Andy Hough

Giving Up on Giving Up Soda

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I did actually give up soda for a couple of weeks but I decided to start drinking it again.   I decided to cheat one day because I was tired and needed the caffeine.  That led to cheating the next day and deciding to just scrapping the whole giving up soda thing. I do feel that I could give up soda again but I don’t want to right now. The benefits I hoped to see from giving up soda did not happen.  I was hoping that I would sleep better, lose weight, and have improved digestion.  The reason none of that happened is probably because I substituted sweet tea for my soda.  If I want to see any benefits I probably need to give up all caffeinated and sugary drinks.  That is something I might do in the future but for now I’m enjoying my soda.

I’m still doing well on giving up TV.  That has been pretty easy.  The internet, reading and our new Wii is more than enough to keep me occupied.  It also helps that we agreed watching DVDs would be okay.  We just got season 3 of Dexter from the library and are enjoying watching an episode or two of it a night now.  I suppose that is cheating but I was on the wait list for Dexter for months so now that I have it I’m going to watch it.

February Income – $951.13

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Here is a breakdown of my income for February.

Online Income

$626.28

Interest

$22.77

Stock Dividends

$12.95

Mystery Shops

$117.20

Survey/Cashback

$47.53

Job

$124.40

Total

$951.13

My income was lower in February than I prefer although it is nice to see most of the income is alternative income and passive income.  It isn’t good to have a month where your expenses were higher than your income.  I’ll make more money than I spend this month because I will be receiving my medical study payment.  It isn’t surprising my income was down in February because I didn’t do much to make money.  I need to put some work into increasing my passive income and alternative income.

 

Online Income Report – February 2011

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

Google Adsense – $256.31

Affiliate Income – $199

Brokered Ads – $48.94

Direct Ads – $159.53

Total – $663.58

My online income was down but I’m not too worried about it.  This money was made with very little effort on my part once I start putting more work into my sites they should start making more money for me.  Online income for March should be about the same.  I’ve been experimenting with different Adsense ads and placement but the experiments so far have only resulted in decreased income rather than increased income.  I believe I have finally made some improvements and Adsense should start going back up.  I’ve been getting pickier about ads.  I need to come up with a consistent policy on them and figure out a balance that will make me money but not put off my readers.

February Investment Income – $97.32

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My February investment income rose to $97.32 from $97.23 the month before.  This was due to an increase in the value of the funds and individual stocks I hold in my portfolio since I did not add any money to my investments.  I’m hoping I can get this over $100 in the next few months but I’m not yet sure when I will have additional money to add to my investments.  My cash reserves are lower than I prefer right now and I won’t be adding to my investments until I get my cash back up to what I consider a comfortable level.

This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income. My goal is to get this amount to $1000 a month. If I have $1000 in monthly passive investment income I will be able to retire early. You can see what my actual investment income for the month was by looking at my monthly income report and adding the interest and dividend amounts.

Alternative Income – Focus Groups

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It has been a while since I  wrote about a new way to make alternative income.  I made $30 for about an hour of my time yesterday by participating in a focus group.  I just had to give my opinion on new varieties of oatmeal to help the makers determine which product to develop.  There are lots of different types of focus groups.  Last year I participated in one that gauged our reaction to different advertisements by attorneys.  Focus groups are pretty easy money but there aren’t a lot of them available to participate in.  I’m signed up for a local company that has focus groups but you can’t participate in more than one every three months.  The focus group I did last year I found on Craiglist.  The site FindFocusGroups.com is supposed to help you find focus groups but I haven’t used it so I can’t vouch for it.  You  could also try the company I just did a focus group with but they only have locations in Dallas, Chicago, and Springfield, MO.  If you know of any other legitimate focus group companies please share them in a comment.