Extra Income Archives - Page 63 of 66

Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

Last Updated: January 7, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 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.

May was good, but we had a lot of big expected and some unexpected expenses. Between my plumbing mistake, and us wanting just to replace all the pipes, that cost around $400 (before drywall). I also had to get new license plates (and pay all the fees and taxes), my sister moved in, and a bunch of other small things happened.

The weather has been brutal this month, so I’m assuming that our air conditioning bill will prove that. This weekend has been cooler though. Gotta love Midwest weather. One day it’s 100 degrees and the next day it’s 50.

I’m really hoping for a great June! It’s a 3 paycheck month for me, which I am definitely looking forward to.

You can find my 2012 yearly goals update here (I last updated this a couple of weeks ago).

May Goals

Reassess our budget and cut out $25. FAIL. I don’t think I cut anything out.
Workout at least 3 times a week and run with my dog. FAIL.
Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. PASS. I made money from selling clothes, but I used that same money to buy stuff back, so I actually PAID in the end.
Make an extra $600 this month. PASS. I made $672! See below. I feel like I’m forgetting something and that it should actually be higher.
Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. FAIL. Haven’t done this at all. Now that we have another roommate moving in (more on that later), my future closet will instead be his bedroom. But I convinced the Boy to completely gut the closet I have now and redo it to make it nice.
Eat in at least 5 times and make 1 vegetarian meal a week. FAIL. We’ve been horrible with eating in. This is something we WILL succeed at in June.
Do great on finals. PASS. I could’ve done better, but laziness definitely took over.

June Goals

Reassess our budget and cut out $25. I’m finally going to cut our cable bill this month. No, I will not get rid of HBO (come on, True Blood starts this month!), but I will ask them to lower it since our contract will be up soon.
Workout at least 3 times a week and run with my dog. I will do this…
Make an extra $1,000 this month. Now that we have another person moving in (I’ll update you all on this soon), I am going to bump this up. I don’t have anymore textbooks to sell, but I’ll figure out ways to make more.
Gut my closet and re-do it. We plan on testing our DIYing skills this month. I want to paint, all new shelves and to clean it.
Eat in at least 5 times. Definitely something we will accomplish this month!
Study everyday for at least an hour for part 4 of my work certification test. I really need to study everyday!
My last semester starts this month and I have my annual review, do great! This will be my final semester, and then I’ll have my Finance MBA. I also have my annual review this month at my work. I need to really get across my strengths in order to make this Finance MBA worth it to my company (and my salary).

Blog Goals

Twitter followers: Goal was for 350, I’m currently at 450. My goal for next month is 600. Help me with this 🙂
Alexa rank: Goal was to be under 90,000. I’m right around 85K now. I’m happy with this now. I think this has started to plateau. Any help on lowering this? I’m not sure what to do next.
RSS readers: Goal was for 650, I’m currently at 670. My goal for June is to have 750.

Extra Monthly Income in May

Sponsored Posts on my blog – $350
Surveys -$12
Mystery Shopping -$90
Sold textbooks -$220

So I actually made $672 extra last month!

How did you do in May? Any extra income?

Saving While on Vacations

Last Updated: December 7, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

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.

Kauai

Many people are going on vacation this weekend for Memorial Day, and many people are also planning a summer vacation, so I made a vacation savings post for today (and also to enter the Budgets are Sexy contest)! I also love talking about vacations and dreaming about them, so of course that’s another reason.

I’ve been thinking about vacations a lot lately. Who doesn’t? I would love to travel everyday for the rest of my life, but of course that’s not very realistic (at least not at the age of 23!).

We spent a lot of money on our last vacation, that is a fact. However, we saved money in many ways on this vacation as well. This vacation could have easily cost around $5,000, but we spent much less due to me looking for deals.

Our greatest savings was with our airfare. It’s nice that I’m able to travel for nearly free (and sit in first class nearly every time) because of my dad’s retirement benefits. I know not everyone can do this so I won’t go too in depth on this. [Read more…]

Getting a Second Job?

Last Updated: February 22, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

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.

Hopefully all of this hard work allows me to retire on the beach sooner.

I keep telling all of you that my goal right now is to increase my income and not cut too much more out of our budget. The only way from here is up! I choose not to cut from my budget anymore for a lot of reasons. I’m happy with my budget where it is now and eliminating items such as cable wouldn’t make me that much happier.

My budget is low and at around $2,100 a month. Our after-tax monthly income is over twice as much as our budget, so there is plenty of room for us to enjoy the things that we want. We do have a lot of mortgage and student loan debt though. Extra income would be helpful. AND it would allow us to potentially retire earlier.

Now, just because I say I won’t cut things, doesn’t mean that I won’t try to find good deals though! I’m still going to try and lower my cable bill. And I do kind of want to start couponing again, mainly because I like getting things I already use for free. 🙂

Now, there are many things out there that can be done for extra income. However, what is the point where I reach my limit?

Around a month ago, over at Punch Debt in the Face, he talked about when you give up the extra income for your freedom. This led me to wonder what my limit is.

I get paid salary at my job, so there is no paid overtime. The only way for me to make more income is to do something on the side.

Right now I am doing mystery shopping, surveys and making a little bit from my blog. Right now altogether this makes me around $500 a month, but once I graduate I’ll have more time to make more as well.

I’ve worked full-time since I was 16 (and have gone to high school, undergraduate and graduate school full-time at the same time). Right now I go to the office M-F of course and from around 8am to 5pm. Then of course when classes are in session, I head to classes for another 12 hours a week.

This all adds up quickly and leads to NO free time.

When I’m done with my MBA, I definitely plan on taking a long break, but eventually I know I’ll have too much time on my hands. There’s only so many months where I could come home from work and sleep everyday. Eventually that has to get boring right? Ok maybe not…

I could get a part-time job. This will help me pay off my debt even faster. There’s retail, waitressing, bartending, etc. that I could get into. I still don’t know if it’s all worth it though for the minimal amount that I’d be making.

What will I do with all of this free time? The amount that I could get from another side gig that I most likely won’t enjoy would be minimal, so when’s the point when I say no to extra income?

Would an extra $500 for a part-time job a month be worth it? I’ll have my degree and hopefully be making more, so I think I’d prefer my freedom more. Of course if we needed the money, I would get a part-time job, but at the moment I think I’ll enjoy myself.

When does money just become money and
not worth risking happiness for you?

Cheap or Frugal

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

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 am cheap in many ways. I need to learn how to buy things for quality over quantity.

As you all know, last week I asked you all on Twitter if $70 was too cheap for unclogging our kitchen drain. A lot of you said it seemed cheap. I wasn’t sure because last year we easily found a plumber for $90 to unclog our bathroom sink.

Well of course it turns out that $70 is way too cheap. I chose cheapness over quality workmanship.

The $70 plumbers were young. The owner of the plumbing company was only 2 years older than me (yes I Facebook creeped). They also weren’t as knowledgeable as the plumbers who came to fix their mess.

We finally finished all of the plumbing yesterday. The new plumber we hired (who is our friend) came over and we decided to replace the rest of the copper piping in our house and it ended up costing $300 altogether. We still need to fix the wall and hire someone to patch it back in, but that won’t cost too too much.

If I would have kept searching for a plumber who had a good reputation, I most likely could have avoided all of this. But I am glad it’s all done! If the dumb plumbers wouldn’t have messed up, then we wouldn’t have noticed that our other pipes needed to be replaced within the next year. So thankfully we got to find out before our walls flooded from a busted pipe.

We found out that we do have roots growing in our pipe (the part of the pipe which is under the basement). The plumber said this is a common problem in many houses nowadays. Anyone else ever had to deal with this?

Another cheap thing that I’m guilty of is that I buy a lot of clothes from Forever 21. The clothes are cute, but not things that I’d wear for multiple years. The quality stinks and doesn’t last long, and usually the items aren’t “classic” pieces which will always look good.

This is something that I need to stop! Cheap clothing overtakes my closet but I should be going to better stores. I need to learn from Bridget badly!

Other things that I do that are cheap and definitely not frugal nor healthy, is that when I can’t find something healthy to make, sometimes I’ll just throw random crap in a bag for my work lunch and eat it all. It’s usually extremely random things and lots of unhealthy things such as lots of different chips.

This is definitely cheap. I’m foregoing my health for a couple of dollars of savings. I don’t do this often, but every now and then.

I consider myself not cheap (but yet still frugal) in many ways:

I always make sure to tip well. I would never be so cheap as to where I leave minimal or $0 tips.
I will always buy higher quality food for my dogs. They are worth it.
I always take good care of my car. I want it to last awhile and that means that I have to take care of it.
I always fall for warranties. This is something that’s bad though (and NOT frugal). I feel like items always break when I buy warranties for them, but when I decide not to buy one, they break immediately. So now I always buy the extra insurance (such as for a rental car).
I do buy quality electronics and other items. Such as TV’s, cars, phones, etc. I do believe cheap and good quality items are worth it (except of course I need to learn for clothes).

Are you cheap or frugal? What are some cheap or frugal things you do?

Financial Milestones in Your 20s

Last Updated: December 7, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

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.

We paid for this with CASH

There are many things that I want to accomplish in my life. Starting the things listed below will only make life easier for the most part. When you look at my list below, I have 11 checks so far so I’m about half way done. Some things I partially do, but decided not to say that they are a “check.”

However, I do think I’m doing good with this list, there’s nothing I’d really change about what I’m doing now in order to have more “checks.”

Erika and Vanessa both shared a list of their financial milestones. Check theirs out! Below is my list:

Finance a dream vacation…in cash. Check! I’ve paid for all of my vacations in cash. I went to Kauai in March and this was definitely a dream vacation.
Pay off your student loans. I haven’t paid them off completely. I have paid some though, and I plan on paying for this upcoming summer semester completely with cash. This definitely requires some saving and buckling down this summer.
Automate paying your credit card bill in full. Check! I pay my bill in full always.
Get rid of all bad debt. Check! “Bad debt” depends on the person, but all I have are a mortgage and student loans. I consider these to be “good” in my life.
Build an adequate emergency fund. Check! Our emergency fund is currently at $15K, we do want to take this and start applying it towards debt though. Our fund doesn’t need to be this high and could be better used in other places.
Make your first, and last, investment mistake. I’m still making investment mistakes. I’m still trying to understand everything. I guess since I work in the finance industry, I am much more critical and analyze the market a lot.
Develop a statement of cash flows. I do this in my head, but I’ve never written it down. Probably need to do this though. I always make sure there’s plenty of cushion in our checking account so that we never bounce anything though.
Max out a Roth & Contribute to your 401(k). I don’t save nearly enough right now. This is something I need to work on, but I do want my debt to be gone quickly. Right now I save between 10-15% of our after-tax pay every month.
Get a degree or certification that increases your earning power. Check! I’m about to get my Finance MBA. WOOHOO!
Take a career risk. Never done this. I’ve only had 2 jobs my entire life. 5 years in retail management and 2 years as a financial analyst. Definitely no career risk there.
Negotiate something. Check! I always negotiate on vacations. When I booked our Vegas Bachelorette trip for this August, I called many places and eventually got a great deal. I asked this to match a price I found somewhere else, and they even threw extras in.
Earn your first side grand. Check! I’ve made nice side money from my blog, mystery shopping and surveys.
Start a sub-savings account for an upcoming financial goal. I don’t have any separate accounts, but I do think this would help since the money would be separated from the other accounts.
Set a target retirement date. This isn’t set in stone of course since we are still young. Hopefully around the age of 50 though. This most likely won’t be a complete retirement though. I still see myself doing some sort of part time gig when I’m older.
Monitor your credit. Check! I check this all the time, especially since someone stole my social security number when I was younger. Things always tend to pop up but for the most part I am safe now.
Say no to a financial salesman. Check! I’m actually pretty good with saying no. My friends and bf always laugh because I can walk away so easily and not care. In Kauai, some guy tried selling us a timeshare and after about 15 minutes of him talking, I looked at my bf and I could tell he didn’t want to be mean. So I told the guy no and walked away. My bf still thanks me for having no heart when we are around persistent sales people.
Give just enough to make it hurt. We hardly give. We used to give around $100 a month to United Way, but we didn’t realize until now that they are extremely corrupt. So we have limited this greatly and now we only give around $20 a month.
Invest $1 for every $1 you spend- in progress. Check kind of. We save around 50% of our after-tax income every month, and soon this will be much more.
Start a 529 College Savings Plan. Ehh not really interested in this at all.
Buy a house. This is something I just added (thanks to Work Save Live). This is a CHECK for me!

How many have you completed? Any input on the list?

Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

Last Updated: December 7, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

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.

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).

April Goals Update

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.
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.
Run with my dog at least twice a week. PASS. See above 🙂
Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. FAIL. Haven’t even really thought about this.
Make an extra $500 this month. Almost PASS. See below!
Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. FAIL. I think once classes are done, I will be able to do this.
Get my front windshield fixed. PASS! Did this on Saturday.
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.
Eat in at least 5 times a week. PASS. And I’m still coming up with new meal ideas also! Love Pinterest 🙂
Make 1 vegetarian meal a week. FAIL. We had one vegetarian dinner this month. Not good!

May Goals

Reassess our budget and cut out $25. There’s always something that can be cut. Just not sure what yet…
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.
Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. This has been on the list forever, I need to get on this.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Book our Vegas hotel and plane tickets.

Blog Goals

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.

Extra Monthly Income in March

Ad links/Sponsored Posts on my blog –$325

Surveys -$9

Mystery Shopping -$126

So I actually made $460 extra last month!

How did you do in April? Any extra income?

Having a Sibling Move In

Last Updated: April 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

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.

My sister has been begging me for months to let her move in. I have thought long and hard about this and this wasn’t the easiest decision. You would think it would be easy since she is family, but there were so many things to think about.

How would this affect our relationship? Could something bad happen from this?

How would my mother react, would she feel abandoned?

The privacy issue.

Would she be dirty? Loud? Crazy? Annoying? I haven’t lived with my sister in over 10 years.

What if it didn’t work out?

We were also thinking no because we have really enjoyed our privacy of not living with other people. Yes we have lived together for 5 years with only around 6 months of having a roommate, but going back to old ways will be hard. But this is something that I can get over, not a huge deal.

But we decided to say yes because of everything that she’s gone through. My sister and my boyfriend get along well, and I get along with her better than I used to, so I’m not worried about that. It was actually the boyfriend’s idea to have her move in ASAP because of all of the problems that have been happening lately where she lives now.

Anyways, I plan on charging her around $200 a month for rent. I can’t decide if I want to do that or charge her around $100 plus 1/3 of the bills (gas, heat, cable, etc), so that she can get a better feel of how expenses are and how her use can fluctuate by month. What do you all think? I’m leaning just towards the fixed number so that it can just be easier every month.

Honestly, I just want to give her a nice place to live that will bring her life back to normal and that’s why I said she could move in. She hasn’t had a home cooked meal in forever (except when she comes over to my house), and I would like to fill that void that she has. I guess I will be trying to be more like a motherly figure. I want to help her with basic things in life that she should know about.

I do hope that us living together will help our relationship. Yes I know this is a far stretch because usually roommate situations do not go well, especially with friends and family. However, I haven’t lived with my sister since I was about 12 – so she was only 8 (I moved out at 12 and moved in with my dad), so we don’t have a really strong relationship there.In the end, I’m extremely happy about her moving in.

I’m sure most girls dream about having that GREAT relationship with their sister, and this is most likely my chance at that. We’ve never been close, but now we just might be. I would love to call my sister my best friend.

Have any of you ever let your sibling move in? How did it go? Do you have any tips for us?

Have any of you ever let your sibling move in? How did it go?
Do you have any tips for us?