Extra Income Archives - Page 63 of 65

Money in my 20s

Last Updated: December 7, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 35 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.

Happy Friday everyone! This week went by pretty quick for me thankfully. I have a pretty packed weekend (but it’s mostly fun stuff) so it should be a good one! I hope everyone has a great weekend also.

I believe that how you behave in your 20s with your money can definitely change everything. If you start investing, saving, paying off debt now, then you are preparing yourself for retirement at a great time. Compounding definitely plays a huge factor in starting young also. If you save $1,000 a month for the next 40 years, then at 6% interest you will have

$1,968,572

But if you wait to save until 20 years later and save $2,000 a month in order to catch up, then after 20 years at 6% interest, you are only at $935,825. BIG difference right? The time value of money definitely plays a big part in this, so the younger you can start, the better!

There are many things that I’m doing now to prepare myself for my future. This involves, my spending habits, budgets, schooling, my career and so on.

What I’m doing:

Went to college and graduated with two undergraduate degrees. This helped me a lot when I was applying for jobs and I also feel more rounded (even though both degrees were business related). I wouldn’t be able to be in my field without my degrees.
Working on my MBA. This will help me with my career and also a higher salary with more opportunities.
Secured a good career. My job is very stable and will if anything grow by an exponential amount. There aren’t too many people who do what I do.
Advancing in my career. I’m working on my credentials and I should have them this summer as well. I just have to take one more test and turn in sample reports (these are extremely long). I need to start working on my sample reports soon.
Live within my means. This one is different from the others that I just listed. Living within my means is something I do, but also something I could work on.
Paying off my debt. This is a big one! I hope to have my student loans completely gone by next year and then my house to be paid off in less than 5 years from now. WHOO HOO for goals.

I also have a fully funded emergency fund. My job is pretty secure, but you never know if something might come up. With an emergency fund I don’t have to worry as much and worry about living paycheck to paycheck.

One thing I DO need to start concentrating on more is investing. I know a decent amount about investing and finance (I am a Finance MBA major and I work in the financial services industry), but I’m still unsure of how exactly I want to allocate all of my investments. And until I’m positive that I understand everything (hey I have an investment mind just like Buffet, maybe one day I’ll be a billionaire, ok probably not), this is kind of hindering how deep into investing I’m getting.

Another area I would like to work on is getting a more stable side income. Maybe blogging? I’m still not sure. I have so many ideas floating around in my head though.

Of course there are many things I want to do in my 20’s also. I don’t want to look back on my life and feel like I missed out on anything. As I’ve said this whole week, I budget and watch my spending so that I can do the things I love in life.

In my 30s, I’d like to do a lot of things. It just seems so crazy to think of myself 10 years from now! I’d hope to have a family, no debt, great investments and lots of world travels. In my 40s? Not really sure. I haven’t thought about my life that far ahead honestly. I would hope to be able to retire early though.

What are you doing to prepare yourself for your future? What do you wish you would’ve done?

Why I Budget

Last Updated: July 18, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 34 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.

This week is going by fast! I’m so happy that it’s Thursday. Today my post is about budgets and it also happens to match up with Women’s Money Week’s Budget Thursday!

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails and comments about how I budget and what software I use. First, I’m surprised that so many of you e-mail me about this (this makes me happy because I know that I’m getting everyone to think about their finances more!) but this also surprises me because you guys e-mail me about this! I never honestly thought I’d be the one for people to ask.

I only use Excel and my head. I store a lot in my brain and that’s probably not a good idea. I have a horrible memory but I recently signed up for Mint and that’s been helpful to see where my money is going. Mint does lag a little for me and I hate getting the constant e-mail reminders for bills that I need to pay (even though I paid them 2 weeks before I get all these annoying reminders UGH). [Read more…]

Relationships and Money

Last Updated: December 21, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 33 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.

Most people look at me like I’m INSANE when I tell them that I bought a house with my boyfriend, let alone that we have joint finances. It works for us, and we’ve actually never had a single problem. We’ve been together almost 6 years and have lived together for almost 5, so we’ve been doing this for some time.

However, I do get nervous when my friends talk about doing the same thing with their significant other. This is because even though it worked for us (and my friends always like to use us as an example, which I hate because it makes me nervous), I know it doesn’t work for everyone.

Every relationship is different (just like people!) and more people need to realize this. Just because one thing works for one couple, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for everyone.

I do most of the financial related things in our relationship: I make sure bills are paid on time and I keep track of everything. I think it’s easier this way so that no one is cross-doing things that the other has already done. And I’m better with financial related tasks (I’m in the financial services industry) than he is.

I hope I don’t offend anyone with the things I list below, but these are just things that wouldn’t work in our relationship. However, I do understand that different things work for different people. Have any of these worked for you in the end anyways? I also realize that some of these situations might work if the finances aren’t joint as well.

We don’t keep secret money

In some relationships, one of the spouses might be taking money and hiding it from the other. They might be doing this as a backup just in case the relationship doesn’t work out or because the other person in the relationship might not be good with money. Or someone might be lying about their salary and saying it’s smaller, so that they can funnel the different to their own personal account.

I do know of people who do this because their significant other is horrible with money, and by telling the other person that they have less money every month, he/she then spends less. So this is actually benefiting their relationship – and this is how this might work for different couples. I don’t know how sustainable that is though because eventually the other person should be more aware of the financial situation. My bf is definitely guilty of lifestyle inflation and I try to talk to him about our finances as much as possible so that he understands. I try to make everything with our finances extremely open. He knows everything (I like to pretend that he listens to everything at least).

Talk about financial goals

This is something that we didn’t talk about a whole ton, but in the end we both have similar financial goals. We have talked extensively about it now though. We know where the other is heading and what we want to do a year from now, 5 years from now and so on. I think this is healthy because it clues you in more about the other in the relationship.

Knowing the other’s financials

I think that in every relationship, all financials should be known. No one should be hiding $100,000 worth of credit card debt and so on. This isn’t healthy especially if you plan on getting married, buying a house, having kids and so on.

Different ways for different people

I’m at that age where a lot of my friends are starting to move out. They all have different financial situations. All of my friends are pretty good with their finances and all only have a little bit of student loans.

Obviously just with these three different financial situations just among some of my good friends, you can tell that different relationships handle finances differently. I’m not judging any of them, we made our fair share of mistakes when we started out and I think that’s the best way to learn. And as you can tell, I’m definitely one for openness in a relationship – I think everything should be known.

What is your financial situation in your relationship?

What are some tips or things you wouldn’t do in your relationship?

Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

Last Updated: December 7, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 40 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.

I hope everyone’s having a great week so far. Seems to be going by relatively fast. Before we know it, I’ll be on vacation! Whooo hooo! Technically, my February goals update is a day early, but I doubt anything will happen today which will absolutely terribly wreck it.

Overall February was a good month, but we spent A LOT of money on food. We definitely need to watch our food spending. March probably won’t be any better since we’re going on vacation, but we have all of that budgeted.

You can find my February goals list here, and my 2012 goals update here.

February Goals Update

Save an extra $10 a day for my DSLR fund. PASS. But I haven’t been keeping too well of track of this amount.
Reassess our budget and cut out $25. PASS. We didn’t cut out too much, but with the mild weather and the fact that I was able to elminate the $6 satellite insurance, I’m sure we greatly surpassed the $25 goal.
Start and finish homework before it’s due. PASS. I’ve been doing pretty well with this.
Post about my side income. PASS. See here. I received a lot of feedback on this from all of you. Lots of emails, if you have any more questions, just let me know!
Workout at least 2 times a week. FAIL. I think I’ve only worked out ONCE this whole new year so far.
Sell my stuff on eBay. FAIL. I think I’m just going to bring the rest of my stuff to a local consignment shop. I’m honestly just too lazy to list everything on eBay.
Make an extra $500 this month. FAIL, but I’m still happy. I didn’t make a ton this month. I made around $400. I would’ve surpassed this $500, but I accidentally forgot to do 2 sponsored posts which would’ve made me an extra $120. I thought the expiration was longer, but it wasn’t. My survey income would’ve been bigger, but I was feeling lazy as well. See below for my income breakout.
Watch our spending this month. EHHH. We’ve been watching our spending very closely, but with the costs of the new (old) Jeep, our spending definitely increased.
FINISH MY CLOSET. FAIL. Haven’t worked on it at all. I think we built one bookshelf for my shoes, and that’s it.

March Goals

Finally pay off my car. I’ve had this cash just sitting in my checking account. Not sure why. I’ve just been lazy, but laziness is costing me money. I need to do this immediately.
Save an extra $10 a day. I want to keep saving for this. I’m not sure if I’ll be buying a camera anytime soon though.
Reassess our budget and cut out $25. This is on my goals pretty much every month. There’s always something that we can cut. I’m going to try and bundle some of our bills to see if we can get a discount.
Start and finish homework before it’s due. Midterms are this month and before you know it, it’ll be finals in the first week of May. Need to start studying!
Workout at least 3 times a week. I upped this, yes I know that’s probably not good. My working out has been a mega fail obviously.
Sell my stuff to a consignment shop. My closet is still super packed and I can get rid of a lot. I’m too lazy to sell it online.
Take a picture of my insane closet for you all. Once you see the picture, you will want to come over and help me clean it.
Make an extra $500 this month. I didn’t pass my goal in February, but I’m hoping to this month. My Alexa score is gradually going down and sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have bought my own domain recently (so that my score wouldn’t have reset), but it’s going down pretty fast. This should help me get more advertising offers.
Move shoes to my new closet. Obviously I need to start making smaller goals.
Don’t spend any more money on clothes than what I sell. So if I sell $200, then I would like to buy less than that. Very attainable.
Get my front windshield fixed. I’ve been putting this off for over a year. But, now my inspection so that I can renew my plates is in April, so I need to get this done.
Have loads of fun while on vacation!

Extra Monthly Income

Ad link on my blog -$103

Sponsored posts -$60

Surveys -$18

Mystery Shopping -$200

So I actually made around $381 extra last month!

How’d you do in February? Any extra income?

I’ve paid off over $25,000 in credit card debt

Last Updated: September 11, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 58 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.

Find out how I've paid off $25,000 in credit card debt.

The title is true, well kind of…

While, I’ve never had a balance on any of my credit cards, I still make charges on them and incur “debt” even though it’s paid off completely every month. So technically I have had that large amount in “credit card debt” in the past few years. I got my first credit card at 18, and I was purely using it to gain credit for a long time. It definitely helped my score, and I was able to learn how to control my spending at a young age.

Yes, I’ve paid that much in credit card debt. Probably over that amount. Just recently, after our December credit card bill came, the balance for all 3 of our cards was around $1,500. Yes that’s a lot for one month, but of course other months will be smaller.

Also, I’ve seen a couple of other bloggers do this (not recently, so I can’t remember who did it, so let me know if you remember!) and I thought it was interesting to see where others come in on the credit card debate. I’d love to link-up.

Some prefer to be mostly cash based, whereas I would be lucky if I was caught with $1. [Read more…]

Ways that we could continue to cut our budget

Last Updated: July 18, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 40 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.

I’m starting to feel better, but still not the greatest. It’s Mardi Gras weekend so I need to start feeling better so that I can celebrate. If it gives you any clue as to where I live (some of you already know), but where I live we have the second largest Mardi Gras in the U.S. (besides New Orleans of course). So everyone goes out and has fun, but I don’t know if I feel like spending a ton of money (heated tents with unlimited beer and food is $100 a person) and freezing to death outside.

Anyways, recently I talked about how much we’ve cut our budget. I also said that I would post about other ways we could cut back, and it took a little longer than I thought, but here’s the post! I know you all were hurting while waiting for this (I’m joking of course). These aren’t all things that I would do, but it’s nice to see the value of everything. And also if we ever had financial problems, then we could easily cut these things. [Read more…]

My Extra Monthly Income

Last Updated: June 26, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 44 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.

Today is Wednesday, finally! Anyways, I thought I’d finally give you the details on my extra monthly income.

In my January Goals update, I said:

“Make an extra $500 this month. PASS. I made over $600 from blog income and surveys!”

After I posted that, I was literally flooded with e-mails from you guys!

I’ve told you guys in this post, my February Goals, and in my goal update post that I would tell you more information about my monthly income. I’m not going to lie, I have been pushing this off because I’m not too entirely sure what to say and I thought this post would be extremely boring. But then I reminded myself that before I was making this extra income, I LOVED (and I still do love) reading about others and how they made their extra income. It’s nice to find out about new opportunities that you may not have thought about. [Read more…]