Online Income Report – July 2010

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Here is a breakdown of my online income for July. I am reporting the income I received in July not the income earned. Much of the income received in a month was earned in a previous month so the monthly income figure is not always indicative of the current income trend. Anyway, I received money from the following sources in July.

  • Google Adsense – $255.64
  • Kontera – $108.70
  • Text Links – $39.40
  • Direct Ad Sales – $458
  • Affiliate Sales – $285
  • Ehow – $11.86

Total                  $1158.60

It was a great month for online income.  This is the first time I have made it over four figures.  My income was helped by a large amount of direct ad sales and an accumulated affiliate payout.  My income will most likely go down in August but I already have a couple more ad sales lined up and quite a bit in affiliate sales due me giving me a shot at making the four figure mark once again.  If I can keep my income going like this I might become a five figure blogger for the first time ever.  This would be especially great considering 2009’s online income was less than 2008.

Total Cost of Car Ownership Update

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The last time I calculated the total cost of car ownership for my Camry I came up with a cost per mile of $0.84 if I counted the entire cost of my car as depreciation and $0.28 cost per mile if I used a more realistic figure for depreciation.  I’ve driven a lot of miles since then but with my car already being a high mileage car those miles should not cause much depreciation.  Therefore my new cost per mile figures are quite a bit lower.

As of today my car has cost me 35.6 cents per mile if I value my car at $0.  Using a more realistic figure for depreciation my cost per mile is 16.9 cents.  I doubt I will be able to get my total cost per mile much lower than that since fuel alone is almost ten cents per mile.  Also there will be maintenance and probably repair bills coming up.  Even if I don’t reduce my cost per mile it is still a lot lower than the IRS figure of 50 cents per mile.   It is clear to me that driving a used car is much more frugal option than buying new.  You would have to drive a new car an awful lot of miles to get the cost per mile down to what mine is.

Of course, one of the reasons that my cost of car ownership is so low is because I drive a lot of miles.   While this lowers my cost per mile it means more money coming out of my pocket.  For both financial and environmental reasons I would like to reduce my miles driven.   My wife and I are now sharing the car so it is getting even more use although the miles should go down now that I am starting a regular job.

One thing that I didn’t consider when considering my total cost of car ownership is the fact that my employers reimbursed me for many of the miles driven.   Also, the miles I have driven for mystery shopping are deductible.  If I were to factor that in my cost per mile would be even lower.  That is more math than I want to do though so I will just keep the figures as they are.

July Income – $1519.91

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Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

Online Income

$1067.96

Interest

$12.35

Stock Dividends

$22.79

Mystery Shops

$373.52

Bank Bonuses

$20

Survey/Cashback

$23.29

Total

$1519.91

It was a good month for income.  My online income was my best ever.  Making a $1000 in a month has been a goal of mine for a while but I don’t think I’ve even made it over $800 before.  One of the reasons my online income was higher in July was because I had a couple of months of affiliate income owed to me that finally arrived.  Most of the increase was from the direct sale of links.   There was a large increase in people contacting me wanting to purchase links on one of my sites.   Most of the income was from links paid for a year upfront.  There are also a couple of links that pay monthly and a couple more people I’m still negotiating with so I will still make at least a little from selling links this month.  I doubt I will make a $1000 again this month but I should make at least $600 which I am pretty happy with.

Mystery shopping income will go down because I have a regular job now and won’t have as much time for mystery shopping.  Some of the shops I did last month won’t pay me until this month though so I should make at least $200 from mystery shops this month.

My new job is working for a non-profit and it doesn’t pay much but it should still cause my total income to increase over last month. Although if I could count on making $1500 a month every month without a job I wouldn’t worry about a job and just concentrate on increasing my alternative sources of income.   It would be nice to have all my money come from alternative income and passive income but that might take a while.

July Expenses – $1311.23

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for July.

Household

$340.53

Entertainment

$86.49

Transportation

 $251.92

Food

$125.51
Medical/Dental

$57.44

Utilities

$115.13
Wedding $334.21

Total

$1311.23

My expenses were up slightly from the previous month. This was mainly because I had $334.21 of wedding/honeymoon expenses.  I ended up spending a total of  about $1100 for the wedding and honeymoon.  DW probably spent about $200.  I think that is a pretty good deal.  There won’t be any wedding or honeymoon expenses this month so my total expenses will be down.  We are having a wedding reception this Saturday but the total cost of that is about $200 and my mother is covering that expense.

My transportation expense was much higher than I would prefer but that is mainly due to driving a lot for mystery shops.  Since I am now working a regular job I will be cutting back on the mystery shops and I should be spending a lot less in gas.  I might need to get some tires and other work done on the car though which would keep my transportation expense high again this month.

I spent way too much on food considering DW buys most of the groceries and I had lots of fast food mystery shops.  I need to cut back on the fast food and junk food purchases.

Everything else will probably remain about the same this month.

Bargains for the Bookworm

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This post is brought to you by The Digerati Life, a blog on personal finance, frugal living, financial management and investment.

Are you a bookworm? Whether you’re still in school or already in the work world, books remain as primary sources of learning. Textbooks, novels, self-help books — all of these could be rich sources of great entertainment or information. So whether or not a person is a university student, books may well be a staple in one’s budget (budgeting tools and software can help track various spending categories). Thus, if you’re looking for a way to cut costs in this area, then you may want to get discounts or freebies; doing so can free up more of your budget for more pressing and important things, such as food and rent, for instance.

Textbooks could be had for cheaper rates with the use of cheap textbook coupons. On the other hand, books that one buys mainly for entertainment could be bought from book sales or discounted book stores.

While it would be a dream to buy all of the books you could set your eyes on, let’s face it, they don’t come for free. Even though some books come cheap, at $3.00, even $3.00 per item could add up over time. However, a $3.00 used book is still a bargain compared to an $18.00 price tag on a new release.

So now the question is, where can you find the cheapest versions of your favorite books online?

Well, you can start out by searching for the following terms online:
“cheap books”
“bargain books”
“used books”

When you check out the terms “cheap books online,” “bargain books online,” “used books online,” and so on, you’ll find top results for the best sites that showcase bargain/cheap books. Websites like CheapBooks.com, AbeBooks, and ThriftBooks are some of the better picks on the “cheap books” keyword. Some other entries are price comparison engines, but the information you get from there could be useful. BookCloseOuts, BestBargainBook, and BargainBookStores are the better results for “bargain books.” Alibris, AbeBooks, Powells.com are among the better results for “used books.” The point is, a little bit of research can yield you some good finds.

If you want free content, however, there are other forms and formats of published content that may help you shrink your book budget a little:

  • Free PDFs
  • Free published content online
  • Public domain versions for literary works

PDF or Portable Digital Format, is still the most common digital format used for published content. A lot of free content may still be available via PDF. And if you’re on the lookout for freebies, free PDFs may help you get your reading fix without costing you anything.

There are also still thousands of free ebooks out there. Some people share these on download forums, while other free PDFs are in eBook libraries. All you need to do is a web search on “Free PDF Search Engine” or “Free PDF eBooks” and you may be able to stave off taking trips to the bookstore for a long, long time.

Aside from free PDFs, there are websites that also post free full texts of popular books, and even unpublished writing work. Wattpad.com and Scribd.com are examples. Mixed in with Sheldon, King and Steele are works from amateurs. It delivers content straight to your WAP or 3G-enabled phone, or you could read it straight from your browser. Just wading through your website could keep you away from bookstores, even from the library, for months!

Also, the classics are available at Project Gütenberg, which is an organization dedicated to letting classical/public domain content become available online. Classics and out of print books with no or expired copyrights are available up at Project Gütenberg. While it may not be complete, the website’s collection is still undeniably comprehensive.

Book aficionados need not break the bank nor rack up credit card debt to feed their reading appetites (no, you don’t need to turn to your Citi credit cards for this!). All they really need is the understanding that great books are available for free online, which are easy to track down with a little resourcefulness. For the less tech-savyy, there’s always the local library!