You should always double check your paycheck to make sure there are no errors. I’ve found mistakes several times over the years and they were never in my favor. If your paycheck is the same every week then checking your check is pretty easy. You just have to check it once and as long as nothing changes you are good. My paychecks are always different since I always work a different number of hours but it takes less than a minute to scan the check and make sure it is correct.

The most recent mistake I found was at my part-time job. They were taking out Kansas City, MO city income tax. Since I don’t live or work in Kansas City I shouldn’t be paying that tax. I guess since most of their employees live in Kansas City they just automatically take the city tax out. Or it may have been based on zip code since the address I used for that job has a zip code that includes both Kansas City and a suburb of Kansas City.

Fixing the problem wasn’t too difficult. I just called the payroll department and explained the problem. They then told me they would fix my checks so that the tax was no longer taken out and refund the tax that had already been taken out. I received that check today and they did fix it correctly.

The city income tax was only 1% but that adds up after a while and I need the money more than the city. This advice can also apply to your monthly bills, credit card statements, bank statements, and similar items that can cost you money if they are not figured correctly.

Have you ever found a mistake on your paycheck? Was it in your favor or theirs?

My sister is looking to supplement her income when she retires from the Navy and did some research to get an idea of how much she could make from blogging. She is letting me post her results here.

Realistic Income Expectations:

Months 0-12: Anywhere from 65 cents to up to maybe 20ish bucks/month.

Months 12-24: Now that you’re a little more experienced and know how to work the various ads, affiliates, attract customers, etc, you can reasonably anticipate making in the $200-$600/month range.

2-5 years: Even more experienced, with a solid following. You may well still only bring in the $200-600 you did during years 1-2. However, at least now that you have years of experience behind you, you’re probably not working as many hours on your blog as you initially did.

However, it’s not completely uncommon to near or surpass the $1k/month milestone during years 2-5. It’s even possible to surpass the $1k/month milestone, but bloggers in this range seem to be pretty darn happy if they’re regularly pulling in 1-2k/month.

Realistic Expectation of Hours Worked:

Months 0-12: Expect to put in at least 4-6 hours/day. Some report putting in less, but many report putting in more than full time work during this stage. So, 20-60 hours a week to earn that whopping 65 cent paycheck! woohoo!

Months 12-24: Expected working hours in this range can really vary. Basically, it appears one of two things usually happen at this point. One, you’ve developed a good following and have worked out how to get money through Adsense, affiliates, etc. and now your work load has evened out a bit, still averaging working 2-6 hours/day.

Or, the other thing that could happen, is, now that you’re more experienced, you’re starting to really get a feel with how to maximize your profits, and you now spend a few MORE hours per day/week, working all the angles to really get your blog/website going where you want it to go. If this is where you’re at at this stage, you can reasonably expect to put in anywhere from 6 to 10 hours/day.

Years 2-5: If you haven’t given up yet, once you reach this stage, you’ve probably figured out how to maximize your profits while minimizing your workload. You’re probably still working 2-4 hours per day to maintain your regularly monthly income flow or perhaps modestly increase it. Be warned though, just because you know what to do to maximize profits while minimizing workload, doesn’t mean you’ll be able to actually do those things. Many perfectionists will burn themselves out.

It seems that most bloggers who manage to pull in a significant income (1-3k/month is my personal definition of ‘significant income’) seem to do one of two things, listed below.

One, is that they have a good niche. Their target audience is well defined enough that they don’t have to compete with as many people, and thereby make more profit. However, their target audience is still broad enough to attract enough readership to pull in those profits.

The second thing I noticed that those ‘significant income’ earners did, was they sold an actual product or service that they made/invented themselves via their blog (or at least linked their product/service website to their blog and used their blog as one means of attracting customers to their product).

So, that’s it. Bottom line, if you have a good idea for an online business, and are willing to put in 20-60 hours per week, and willing to wait/work for pennies for a few months to a few years, you can probably realistically expect to make $200-$600/month from it. If you have a good idea, plus a good niche, plus an actual product/service, then you can somewhat realistically expect to earn $1-2k/month, after a few years of growing your business.

These number seem fairly accurate to me. What do you think?