Hi <<First Name>>! The Great Thanksgiving Charity Giveaway ended up being a HUGE success! Katita won $125 and Big Brothers Big Sisters received a healthy $200 donation in her honor. If you are receiving this newsletter for the first time, welcome!!!
November wasn't personally financially astounding, but it was good enough. That's a win for me! I hesitate to say it, but I think I am learning to be content. I'm just happy. I love that feeling. November was full of board gaming, family, friends, a new foster dog, and LOTS of food. Happy, happy!!!
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 either one of my eBooks to one lucky BFS newsletter subscriber! Congrats to November'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 a new month. So as you may know, here is my complete online income and expense breakdown:
November 2014 Online Income and Expenses
- BFS - $900
- My Other Blogs - $300
- Affiliate Ads - $0
- eBook - $0
- Crystal for Hire (Freelancing like Writing and Blog Advertising Management) - $4500
- Minus Expenses (Paypal, Writers for Co-Owned Sites, Etc.) - $400
- TOTAL - $5300
I want that number at $7000 every month...but that just isn't the norm anymore and that is okay. It's why diversification is so important. :-)
The rest of our income comes from
renting out our old house, renting out a
spare bedroom to our close friends, and our hobby jobs.
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 November 2014, our total additional income was around $3500 ($1800 in rent, $700 from pet sitting, and $1000 from sports officiating). Like I said, yay for diversification!
Overall, we brought in about $8800 in November 2014.
To put things into perspective, we need about $6600 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 ($2500 a month). We live on the other $1400 a month. If there is anything leftover after that $6600 is taken care of, like this month, 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!
