This past month has been focused on my monthly goals and writing them down. I had a record total 19 goals listed to accomplish in August and accomplished 12 of those goals. That is a big deal to me because I've broken a lot of my yearly goals into the smallest measurable unit (and added some along the way).
A lot of the goals I set out were related to my house, family, and career, and weren't so focused on finances. I find it so important to find a balance of setting goals that aren't only financially focused, but ones that help me make sure I make other things a priority as well. In addition, this past month I've again focused on reviewing my goals daily, and to not lose track of what I'm shooting towards.
August proved to be another solid month in netting over $1000 in extra passive income and continued solid returns from my two primary workhorse income streams of Airbnb and the blog. In addition, we completed adding all of our extra income to go towards pre-paying for private schooling and saving us an extra $400+ in discounts. Cha-ching!
Going forward the plan with my wife and I is to fire all “passive income stream missiles” at the mortgage. This approach will hopefully have the house paid off by June 1st, 2018, and save us about $200 in extra interest we won't have to pay towards the mortgage company. Then the aggressive plan on top of that is to have enough left over next August to again pre-pay private school and save more money on tuition. It is all predicated on one payoff is helping to save money to save money on the next payoff.
After August 15 of next year, I'd like to take a break and focus on building up reserves for taking a family vacation, put money towards the house (updates and delayed repairs), and then see where we stand after that. At the same time, I'm already starting to take a look at what our post mortgage payoff budget will look like, and how we can navigate our money to align with our values and goals. I can't tell you how liberating it feels to be at this point and be so close to the finish line in our 13-year mortgage payoff journey. In a way, it feels like I'm on the last mile of a 26.2 marathon, and can see and feel the sense of arriving at the finish line! Gosh, it is a good feeling!
With that said, here is a breakdown of where we now sit with our mortgage payoff.
Mortgage Pay Off Countdown
Balance: $31,222
Paid last month: $3,865
Extra Money That Was Applied: $2,557
Goal of Pay Off Date: August 2018 – (new estimate: June 2018)
With all of our efforts focused on the mortgage, then it is accelerating our estimated payoff date. I've continued to also do research on investing in real estate, and continue to read to gain knowledge and wisdom. Buying a rental is a way off, but I feel like I need to collect data on where I'm thinking about investing (my sweet zone), who is my network of people who can help me, and ways I can reduce the amount time it would take to do real estate. All of those efforts are to help form another solid leg of passive income streams…eventually.
With that said, 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 $763 in 2017] – didn't lift a finger this past month to cash in on my previous employer's pension and collected $109. Sweet!
- Blog Income – [2017 Goal – $7500] – [made $4,510 in 2017] – slowed down slightly in Aug, but another solid month on our way to our goal of $7,500. I'm assuming it will slow down as we near the end of the year, so I'll need to be creative in how we can continue to keep the passive income train going.
- AirBnB – [original 2017 Goal $2500 (completed in July) – new 2017 goal $7500] – [made $3,607 in 2017] – this income stream continues to amaze me, and 100% of this income stream is going towards the mortgage. So any money made here will directly help shrink the date to the left and could possibly help us get to payoff the mortgage before June 2017. My focus will be to keep putting a good efforts towards keeping the house clean, being friendly and hospitable with our customers, and leaving good honest reviews of our customers.
- Sell Stuff – [2017 Goal $2500] – [made $54 in 2017] – I've been thinking a lot about starting to sell some of my silver coins and converting these stagnant assets income generating assets. Possibly I'm looking to split 50% of these sales towards the mortgage and 50% towards my Schwab monthly income fund.
- Peer-to-Peer Lending – [2017 Goal $25] – [made $23.20 in 2017] – LendingClub continues to disappoint me with having a negative return on our investment, and I've had four loan defaults. Ugh! I can't wait to get out of this investment and move onto investing in dividend stocks!
- YouTube Channel – [2017 Goal $25] – [made $122 in 2017] – earn $12 in August after producing three videos the month before. So far this year I've produced, 10 Ways to Save Money on Your Electric Bill, DirecTV Review and How to Get Discounts, How to prepare for a Greater Depression, Passive Income Streams Require Continual Work, and Unused appliances that are using energy (and I didn't even know it!). Still, haven't put down $200 to buy Camtasia, but will be soon as I'm recording more content to be published.
- Schwab Monthly Income Fund – [2017 Goal $10] – [made $6.14 in 2017] – 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. Looking at adding some funds to this in the near future.
My small efforts to build a passive income snowball are starting to pick up steam, and slowly but surely my intentional efforts are building upon one another. I'm going to continue to put effort into building a third leg of income, and at the same time balance family and other priorities.
This is my report of how I'm making side income and using that to pay off my mortgage. I'd be interested to hear what side hustles you've got, and what you are doing with your extra cash! Leave a comment below!
1 Comment
Charlie
Nice job of keeping your “eye on the prize”. I would never contradict one with such great focus and commitment as you. However, if you would like some modest thoughts from a former economics professor and a 67 retiree who has raised 5 children, put them all through private colleges and had the good fortune to comfortably retire at 60 please read on.
May I give you one or 2 recommendations. If you do nothing else read a book published 50 years ago, A Random Walk Down Wall Street. John Boogle the founder and past CEO and Chairman of the most successful financial service company Vanguard supported Burton Malkiel Professor at Princeton in his research. Recently, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway recommended that all individual investors build a statue to Boogle because of Vanguard’s support of individual investors. If you read and employ the teachings in the book they will serve you very well over the medium to long run. The Short Run in investing is of no importance and simply a distraction in the US Economy in good times and bad.
From a tactical view may I give you a thought about paying off your mortgage? I have never paid off my mortgage. When it gets too low I refinance it. For example, if you took out a $100K mortgage today you would would spend about 4.0% annually. However, you also have the alternative to pay the mortgage off slowly and benefit from you tax deductions. You could then put your “extra income/payments” in the a High Yield Bond fund at Vanguard which today gives you 5.5%. Place these funds in a retirement account or 529 and they grow tax free. You get tax free growth while paying taxes at a lower rate. You have been helping Uncle Sam. Please consider the options Uncle Sam has to help you. Uncle Sam benefits because the US economy becomes the most highly skilled economy in the world.
Good luck
Regards
Jim