Ehow Earnings Update

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Dell Studio 17
photo credit: CLF

I had a guest post at Smart Passive Income yesterday which explained how to increase eHow income with referral links.  I know there are a lot of people interested in using eHow as a passive income stream and  I thought I would update my eHow earnings so far.

Since I wrote that post my earnings for February came to a total of $1.47.  This isn’t much but I haven’t written anything since early December and I wasn’t active on the eHow site during February so this is actually decent for only having 5 articles.  I also received another $25 referral bonus this Monday which makes a total of $75 in bonuses since writing the article. That makes my time spent writing for eHow worthwhile.

I need to write more articles for eHow but I don’t have much time right now.  I’ve read that some people can write an article in twenty minutes but it takes me about an hour.  I also want to do some more research before I write any more articles to increase their potential for earnings.  There are several ebooks by eHow authors on how to make money with eHow but I’m not sure which one to buy if any.  The books may contain good advice but if I don’t get around to writing any articles the advice won’t be of any help.

What ebook on eHow would you recommend?

February Expenses- $919.01

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

Household $423.62
Transportation $43.53
Food $29.56
Entertainment $102.49
Debt/Education $83.00
Phone $33.99
Medical/Dental $61.66
Income Tax $141.16
Total $919.01

My expenses were up a little from the previous month mainly because I had to pay self-employment tax when I filed my federal tax return. My transportation bill should go down this month since last month’s total includes gas I bought for an out of town trip and we don’t have any long trips planned this month. I plan on buying my plane tickets this month which will cause my entertainment and overall expenses to spike this month. My other expenses should be about the same. Note that the food amount is only for lunches and snacks that I purchased away from home. I’m on track for my goal of only having $10,000 in expenses this year considering that my expenses will be drastically reduced when I am hiking.

February 2009 Goal Review

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At the end of every month I will be posting on how I am progressing towards my yearly goals.

My first goal was to increase my passive income. I didn’t do well on that goal this month. I did reinvest some dividends in more stock but GE slashed their dividend which results in a net reduction of dividends due this year. I’m planning to work on some different sources of passive income this month.

My second goal was to lose thirty pounds. I really sucked on my progress towards this goal this month. I gained weight and now weigh 219.2 which is my highest weight ever. I know I’ll lose a lot of weight on my hike but it would be good to be in decent shape before I start hiking. The weather should improve this month and I’ll start running more when it is nice outside. Improving my diet would probably be even more beneficial than exercise though. I’m going to work on that as well.

My third goal is to increase my subscriber count to 500 subscribers. The subscriber count has been around 350 lately. At this rate I should have no problem meeting the 500 subscribers goal.

This wasn’t a good month for making progress towards my goals. There is still plenty of time to fix that and I plan to substantially improve my progress this month. Check back at the end of the month and we’ll see how I did.

The Research and Writing Requirement

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In order to graduate my school has a research and writing requirement that can be satisfied by the completion of a 30 page paper. Most schools have a similar requirement. It is actually an ABA requirement that law students must take at least one course as a 2L or 3L that requires the writing of a paper for credit.

As with most things in law school I have procrastinated in fulfilling this requirement. This is my last semester though so I can’t put it off any longer. I’ll have to write thirty pages over the next two months which I’m not looking forward to. I like writing in general but not legal writing. I plan on working on it an hour at a time and it will eventually get done.

For any of you current or soon to be law students I would advise starting your R&W before your last semester or at least starting on it promptly at the beginning of your last semester.

Living on $10k a Year

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My plan for this year is to keep my expenses under $10k and so far I am on target to do that.  Of course there is a lot of time left in the year for something to go wrong.  I was curious how much a $10k a year budget translates to as a daily amount.  My calculations put the daily budget for $10k a year at $27.40 rounded up.  This does not seem like very much money to live on and the daily budget number could be a little intimidating when first making plans to live on a $10k budget.

On the other hand the daily budget number looks great when you look at it from the perspective of how much income you need to make.  I have a goal of making $10k a year in alternative and passive income. Earning an average of $27.40 a day looks pretty easy.  I don’t make that much money from my blogging and alternative income now but the figure certainly seems attainable.  My blogging income from last year would cover about 40% of the days in a year.  My dividend income would cover about half a month.  That puts me close to having half the year covered. I just need to find some additional sources of income and/or increase my current income streams to cover the rest of the year.  I probably won’t reach the $10k level in alternative/passive income this year but the goal is close enough that it seems realistic that I’ll make it in the next few years.  Being able to see progress and knowing I don’t have to wait too long for the payoff should make it easier to stay on track towards my goal of having $10k a year in alternative and passive income.