Andy Hough

Rakuten/Ebates $40 Referral Bonus

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Rakuten $40 referral bonus link

The Rakuten shopping portal (you might know it by its former name of Ebates) is offering a $40 referral bonus. If you sign up as a new member to Rakuten and spend $40 you will receive a $40 bonus and I’ll get a $40 bonus too. It is a win-win.

This is the best referral bonus I’ve seen them offer. Usually the best bonus offer is $30. Thanks to whomever used my referral link back in September. This blog doesn’t make much ad income any more so little bonuses like these are helpful.

Rakuten is a decent cash back shopping portal. Their rates usually aren’t the highest but they have occasional special deals where they offer the best rates. Over the years I have received over $500 cash back from them. It has definitely been worth my time signing up and using their portal.

Sign up using this Rakuten $40 referral bonus link to get your $40 bonus after you qualify.

2020 Goal Review and November Goals

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Since the year is most of the way over it is a good time to see how I’m doing on my goals for the year. I’ve only set two goals for this year. The first goal was to save $10,000 in the first four months of 2020. I did achieve that goal with most of the savings going to my retirement accounts. I also added some to my cash savings accounts which turned out to be a good thing since my employment has been sporadic since my work office closed in the Spring due to the coronavirus.

My next goal was to lose weight. To help accomplish that goal I joined two Dietbet games. For the first game I needed to lose 4% of my bodyweight (about 9 pounds) in 1 month. I was able to do that fairly easily. I cut back on my junk food intake a little and started walking about 10k steps a day and the weight quickly came off.

The second game required me to lose 10% of my bodyweight (a little over 22 pounds) in 6 months. This goal has been much harder to achieve. My weight loss has been stalled out since late July and I still have almost 5 pounds to lose by 11/18. To do that I’m going to have to be more consistent getting my daily steps in and probably add some other type of exercise on top of that too. More importantly I’ll have to cut way back on my daily calories for the next week.

If I make the 10% goal I will weigh 204 pounds or less. That isn’t far from 200 pounds so I’m making that my stretch goal for the month. If I don’t make it under 200 pounds this month then I’ll make that a goal for December.

For this month, I’m setting a goal to write at least 8 blog posts. I’ve been very lazy about writing blog posts here for the last couple of years and I need to get back in the habit of writing

I’ve not gotten off to a good start on writing posts. This post was supposed to be published on the first of the month and I’m just now getting around to finishing it and posting it. . Most of the posts for the rest of the month will probably be shorter deal type posts. These should be fairly easy to write and since some/most of them will also have the potential to make me money that will provide a little more motivation to write.

I’ll let you know how I did on these goals when I publish a goals post for December.

October Income – $1521.05

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Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

Interest$8.05
Amazon FBA($15.57)
Unemployment$288
Bank/Stock Bonus$29.95
Cashback$88.69
Job$625.10
Amazon Merch$4.48
Dividends$18.03
Ebay/Other Selling$458.75
Total$1521.05

October’s income was okay considering my job only lasted for one week of the month. It was still about double my expenses which is good.

My Amazon FBA side hustle had a small loss for the month. I had a big return and mostly sold on other platforms so I didn’t have much income to offset the loss from the return expenses.

Dividend income came in at $18.03. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

I made $288 from unemployment. I’m trying to make more from self-employment and I’ll be out of the country for most of December so I’ve decided not to file for unemployment again this year. I’m hoping next year I’ll have more stable employment and won’t need to file.

I made $458.75 selling stuff on eBay and elsewhere. I’ve got one item that I’m able to quickly flip that’s making most of my profit. I’m hoping the demand will hold up for a couple more months.

I received $625.10 from one week of work at a new job. Unfortunately, they haven’t had more work for me since then.

I also received $88.68 in cash back. This is the amount that I cashed out from my credit cards, not the amount I earned. Since there isn’t much travel now, my Chase Sapphire card is allowing me to cash out my points to reimburse myself for grocery and restaurant purchases which is why cashback is higher than usual.

Lastly, I received $29.95 from a credit card promo and a stock app promo and $4.48 from Amazon Merch.

How was your month?

October Expenses – $712.04

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

Household$9.19
Mortgage$353.67
Entertainment$13.90
Transportation$97.04
Food$110.42
Phone$30.12
Health$97.70
Total$712.04

My October expenses were quite low. This is about as low as they can get.

Entertainment expense was for a discounted month of Amazon Prime and buying a friend a Burger King lunch.

The mortgage payment is self-explanatory. I’ll usually round up the payment a bit, but I didn’t last month.

Transportation was for gas and an oil change with synthetic oil.

My food expense was at a normal level. I could reduce this, but for now I feel like I’m getting good value for the money I’m spending.

My phone bill was normal. It will usually be within a couple dollars of this total.

Household expense was for some deodorant and a socket set.

Health expense was for a dentist visit, refills of my blood pressure medications, and some antacids.

This month’s expenses will likely be a bit higher since it is difficult to keep expenses as low as I did in October. I still expect this month to be a low expense month though.

How was your month?

September Income – $2560.44

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Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

Interest$18.82
Amazon FBA$40.81
Unemployment$1422
Insurance Refund$1042.43
Cashback$38.83
Dividends$11.95
Ebay/Other Selling($14.40)
Total$2560.44

My income was up for the month after a low income month in August.

My Amazon FBA side hustle continues to make a profit. I just need to get it higher.

Dividend income came in at $11.95. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

I made $1422 from unemployment. I opted to have them start deducting 10% for tax so I hopefully won’t have a big tax bill next year.

I lost $14.40 selling stuff on eBay and locally. I had a couple of returns, a couple of sales where I lost money, and a lost package during the month. It wasn’t a good month. I should eventually get reimbursed for the lost package.

I received a surprise check of $1042.43 from the health insurer I had last year. The refund was due to them not spending enough of my premium for health services. I had no idea this check was coming so it was very welcome surprise. It is the first time I have ever received a $1000 check that I wasn’t expecting.

I also received $38.83 in cash back. This is the amount that I cashed out from my credit cards, not the amount I earned.

I’m starting a new job Monday so this month’s income should go up a little bit.

How was your month?