It feels like each month is going by quicker than the last one. March flew by, and primarily due to how much I've had to do at work!
This past month we did our taxes and came to find out that we owed $2,200. After talking to our great accountant (my mother-in-law), we came to find out that if we contributed $5,500 to my wife's IRA, then we'd end up getting a $1300 return. So, we decided to go that route with some of our reserve cash, and add to my wife's IRA instead of paying Uncle Sam.
On the passive income stream fronts, our blog increased significantly from the previous months. So far this year I'm at 21% of my goal of making $7,500 this year from the blog.
I've been spending a decent amount of time researching how to start investing in dividend stocks, and receive quarterly dividends from good solid companies. I created a portfolio on finance.google.com to simulate what funds I'm looking at and tracking both their P/E ratio and yield. I'm looking at this option as opposed to using the Charles Schwab Fund. We will see though.
Finally, on the health front, I've been continuing to train for my half marathon in May, but have been having a lot of problems. I'm been struggling with some muscles tightness in my legs, and I'm overweight for where I'm normally at in my training. This has me a little bit bummed, and disheartened about getting old. :) Needless to say, I struggle on.
Mortgage Pay Off Countdown
Balance: $42, 026
Paid last month: $1,308
Extra Money That Was Applied: $0
Goal of Pay Off Date: August 2018
We didn't contribute anything extra to our mortgage payoff, because we reallocated our funds to help fund my wife's IRA in order to reduce our taxes. Also, we didn't have any AirBnB income, but we've got a number of customers lined up for April and May. This income stream should be picking up and helping us payoff our mortgage and meet the August 2018 pay off goal.
Here is a breakdown of my passive income streams from this past month and how we are doing it:
2017 Goals
- Pension – [2017 Goal $1308] [made $327 in 2017] – didn't lift a finger this past month to cash in on my previous employers pension and collected $109. Sweet!
- Blog Income – [2017 Goal – $7500] – [made $1582 in 2017] – March income almost doubled in March to $703, which was primarily due to some of our affiliate agreements. These affiliates and related sales accounted for nearly half of our March income, so I'm continuing to focus on this income stream in our blog.
- AirBnB – [2017 Goal $2500] – [made $0 in 2017] – still no progress here. April and May we have four stays lined up already, so this should help us get back on track to make our 2017 goals. More to come next month.
- Sell Stuff – [2017 Goal $2500] – [made $54 in 2017] – I had a goal of selling one coin in March, but I just couldn't depart with some of my nicer coins.
- Peer-to-Peer Lending – [2017 Goal $25] – [made $8.59 in 2017] – I've had a couple of loans default, which has affected my overall rate of return. I'm not too please with this! Luckily that money I have invested in this is all from money I made selling egg.
- YouTube Channel – [2017 Goal $25] – [made $12 in 2017] – didn't earn much from YouTube this past month, but I'm still on track to make my yearly goal.
- Schwab Monthly Income Fund – [2017 Goal $10] – [made $2.21] – my 2016 investment of $500 from egg sales and selling other household items continues to pay dividends each month. I continue to reinvest these dividends to help grow this passive income.
That is the update for the past month on my passive incomes. Slowly making progress, so hopefully we can get this mortgage paid off and move onto bigger and better things.
1 Comment
Bravo on that mortgage payoff!! That’s not an easy thing to do at all. :) Slow progress is better than no progress, after all. We’re still paying down on our student loans. Mine should be done in May and Mr. Picky Pincher’s will be paid off in early 2018. After that we’re tackling the mortgage!