Month: June 2011

What Have You Done to Get Rich?

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This question is sparked by a recent conversation I had.  Someone I know asked me why they weren’t rich despite  having worked hard all their life and never spending extravagantly.  I’m pretty sure it was a rhetorical question but I thought the answer would make a good blog post.  In the instance of this particular person it was true that they had worked hard and never spent extravagantly.  The reasons the person didn’t get rich are that there job paid just enough to cover modest middle-class expenses.  Also the job did not offer a 401k or any type of retirement plan.  And what savings there were made were put in investments with poor returns and high expenses.   This person never did anything that would have allowed them to get rich.

This made me wonder what does a person need to do to get rich.  I believe working hard is part of it but it is clear to me that by itself isn’t enough.  To figure out what needs to be done to get rich I thought about the people I know who I consider to be rich or at least well-off.  They became rich through three different ways.

  1. They owned a business.
  2. They owned real estate investments.
  3. They worked at a job that paid well above average and put their excess income into investments with a good return.

I probably could have made this just two different ways since the people I’m thinking about that made their money with well-paying jobs also made a substantial part of their wealth through real estate investments.  Looking at these three ways to get rich I have to admit that I’m not doing anything to get rich.  My blogging is a business but it doesn’t currently have the potential to make me rich.  I need to change the potential of my blog and I need to consider the other ways of getting rich as well.

The first and second ways of getting rich can be risky and even the third way has some risk.  I’m thinking the reason many people never get rich is because they never take the risk of doing something that can make them rich.   What have you done to get rich?

 

 

Online Income Report – May 2011

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Here is a breakdown of my online income for May 2011.

Google Adsense – $325.57

Affiliate Income – $230.63

Brokered Ads – $54

Direct Ads- $208.03

Total – $818.23

My online income was down about $100 from the month before but I am not complaining.  I’m making a very good amount of income online considering how little work I put into it.  I was happy that my Adsense got back over $300 for the first time in a few months.  I thought I had finally figured out the best placement but it looks like Adsense will barely be over $200 this month so I guess the $300 month was just a fluke.  I would like to increase my affiliate income to be a bigger part of my income.  That is easier said then done though and I don’t want to write a bunch of posts that are just promoting affiliate products.  I have greatly increased my direct ad income this month and it looks like I will be able to maintain that for at least another month.  There is still a lot of year left but it looks like I should not have a problem meeting my goal of being a five figure blogger.


May Income – $1078.95

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Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Online Income

$751.49

Interest

$17.51

Stock Dividends

$12.97

Mystery Shops

$269.97

Cash Back/Surveys

$7.98

Ebay

$19.03

Total

$1078.95

May was an okay month for income.  I can’t complain about the amount of online income I’m making but I need to increase it or find some new sources of passive income or alternative income.  My total income needs to be about $2000 a month to keep ahead of my expenses.  I’m estimating my income will be about the same for June.

May Expenses – $1598.31

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

Household

$706.21

Entertainment

$56.50

Transportation

 $326.15

Food

$129.54
Medical/Dental

$286.95

Utilities

$40.06

Phone

$26.90
Debt $26

Total

$1598.31

My expenses in May were down from April but still not quite as low as I would like.  This total is an approximation since my records were wiped out when my computer crashed.  I was able to figure out most of my expenses by looking at my credit card and debit card records but I’m sure I missed a few cash purchases.

May medical expenses were high because I had a large medical bill but now that that is paid off they should be normal for this month.  Transportation expense was also higher than I would prefer.  We spent over $300 on gas.  A lot of that is travel for mystery shopping though so we will be able to deduct it.  Since gas is cheaper and we don’t have any long trips planned this month we should at least be able to get this figure under $300.  All other expenses should be pretty much the same.

I’ve been trying to keep track of the expenses by breaking out my portion of my wife and I’s expenses but I’m going to switch to reporting both our expenses.  This will eliminate having to determine what expenses to include and which ones to leave out.  Now the monthly expense report will need to be compared to other married couple households rather than to a single man household.  I’m going to up my budget target from $1000 a month to $1750.  I think that is reasonable but we will see.

 

Stealing at the Movies Isn’t Frugal

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Last week my wife and I did a movie theater mystery shop that required me to basically be at the theater all day for 3 days.  Some theater patrons that I observed participated in dishonest and sometimes really gross behavior in order to save a few bucks.  I’m not talking about sneaking candy into the theater.  That behavior might be unethical but it is not stealing.

The gross behavior I observed was a man digging through the trash for a popcorn bucket and drink cup.  He then took them into the bathroom.  Presumably to clean them out.  He later returned with a full bucket of popcorn and full drink.  The reasonable assumption is that he took these items to the concession stand and got the free refills on both of them.  I’m all for saving a few bucks but I am not going to eat out of a container that has been in the trash.  That is just plain gross.  You don’t know what could have been put in there and you are not going to be able to get them clean in the bathroom.  Even if you could be sure that they were clean this isn’t something I would do because it is simply stealing.

We also observed people being let in a side door and sneaking into a movie.  This is another form of stealing.  In the  past I used to sometimes cross over to another movie after watching a movie for which I had a ticket.  I used to rationalize this behavior as frugal but that is one of my supposedly frugal behaviors I no longer indulge in because I have determined it to be wrong.

I doubt that the people who stole from the theater actually thought they were being frugal but just to be clear: stealing isn’t frugal.