For the month of September I set goals of writing 100 posts/pages, running/walking 100 miles, and investing 100% of my extra money. We are now halfway through the month of September and I have written 21 posts, walked 19 miles, and invested more than 100% of my extra money. Overall, I’m not doing very well on my goals. The savings goal was easy to meet, I just had to move some money from my bank account to my stock account. The other goals require a lot more work. I’m not anywhere close to halfway on those goals. I thought I would be able to put in some big days in the last half of the month but that will be extremely difficult. We got our first client for our offline business and will have to travel out of state a few days in the next couple of weeks. Plus we are going to my enrollment ceremony and the Financial Blogger’s Conference. There won’t be a lot of time left for writing and walking but I’m still going to work on them and get as close to my goals as possible.
Saving Money with Staple Ink Cartridge Recycling Rewards
We have saved quite a bit of money this year by taking advantage of Staples’ ink cartridge recycling program. Staples allows you to recycle up to 10 ink cartridges a month and receive $2 in Staples Rewards for each cartridge recycled. This gives us $20 a month in Staples Rewards to spend. So far this year we have used them to get a printer,router, toilet paper,paper towels, and lots of office supplies. By combining the monthly rewards with coupons,rebates, and the 1 cent back to school items we have been able to really stretch our rewards.
To get started recycling ink cartridges at Staples you need to sign up for their Staples Rewards program. It is a simple form and should only take a few minutes to complete. You also need cartridges to recycle. If you don’t have enough cartridges of your own to recycle you can buy cartridges for about 25 cents each on Ebay or Craigslist. That still leaves you with a nice profit on each cartridge. After recycling your cartridges you will receive your rewards online the following month. You can either redeem the rewards online or print them out and use them in the store.
There is a limit of one Staples Rewards account per household plus there a few items for which the rewards are not valid. Office Depot and Office Max also have ink cartridge recycling programs. Office Depot limits your rewards to the amount of what you spend in their store limiting the usefulness of their program for me. They do allow 20 cartridges a month to be recycled for rewards though which might make their program worthwhile for others. I don’t have any experience with Office Max because they have more restrictions on their ink recycling program and they don’t have any stores in my area.
Recycling ink cartridges with the Staples Rewards ink cartridge recycling program is an easy way to save money on office supplies and household items.
I Passed the Bar
I apologize for the off-topic post but I know some people are interested in this, I’ll be posting a personal finance post later tonight.
The bar exam results came out yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to find out I passed the bar exam. There were several factors that made me a longshot to pass the bar exam. It had been over two years since I finished law school classes, I did self-study rather than a bar exam review course, I was near the bottom of my graduating law school class, and I worked while preparing for the bar exam. Despite all that I managed to pass the bar exam.
I really didn’t think I was going to pass since I was sure I bombed a couple of the essay questions. Examining my bar exam results I was correct that I bombed two of the essay questions but I did well enough on the remaining questions to bring my score up to average. I did slightly below average on the MBE which I felt that I had done well on but it was good enough for me to pass. It is difficult to predict how well you have done on the bar exam.
My enrollment ceremony will be later this month. After that I’ll be a licensed attorney. I’m not sure what I’ll do after that but I am going to do something as an attorney.
Online Income Report – August 2011
Here is a breakdown of my online income for August 2011.
Google Adsense – $292.83
Affiliate Income – $252.25
Brokered Ads – $55.17
Amazon – $11.31
Direct Ads- $1774.26
Total – $2385.82
August was another great month for income. I thought the direct ad deals would slow down but they are still going strong. I have actually canceled a couple of my low paying month-to-month ads to make room for better paying ads. I’d like to diversify my income more so that direct ads aren’t such a large percentage of my income but my efforts at making affiliate income haven’t produced much results. I probably need to work smarter and harder on increasing my affiliate income. I’m not complaining, I’ll take the direct ad money as long as it continues. I’ve already made about a thousand bucks this month so September will be another good month.
August Income -$2513.12
Here is a breakdown of my income for August.
|
Online Income |
$2257.83 |
|
Interest |
$16.16 |
|
Stock Dividends |
$12.99 |
|
Mystery Shops |
$155.02 |
|
Cash Back |
$55 |
|
Ebay |
$16.12 |
|
Total |
$2513.12 |
August was another good month for income. It wasn’t as good as June or July but it was still over $2500. I’m not sure how long this will last but September is off to a good start and I estimate I should make at least $2000 this month. Making money from these alternative income and passive income sources has been making me lazy. I’ve been thinking about getting a job but since I’m making enough money to easily pay my bills I’ve not been too motivated. A job will be delayed until at least after the Personal Finance Blogger’s Conference. Our offline business is getting close to taking off also. We have received a verbal commitment for business from a company that would provide us with a nice start but it is taking a little while for them to do their part so we can get started. We are doing ok financially but I’d like to make enough to pay our bills from either a new job or our new business so we could bank all of the alternative income and passive income.