Budget Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

How We Started A Rental Property Business

Last Updated: May 14, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 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.

Are you interested in learning how to start a rental property business? Today, I have a great guest post from Nikki, a reader of Making Sense of Cents, on how she started her own rental real estate business with just $30,000. She now owns 28 rental units!

How early do you start to think of saving for retirement? Though it may not be on your radar now, there is a way to start saving without even thinking about it. Now how does that make sense?

By investing in real estate.

That is exactly what my husband and I did!

We started with a small investment of $30,000 to purchase one rental property and less than 10 years later, grew that one investment into 28 units!

All of which are intended to help us retire early and continue bringing in passive income!

Now let’s start from the beginning…

My husband and I married back in 2009. Now, most newlyweds don’t just jump right in to buying a house after shelling out the money for a wedding, not to mention we were only in our early 20’s to begin with, but we were ready to make the leap into home ownership!

We were fortunate to have some, albeit small, savings for a down payment to get us started. If you can recall, in 2009, we were still feeling the ramifications from the Great Recession. [Read more…]

My Best Advice For Graduates – 16 Tips Every Graduate Needs To Hear

Last Updated: April 19, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 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.

Are you wondering what is the best advice for graduates? Whether you or someone you know is graduating high school or college, I have some great tips and wisdom to share.

Graduating is a life changing experience.

You’ve worked incredibly hard to reach this achievement, and it’s both a stressful and exciting time.

You might be wondering what you’re going to do next with your life, or you may have a plan. There were times when I felt like I knew exactly what I wanted to do after graduation, but I was also completely clueless at times too.

Graduation means you’re moving onto the next phase of your life, which is why it’s both so scary and thrilling.

It only makes sense that you would be looking for the best advice for graduates. [Read more…]

How I Flip Garage Sale Items On eBay As A Side Hustle

Last Updated: April 16, 2021 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.

Hello! Please enjoy this article from a reader, Rush Walters, on how he flips garage sale and auction items on eBay as a side hustle to make extra income.

Depending on who you ask, there are pros and cons to being a high school teacher. One con: income, One pro: having summers off.

Both my wife and I are teachers in a small mid-Missouri town. During my first year (2015) as a high school teacher and head boy’s tennis coach I was making a whopping $38,000 a year.

Needless to say, the budget was tight some months.

When I got married in 2018, I thought a second income would be very helpful, but a second salary would not come until 2019. Long story short, my wife is from Bolivia and was not able to legally work for a year until she received her permanent residency status (green card).

Two people living off of one middle-class paycheck, let alone a teacher’s paycheck, was challenging. Thankfully my wife and I were decent at budgeting, and have been using a successful budgeting process since we have been married, but I’ll save that story for another day. [Read more…]

This Savings Account Gives Away Up To $25,000 Each Month For Free

Last Updated: April 15, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 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.

Welcome to my PrizePool review. PrizePool is a banking account that gives you the chance to win up to $25,000 monthly. I have partnered with PrizePool and all opinions are 100% my own.

Are you looking to start saving more money? Perhaps you want to find a way to make saving money more fun?

Enter PrizePool.

PrizePool gives you the opportunity to win up to $25,000 every month by simply saving money.

And, it’s completely free and there is no catch!

PrizePool’s mission is to help Americans improve their finances. PrizePool realizes that the majority of U.S. households spend their hard earned money on playing the lottery each week, even though it is very unlikely that they will ever actually win the lottery.

This is where PrizePool comes in – You get the opportunity to save your money in a savings account and have the chance to win real cash prizes. The great thing, though, is that you can’t lose!

PrizePool makes saving money fun, so that you are more motivated to save money and improve your financial situation. [Read more…]

21 Best Early Retirement Tips To Help You Retire Early

Last Updated: April 15, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 11 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.

Are you interested in financial independence and/or early retirement? Today, I’ve asked some of the top personal finance experts to share their personal and best early retirement tips.

Early retirement may sound like a dream, but there are more and more people who are trying to retire early as part of the FIRE movement. FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early.

There is a lot of debate around financial independence and early retirement, especially about what it really means and how to achieve it.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you have millions of dollars in the bank and never work again. If that’s your goal, then great, go for it! But the idea is more about living your best possible life and no longer being controlled by money.

For some people that means completely getting rid of their debt — no credit card debt, mortgage, car loans, student loans, etc. Other people have an exact number in mind that they want to reach, like $1 to $2 million in savings. [Read more…]

How To Save For A House – 8 Tips To Help You Save

Last Updated: April 5, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 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.

Are you thinking about buying a home? If so, then you’re probably wondering how to save for a house.

After all, the price of a home is most likely the largest amount of money that you will ever spend.

The median U.S. home value is $266,222, according to Zillow. And, there are some areas that have much higher average home prices, like four to five times more. For example, in Los Angeles, the typical home price jumps to $804,452.

The first part of saving for a house is the down payment.

But, when you’re figuring out how much to save for a house, you also need to think about incidental costs, like moving expenses, closing costs, things you need for your new home, and more.

Due to this, you’ll most likely have to save a large amount of money. And, you’re probably wondering how you’re going to do that.

To help you learn how to save money for a house, this article will first explain how to figure out the amount of money you need to save. Like I said, there’s more than just the down payment.

Plus, the amount of money you save for your down payment has a major impact on your monthly mortgage payments. This is why it’s so important to learn how to save for a house now. [Read more…]

How I Changed My Financial Future And Made $50,000 Writing From Home

Last Updated: March 26, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 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.

Hello! Today, I have a great article to share from a reader of Making Sense of Cents. Kate earned $50,000 from writing novels in 2020. This all started when her car was repossessed in early 2020, and her and her husband ended up living in their vehicle. By August of 2020, they were able to rent a brand new townhome and buy a car in cash, all without her husband having to return to work. Below is her story of how she changed her financial future. Enjoy!

In January of 2020, I was forced to quit my job as a graphic artist for a local firm. The pay was decent, as were the hours, but my health issues were worsened by the stress of a “real” work environment.

I had published a few books in 2019 with little success, but I assured my husband, Jacob, that I would do better in 2020 with a rapid release schedule, which is releasing a book every thirty days or so to combat Amazon’s algorithm.

My highest royalty month to that point had been December, and I made $88 from my Young Adult books.

Still, I had hope.

I’d just discovered an extremely niche genre of romance, and readers were hungry for more. I wasn’t sure if I could write the steamy scenes I saw in many of the books I test-read, and I didn’t know if I’d hit the other tropes well enough. [Read more…]

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