Andy Hough

February Blogging Wage: $29.38 p/h

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I decided to keep track of my hours spent blogging last month so I could determine my hourly wage for blogging. The resulting figure is very misleading.  I spent 21 hours on blogging in February.  That figure includes actual time writing posts and working on the blog.  It doesn’t include time spent reading other blogs or corresponding with other bloggers.  If that time was included my hours would easily double.  The total hours is also lower than normal due to February being a short month and my spending little time on the blog while on vacation.

My blogs made $617.40 last month.  That is by far my best month and won’t likely be repeated.  My income being abnormally high and my hours being lower than normal result in an hourly wage that is much higher than normal.  I’d guess my usual blogging wage is closer to minimum wage but last month was the first month I kept track of my time spent so I can’t be sure.

If I could make that wage every month I wouldn’t look for a job I’d just spend more time blogging.  That wouldn’t really work since some of the income realized this month covered several months of sales.  Also doubling my hours blogging wouldn’t result in a doubling of income.  The return for hours spent blogging would rapidly decline as my hours increased.  It is nice to make that much for the month though and it makes a goal of earning a living online seem possible.

February Income

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Here is a summary of my income for February:

Online Income

$617.14

Surveys

$5

Interest

$36.87

Cash Back

$8.60

Total

$667.61

My online income was by far my best ever.  This won’t be duplicated soon though because I was paid for two year long link placements which likely won’t be repeated.  Also I received my Adsense payment which usually takes me a few months to hit the minimum payout.  It could have been even higher but the referrals I received from Prosper and Lending Club I invested in loans and will count them as income as payments are made.

The interest income includes  ING Direct referrals or it would be much smaller.  I’ll probably have quite a few of them this month as well.  I’ll have to find some more ways to increase my income.

Setback in Goal Progress

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Soon after I wrote about my exercise and frugality hack last month it was sabotaged.  I had turned off my hot water at home and took my showers at the school fitness center to motivate me to exercise and save a little money.  The school has now closed the locker room at the fitness center and put everyone in a tiny locker room with only three showers.  This makes it too much of a hassle to take a shower there now.  The weather has been great this weekend though and I did get outside for a run.  I plan to continue running outside since I enjoy that much more than running on a treadmill anyway.  I still plan on exercising it just won’t be at the school fitness center.

Concentrate on the Big Three

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In backpacking a common piece of advice to those who want to reduce their pack weight is to reduce the weight of their big three first.  The big three consists of  a backpack, sleeping bag, and shelter.  These are usually the three heaviest items one carries.  It makes sense to concentrate on reducing the weight of these first since this is where the greatest progress can be made.  It doesn’t make much sense to be drilling holes in your toothbrush when you’re carrying a backpack that is twice the weight you need.

The same concept can apply to personal finance.  There isn’t much point in washing out your plastic baggies and re-using them and then driving a luxury SUV that you can barely afford.  You need to identify what your big three are and then see what you can do to reduce them.  Most people would have housing and transportation as two of their largest expenses.  Taxes would probably also be in most people’s three biggest expenses but since you’re limited in how much you can reduce those you might want to concentrate on the next biggest expense. If you keep track of your expenses, which you should, then it will not be a problem to identify your largest expenses.

The old saying penny wise and pound foolish defines what this advice is meant to fix.  Of course once you are pound wise it is good to be penny wise as well.

February Credit Score

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My February credit score is 787 which is my highest ever.  It was 770 last month and 782 the month before that.  I’m not sure what is causing the fluctuation.  It will likely be going down next month because I plan to transfer $4,900 of my 8.5% Grad Plus loan to my credit card that is offering me a 3.99% for life rate.  My overall debt won’t increase but my credit utilization percentage will go up causing a reduction in my credit score.