the Camaro as well. We have had this on hold for months now since the weather has been bad, and we have only taken the car out of the garage maybe 5 times in the past few months. Earlier last week we finally bought new tires (the old ones only had 10K miles on it and already had to be replaced).

Cost of the new tires? $400 each. Happy early Birthday Wes! 🙂

 

Business Income

The first two weeks of January were VERY slow for me. It must have been slow for everyone else as well because I had some freelancers e-mailing me about how slow it has been for them as well.

This is why a large emergency fund is good for when you are a freelancer – slow weeks won’t be as painful and scary.

Slow weeks always scare me though – which is stupid I know. This past week has been extremely crazy though, with work all over the place. Of course, it is slow for two weeks and then the last two weeks of the month are busy…

If anyone needs any help, check out my Hire Me page and let me know what services you are interested in.

Lately, website owners have asked me to help run their website while they are gone for just a month or two, so this is a new service that I am also offering. If you are starting a new job, about to have a baby, want to do some long-term travel or something else, please let me know. I also started doing some shorter blog management.

So far this month I did one-week blog management for John at Frugal Rules, and also Cat at Budget Blonde while they took a one week vacation. Just a short vacation from your website can feel amazing 🙂 I managed their e-mails, website, and social media so that they could both fully enjoy their trips.

 

Being healthy

I have not been very healthy in the past week. Unless you count dancing as a workout. If so, then I did well 🙂

I worked out a few times, but nothing that was really life changing. If you have some healthy recipes that you would like to share, please leave them in the comments below. Any links to an awesome recipe would be loved as well.

 

Wedding Planning

Usually I include a section about my wedding planning in my weekly update posts, but it was so long that I had to break it apart into its own post. Come back tomorrow to read about how my wedding planning is going!

 

Posts from Making Sense of Cents

  1. Common Myths About Working From Home – Working from home has been great so far. I also don’t see that changing any time soon. There are many common myths that I have heard (and also some that I used to believe myself).
  2. Following Your Passion Is Not Just Luck – Following your passion takes hard work. It’s not all about luck.
  3. What is Early Retirement? – Everyone seems to have a different view of what early retirement should be.
  4. Income Series: Creating Passive Income from Niche Websites – This is a post for my weekly side hustle series.

 

Have you been doing well with your income, spending and being healthy?

 

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About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  1. MMD says

    Thanks again for letting me guest post this week. Sorry to hear you guys were dealing with a stomach bug. My wife had the same thing all week.

    Reply

  2. John S @ Frugal Rules says

    Our weather has been so crazy here as well. It was near 60 on Saturday and at the beginning of yesterday. Then, Sunday afternoon rolls around and we start getting 50 mph winds and was -5 when we went to bed. You already know how my week went 🙂 but I had a great week on affiliate so it all balanced out in the end. Thanks again for all your help last week!

    Reply

  3. DC @ Young Adult Money says

    Good to hear about biz picking up. This month was pretty slow for me as well and haven’t had much luck with advertisers. One bright spot is that affiliate income has been good in December and this month, which is something I hope to keep up this year. I may want you to manage my blog if my wife and I ever get around to going on a vacation. It was about a year ago last time I took time off from it and it was amazing.

    Reply

  4. Matt Becker says

    The temperature has really been fluctuating like crazy around here too. On consecutive days I think it was high 50s and then the next night it went into negative territory. But more recently it’s just been cold. Ahh, the dog days of winter are always fun.

    Reply

  5. Laurie @thefrugalfarmer says

    Wow, zero degrees is really cold for down there, Michelle! Sorry to hear Wes hasn’t been feeling well – hopefully that gets better soon! I’ve been eating way too much processed food, but am committed to doing better this week, and to working out more too. We’ll see how that goes. 🙂

    Reply

  6. Shannon @ Financially Blonde says

    Freelancing is definitely not for the weak of heart. Instead of fearing the down times, I actually embrace them and use them to regroup, because work seems to come in waves and if we don’t catch our breath during the down times, we will lose our minds.

    Reply

  9. Little House says

    I’d count dancing as a workout – that counts! As for January, it was pretty slow on my end too. Now, things have picked up a bit. I think everyone was getting over the holidays and are now back to work.

    Reply

  11. SavvyFinancialLatina says

    The weekend was so nice! Now back to super cold weather. I was sick all last week with the flu but I feel way better and re energized this week. Ready to tackle 2014! It took 27 days to get into the 2014 mood and goal challenge, but I think I can do it.

    Reply

  12. Pretired Nick says

    Ha – even when things are bad with you, they’re still really good! Hope everyone is feeling better! My consulting was slow the first couple weeks in January as well and last week it just went crazy! Now I’m hoping I can keep up with everything!

    Reply

  13. tom says

    Guh… St. Louis weather is horrible. My wife has been on and off of work (teacher) since the beginning of the month. I think this will be the first full week of work for her since December. I’m surprised given the gusting winds and wind chill school wasn’t called off today too.

    Our incomes are currently on autopilot. I’m interested in a side-hustle, but with both of us working 2 full time jobs, and a 19 month old taking up the rest of our free time, it’s tough to find the time.

    We are trying to limit our spending to save up for some home improvement projects, so spending is declining. I’m actually looking into playing the credit card rewards game and taking advantage of some of the crazy offers out there. Chase Ink cards w/ $500 in rewards! It’s just nuts.

    As for health. I’m trying to make the gym a higher priority again. I was going at least 4x a week, but that reduced to 2x as work got crazy. Trying to split the difference at 3x a week. My wife is trying to get on the elliptical every morning as well.

    Reply

  19. Raquel@Practical Cents says

    Wow, those tires are really expensive. I have to get new ones for my car too. Ugh, this weather has been brutal for us too. Even super bowl tickets are not selling well because of the deep freeze in New Jersey.

    Reply

  21. E.M. says

    I’m sorry to hear that Wes wasn’t feeling well! My boyfriend and I had a bout of stomach issues this past week as well. I hope the new diet he’s on works out! I’ve been looking into healthier recipes lately and came across a cool concept: spiralizing vegetables into noodles. Inspiralized.com has some neat (and easy) recipes.

    Reply

  22. Snarkfinance says

    I look forward to hearing about your wedding planning. I just got married this past August and one of my best friends is about to get married this May so this past year has been full of wedding planning/budgeting discussions.

    Reply

  25. DNN says

    One thing about side hustling online is the work never ends once your search engine rankings improve. Glad to see you’re going strong with the blog Michelle. Pat yourself on the back for coming a long way and retaining a business vision in longevity. The internet needs more inspiring “side hustle millionaires” like you! (smile)

    🙂 🙂 🙂

    Reply

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