Hi <<First Name>>! I'm an aunt!!! I spent the last few days with my sister, her hubby, and the new baby! He's truly precious.
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While I was gone, my friend helped me out and loaded my new theme for BFS. Please check out the new look at
http://www.budgetinginthefunstuff.com and let me know what you think! If you see anything broken or looking funny, that is definitely something I'd like to know. If you like something especially, feel let me know that too! Thanks in advance! :-D
Win the Monthly Prize!
Just to say thanks for being part of the BFS community, each month we give away a $25 Amazon gift card or Paypal cash AND a free copy of BOTH of my eBooks to one lucky BFS newsletter subscriber! Congrats to February's winner! To enter this month's, please
jump over to this post and leave a comment - only one comment per person please! A winner will be chosen and notified at the beginning of next month.
Crystal Shards
It is the beginning of yet another new month. So as you may know, here is my complete online income and expense breakdown from the last one:
February 2015 Online Income and Expenses
- BFS - $300
- My Other Blogs - $400
- Affiliate Ads - $0
- eBook - $0
- Crystal for Hire (Freelancing like Writing and Blog Advertising Management) - $3875
- Minus Expenses (Paypal, Writers for Co-Owned Sites, Etc.) - $350
- TOTAL - $4225
I want that number at $7000 every month, but realistically, I'd be really happy at $5000+ now. Luckily, we diversify though, so $4225 works. :-)
The rest of our income comes from
renting out our old house, renting out
spare bedrooms to our close friends, professional pet sitting (my other job), and sports officiating (hubby's hobby job).
Hubby works from home with me, but he is also a high school varsity and sub varsity football official from August through November and a softball official from February through May. I'm now pet sitting, which has been
successful too, woot!
For this month, our total additional income was around $3100 ($2350 in rent and $750 from pet sitting). Like I said, yay for diversification!
Overall, we brought in about $7325.
To put things into perspective, we need about $6250 a month just to hit our main budget categories, which covers our monthly bills like the remaining mortgage ($1000), my new car payment ($275), a new-to-us car fund ($225), property taxes and insurance on both homes ($1200 a month), and income taxes ($2250 a month). We live on the other $1300 a month. If there is anything leftover after that $6250 is taken care of, it is divided between savings, investments, and fun. It helps make up for not-so-good months that pop up. You can check out our
our budget anytime.
Our main financial goal is to continue making enough overall to work from home as long as possible since we both prefer self-employment over "normal" day jobs. Our secondary goal is to use the majority of any extra money that we ever have to reach financial independence as soon as possible (we are aiming for age 50 or before). We may still choose to work even if we ever have enough saved not to, but we would like to make that choice ourselves.
DISCLAIMER: Please keep in mind that this income comes from 35+ hour work weeks online generally divided between me and Mr. BFS. I put in another 20-30 hours a week into pet sitting. When it's a sports season, Mr. BFS puts in about 30 hours a week into reffing.
We also end up paying about 32% in income taxes since we do have to cover the employer's part as well. I was working 100+ hours a week personally for over a year before I was able to leave my day job and do this full time. I just wanted to be clear that this isn't easy money in any respect. I want to inspire everyone to accomplish their dreams, no matter what it takes. I am not saying it will be simple or fast. It just can be done.
Thanks for being the best readers ever!
Crystal and the BFS team
newsletter@budgetinginthefunstuff.com
P.S. If you have any questions at any time, please contact me! Just hit Reply!
