tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88570355339920833182024-03-13T06:29:21.398-07:00Relentless Financial ImprovementRelentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.comBlogger455125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-31125688242818673492021-09-05T15:46:00.000-07:002021-09-05T15:46:12.954-07:00My retirement from this blog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bI0XobdsX-k/YPxOJnhlVMI/AAAAAAABFfk/nc2Q6sB69RIJJtZEKTgqMfKdYFZ6EKnUACPcBGAYYCw/s1500/B6276871-AE0F-40A4-9F15-1A20FC6609BD.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bI0XobdsX-k/YPxOJnhlVMI/AAAAAAABFfk/nc2Q6sB69RIJJtZEKTgqMfKdYFZ6EKnUACPcBGAYYCw/w640-h426/B6276871-AE0F-40A4-9F15-1A20FC6609BD.jpeg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Photo by susancurrydesign</span></span></div></span><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hello friends, it’s time to say goodbye for now. I’m going to retire… from this blog. </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I entered the workforce with my first full time job in 2008, just as the economy was tanking. I’ve always held part time jobs and was used to doing side hustles for extra income. The problem was that I was never used to saving any money. I spent every dollar that I ever made, often times on credit. Money just slipped through my fingers. I had zero experience with saving money, let alone investing. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As the economy started improving in 2009, I became hyper focused on relentlessly improving our own financial situation. I checked out every personal finance book I could get my hands on at the library. I read personal finance blogs and message forums. I started credit card points hacking. After a while I felt like I knew enough to not only implement what I learned on our own finances, but also enough to share this information with others.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I first started this blog in 2012 to help track our financial progress over time. When my friends or family asked me financial questions or advice, I could direct them to this site as a resource. I’ve never claimed to be a professional financial advisor and I know that the information I’ve provided may not be for everyone’s individual needs and purposes. I think I can do a decent job explaining financial concepts. I’ve enjoyed blogging these past 9 years. We’ve reached many of our financial goals and now it’s time for us to move on to our next journey.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There are so many great financial resources. There are financial tools, forums, bloggers, podcasts and groups to participate in to help you succeed. Here is a list of my favorite resources:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I track all of my spending with <a href="http://www.mint.com/">Mint</a> and <a href="http://www.clearcheckbook.com/">ClearCheckbook</a>. I track all of our investments with <a href="https://www.talkable.com/x/5HwXv7">Personal Capital</a>.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />
When I need motivation on how to live a frugal and purposeful life, I go to <a href="http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/">Mr. Money Mustache</a>. I get my motivation through the psychology and research provided by <a href="http://jamesclear.com/">James Clear</a>. The <a href="https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/ " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Collaborative Fund</a> has a great blog on the psychology of money. When I need to learn more about travel hacking, I go to <a href="https://www.blogger.com/flyertalk.com">Flyertalk</a>, The <a href="http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/">Frequent Miler</a>, <a href="http://www.doctorofcredit.com/">Doctor of Credit</a>, and the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/">Reddit churning</a> subreddit. When I need a good price on something, I go to <a href="https://www.blogger.com/slickdeals.net">Slickdeals</a>. <a href="http://www.bogleheads.org/">Bogleheads</a> has a great community of investors. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">My favorite financial podcasts are <a href="https://www.choosefi.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ChooseFI</a> and <a href="https://affordanything.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Afford Anything</a>. These podcasts also have great Facebook groups worth joining.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As I bow out of this blog, I would like to leave this quote by Thomas Mitchell:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #0061fe; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"One of the best secrets of a happy life is the art of extracting comfort and sweetness from every circumstance...</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #0061fe; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #0061fe; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">People are always looking for happiness at some future time and in some new thing, or some new set of circumstances, in possession of which they some day expect to find themselves. But the fact is, if happiness is not found now, where we are, and as we are, there is little chance of it ever being found. There is a great deal more happiness around us day by day than we have the sense or power to seek and find.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #0061fe; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #0061fe; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If we are to cultivate the art of living, we should cultivate the art of extracting sweetness and comfort out of everything, as the bee goes from flower to flower in search of honey."</span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thank you for being a part of our financial journey. I wish you the best on </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">your</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> financial journey!</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial-BoldMT; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-15280858745918213072021-09-01T21:51:00.000-07:002021-09-01T21:51:01.160-07:00Side hustles August 2021<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">Once a month (usually on the 1</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Welcome to August! Did you have a good August?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The big financial update for us is that we have sold our rental property for <span style="font-weight: bold;">$495,000</span>. We’ve had a good run since we purchased the rental property in 2015 for $305,000. We’ve enjoyed consistent monthly income, tax benefits, and home value appreciation. This last year has confirmed that we aren’t cut out for being landlords. We got lucky that the hot real estate market allowed us to quickly sell at a good price. Real estate prices are likely going to rise over time, but I don’t think we will regret our decision to sell. It’s been a good financial experiment and we are ready to move on.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moving forward, we’d rather invest the time and energy towards simpler investments such as index funds. I’d also much rather spend my free time with my family instead of dealing with handymen and plumbers and tenant issues. While we will be getting hit with a huge tax bill, it will be offset by an inflated sale price due to the housing boom and hot real estate market. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of August. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cash Back </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.10, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$39 </span>statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for their Peloton membership credit benefit, covering membership dues up to $120 until the end of the year. On 8.16, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.23, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$14 </span>statement credit on my Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card from Chase Offers. This was 5% cash back on purchases made at Petsmart. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rental Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.5, we received a net profit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$600 </span>from our rental property. This was a pro rated rent amount due to the move out of our tenants and the sale of our rental property. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Survey Income </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.2, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20 </span>check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.3, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5</span> Amazon gift card from The Vision Council for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.10, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> worth of Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing surveys.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.12, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> worth of Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing surveys.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.17, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$100</span> Amazon gift card from M-Panels for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.17, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> Amazon gift card from Evolve Medical for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.23, I received another <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> Amazon gift card from Evolve Medical for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.28, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.28, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$35 </span>check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.31, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> worth of Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing surveys.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.31, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> check from My Impact Network for completing surveys.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Website Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.10, I received A <span style="font-weight: bold;">$76</span> PayPal payment from ROI High for website income. Thank you for your support. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Miscellaneous Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.21, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$3</span> Amazon gift card from <a href="https://www.mypoints.com/?rb=22510810" target="_blank">MyPoints</a>. This company offers points for clicking on advertisements through emails, offers a shopping portal as well as completing random surveys.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.27, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$15</span> statement credit on my Chase checking account as a wire fee reversal. After receiving a wire transfer, our account was hit with a wire transfer fee of $15. I called Chase and nicely asked a rep if they could reverse the fee. Since we are long term customers with Chase Bank, the rep was kind enough to reverse the fee. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFZfJk1GrZk/YTBXosCuRZI/AAAAAAABFjU/4OoHao-jQeorO9QXZSu8AKqIDq1II0wPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1125/4621C2BE-00A8-4E2B-97AF-C0AAEBDC4A93.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="1125" height="226" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFZfJk1GrZk/YTBXosCuRZI/AAAAAAABFjU/4OoHao-jQeorO9QXZSu8AKqIDq1II0wPQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h226/4621C2BE-00A8-4E2B-97AF-C0AAEBDC4A93.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Real Estate Income</span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 8.26, we received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$251,763.52</span> wire transfer from the sale of our rental property. This profit amount is after all closing costs, fees, some tax withholding and rental property mortgage payoff. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Monthly Totals:</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$63</span> from cash back income<br />
We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$600</span> from rental income</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$340 </span>for completing online surveys</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$18</span> from miscellaneous income</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$251,763.52 </span>from the sale of our rental property</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">All of this totals $252,784.52 from our side hustles for the month of August ! </span>This amount by far is the biggest side hustle income we’ve ever had, thanks mostly to good luck with timing the real estate market. This amount officially pushes our cash and investment balance to over $1 million. We will be working to slowly invest our new funds by dollar cost averaging into the stock market. Keep hustling my friends.</span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-18502190063472579372021-08-01T07:09:00.000-07:002021-08-01T07:09:13.350-07:00Side hustles July 2021<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Once a month (usually on the 1</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-style: italic;">), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Welcome to August! Did you have a good July? </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Earlier in the month, we participated in lots of events - two weddings, a few family gatherings, some kid birthday parties and just hanging out with friends. It was a beautiful time here with practically zero COVID-19 cases. Things almost felt “normal” again. Unfortunately things may change with the new coronavirus Delta variant infecting more and more people. I don’t expect another shutdown is going to happen, but social distancing and mask mandates are going to happen.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JB4_A_m85lk/YQaqetluSLI/AAAAAAABFgs/RpxRMTbt060xXHr0X4CFkdl2tX5MGBZegCLcBGAsYHQ/s955/E9733153-FC2F-4799-808F-EAAD85080B61.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="955" data-original-width="840" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JB4_A_m85lk/YQaqetluSLI/AAAAAAABFgs/RpxRMTbt060xXHr0X4CFkdl2tX5MGBZegCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/E9733153-FC2F-4799-808F-EAAD85080B61.jpeg" width="281" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The big financial update for us is that we have sold our rental property!</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We’ve had a good run since we purchased the rental property in 2015.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We’ve enjoyed consistent monthly income, tax benefits, and home value appreciation.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This last year has confirmed that we aren’t cut out for being landlords.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">It’s been a good financial experiment while it lasted. We do not see ourselves purchasing another rental property in the future. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Moving forward, we’d rather invest the time and energy towards simpler investments such as index funds. I’d also much rather spend my free time with my family instead of dealing with handymen and plumbers and tenant issues. While we will be getting hit with a huge tax bill, it will be offset by an inflated sale price due to the housing boom and hot real estate market. Our agent listed our rental property and already received offers within a few weeks. We’ve accepted an offer and have less than 30 days until closing! </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of July. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Cash Back </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.1, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her Chase Freedom credit card from Chase Offers. This was for $10 cash back on purchases of $20 or more made online. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.5, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.9, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$39 </span>statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for their Peloton membership credit benefit, covering membership dues up to $120 until the end of the year.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.10, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $50 back on purchases made at Saks Fifth Avenue of $50 or more. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.19, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card from AMEX Offers. This was for $25 back on purchases of $99 or more for HBO Max. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.24, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$0.21</span> cash back statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business credit card. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.27, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$179</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card from AMEX Offers. This was for $179 cash back on a CLEAR membership, which is a registered traveler program that allows members to quickly verify their identities at touch-less, biometric security kiosks at the airport. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rental Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.5, we received a net profit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740 </span>from our rental property. All back due rent has been paid back! </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Survey Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.1, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$35</span> Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.7, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$195</span> check from My Impact Network for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.9, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$39 </span>statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for their Peloton credit benefit for my wife’s Peloton account. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.11, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$15</span> Gap gift card for completing a survey from Gap.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.20, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> check from My Impact Network for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.26, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> check from My Impact Network for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 7.27, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$60</span> direct deposit from GLG for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Monthly Totals:</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$313.21</span> from cash back income<br />
We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740</span> from rental income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$419 </span>for completing online surveys</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">All of this totals $1,427.21 from our side hustles for the month of July! </span><span style="color: black;">Keep hustling and investing my friends!</span></span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-17301290355055307872021-07-24T11:24:00.000-07:002021-07-24T11:24:04.898-07:00 Over 750K invested<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Today, our investment accounts have now hit the biggest financial milestone to date: surpassing <span style="font-weight: bold;">$750,000</span> in value! </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wc6_KuOiXPQ/YPxablsDcQI/AAAAAAABFfo/q0Sfifqeg5AVARaq-TcfeXGI7OUWlp-bQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1481/0CF0C4FE-CD9E-419D-BFD8-F115986F2ED4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="1481" height="108" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wc6_KuOiXPQ/YPxablsDcQI/AAAAAAABFfo/q0Sfifqeg5AVARaq-TcfeXGI7OUWlp-bQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h108/0CF0C4FE-CD9E-419D-BFD8-F115986F2ED4.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Our investment accounts include money in our 401Ks, Roth IRAs, taxable accounts, HSA and 529.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Index fund investing allows us to diversify our portfolio and keep our costs very low.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This does not include money in our checking accounts, savings accounts, home equity or rental property equity.</span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The US stock market has hit new all time highs, and so has our investment account balances. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The US market has returned over 37% over the past year, and over 18% just in 2021</span>. There is a lot of positive news out there. Big corporations have never been more profitable. Retail sales are up. Consumer spending is up. The travel industry has opened up. And while there are still many people and families hit hard by the economic impacts of the coronavirus, the stock market is not the economy. This new highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus does not seem to be discouraging investors.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Sadly, our chance to squash COVID-19 completely may be behind us. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/vaccinated-america-breaking-point-anti-vaxxers/619539/ " target="_blank">Blame it on the anti-vaxxers</a>. All we can do now is continue to practice good hygiene, wear masks and social distance when appropriate. Life, and the economy, moves on.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We are quickly moving towards a 70/30 asset allocation, which is likely where we will hold at long term. This portfolio will help us stay invested during stock market rallies, corrections and even crashes. <b> I’ve learned the hard way that my market timing skills are poor.</b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here is a look back at the timeline of our previous investment milestones:</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">July 2010: I opened up my first Roth IRA investment account.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 2, 2014: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2014/06/major-milestone-reached-over-100k.html"><span style="color: blue;">100K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">March 12, 2016: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2016/03/another-milestone-reached-over-200k.html"><span style="color: blue;">200K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 5, 2017: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2017/06/over-300k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">300K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">July 15, 2018: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2018/07/over-400k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">400K</span></a> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">April 16, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/04/over-450k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">450K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 5, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/11/over-500k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">500K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">January 18, 2020: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/01/over-550k-invested.html" target="_blank">550K</a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 7, 2020: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/11/over-600k-invested.html" target="_blank">600K</a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">January 12, 2021: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2021/01/over-650k-invested.html" target="_blank">650K</a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">April 7, 2021: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2021/04/over-700k-invested.html" target="_blank">700K</a></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">July 24, 2021: <b>750K</b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We’ve been investing for over 10 years now. Keep saving and investing my friends!</span></p><div><br /></div>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-54798210804174505252021-07-01T17:07:00.004-07:002021-07-01T17:07:40.131-07:00Side hustles June 2021<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Once a month (usually on the 1</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-style: italic;">), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Welcome to July! Did you have a good June? It’s been so hot lately that we have mostly been staying indoors. To decorate our walls, we’ve purchased some blank canvases from the art store and had our kids paint them! </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bYTwxdKXwXQ/YN5YhM26MNI/AAAAAAABFdc/hG1s7YULoMw3mi48YnzctslFWD7jxPgpgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/91ED4A1C-87F9-4D08-A2AA-681D88026AD5.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bYTwxdKXwXQ/YN5YhM26MNI/AAAAAAABFdc/hG1s7YULoMw3mi48YnzctslFWD7jxPgpgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/91ED4A1C-87F9-4D08-A2AA-681D88026AD5.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We celebrated our son’s 6th birthday this month.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We rented out the local children’s museum so we could have a private event with close friends and our son’s school classmates.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">It was a ton of fun, and all guests wore masks during the event.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RWcmx_6PCiE/YN5YolNZpZI/AAAAAAABFdg/SY9SZZJanogLhgolgDU7ak0nBPBEXCvrgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/12A3DC61-287E-425E-BACA-0160A296795B.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RWcmx_6PCiE/YN5YolNZpZI/AAAAAAABFdg/SY9SZZJanogLhgolgDU7ak0nBPBEXCvrgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/12A3DC61-287E-425E-BACA-0160A296795B.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Both of our kids are growing so fast.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">They are definitely one of our biggest motivators for pursuing financial freedom. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of June. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Cash Back </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.11, received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business credit card from AMEX Offers. This was for $25 cash back on purchases over $500. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.14 my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.16, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> statement credit on her Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. This was for free $50 statement credits towards purchases made at grocery stores. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.18 my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $30 off $30 on purchases made with PayPal checkout. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.26, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$21.14 </span>cash back statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business credit card. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rental Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.5, we received a net profit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1480</span> from our rental property. The tenants are back on track paying rent.</span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Survey Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.9, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5 </span>Amazon gift card from The Vision Council for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.8, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$40</span> direct deposit from GLG Survey for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.10, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$35</span> Amazon gift card from M-Panels for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.11, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> Amazon gift card from My Impact Network for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.21, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> Amazon gift card from M-Panels for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.25, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10 </span>Amazon gift card for completing a survey through Peloton.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 6.30, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5 </span>Amazon gift card from The Vision Council for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Monthly Totals:</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$136.14</span> from cash back income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1480 </span>from rental income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$150 </span>for completing online surveys</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">All of this totals $1,766.14 from our side hustles for the month of June! </span>Our investment journey continues to be slow and boring. Keep saving and investing my friends!</span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-51668187945903601252021-06-26T08:11:00.007-07:002021-06-26T08:13:52.756-07:00 401K in my 401K<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5bG7su8zSQ4/YNdCT29sn5I/AAAAAAABFc4/zLFp7pom0QMzd5DouyQOWikGi1El_ppzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1184/45CF1ED8-AA05-4BC8-824D-E31A5A3EE244.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1184" data-original-width="1125" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5bG7su8zSQ4/YNdCT29sn5I/AAAAAAABFc4/zLFp7pom0QMzd5DouyQOWikGi1El_ppzgCLcBGAsYHQ/w380-h400/45CF1ED8-AA05-4BC8-824D-E31A5A3EE244.jpeg" width="380" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I just hit a new major financial milestone: </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">401K in my 401K</span><span style="font-family: arial;">!</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">This new milestone comes from </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">10 years</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> worth of contributions and investment returns.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">When I first started to invest in my 401K, I started with a 3% contribution per paycheck.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Then I slowly increased my contributions by 1% every few months.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I was finally able to <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2014/06/maxing-out-my-401k.html" target="_blank">start maxing out my contributions about 7 years ago</a>.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The low rate of return is due to a conservative asset allocation.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">About 50% of the portfolio is currently sitting in a stable value fund earning a guaranteed 2%.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As I’ve shared before, back in late February 2020 and then in early March 2020 I sold a majority portion of my 401K into a stable value fund with a guaranteed rate of return of 2.5% (the rate has dropped down to 2% now).</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I watched as the stock market continued to tank and I thought that I was so smart for correctly timing the market.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Then when the stock market started roaring back in late March 2020, I didn’t have the guts to put my entire balance back into my stock market funds. I sat on the sidelines with this huge stable value fund balance. <b>Market timing is extremely difficult because you need to perfectly time 2 different transactions: when to sell <i>and</i> when to buy</b>. I’ve been dollar cost averaging the stable value fund back into a total market fund over the last year. Thankfully, we didn’t fiddle with our other accounts too much during this time. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If I had simply just held on to my funds without selling in 2020, my account value would have been MUCH higher by now (<b>probably over $180,000 higher!</b>) due to a ~60% increase in the US stock market since late March 2020. I wasn’t able to time the market properly and missed out on some huge gains. Oops - an expensive lesson learned. <b>The stock market crash last year taught me that my risk tolerance wasn’t as high as I thought it was (previously 90/10)</b>. Our overall portfolio (IRA, taxable, HSA) is now 70% stocks and 30% bonds - and will probably stay that way moving forward. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">My current new 401K contributions consist of:</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>71% Fidelity S&P 500 Index Fund (FXAIX) </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>6% Fidelity Mid Cap Index (FSMDX) </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>13% Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index (VSGAX) </b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>10% Vanguard Health Care Index (VHCIX)</b></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">My wife is also maxing out her 401K with international stock market funds to further diversify our investments. We are Coast FI now but will continue to invest towards our financial freedom. Here is the <a href="https://thefioneers.com/" target="_blank">Fioneers</a>’ definition of Coast FI:</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>“Coast FI is when someone already has enough invested in their retirement accounts that would grow to provide them with a comfortable traditional retirement. They wouldn’t need to add another dollar. If someone has <a href="https://thefioneers.com/design-your-life/">achieved Coast FI</a>, it means that they only need to cover their actual costs of living with active income.” </i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You can find a great Coast FI calculator <a href="https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/?fbclid=IwAR0NJbvMpGKeZXkKh_BjesnQJWR1NTZqJAfNnpDrAUCgRevRbRcPVu94bZA " target="_blank">here</a>. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">How is your financial progress?</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> Keep investing my friends.</span></span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-87868126385803618192021-06-01T15:40:00.000-07:002021-06-01T15:40:08.366-07:00Side hustles May 2021<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Once a month (usually on the 1</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-style: italic;">), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IJ3oLmqA0h4/YLa3CNLUbeI/AAAAAAABFZQ/hNSmzlXZxmgSDEzHKaABmAoGBR15RrJaACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/E70FBFCA-00B5-4D0D-83DD-9EA70A6D707F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IJ3oLmqA0h4/YLa3CNLUbeI/AAAAAAABFZQ/hNSmzlXZxmgSDEzHKaABmAoGBR15RrJaACLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/E70FBFCA-00B5-4D0D-83DD-9EA70A6D707F.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Just a random picture of our dog</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Welcome to June! Did you have a good May? We are about half way through 2021 already. Time sure does fly doesn’t it? We continue to work hard, make money, and try to have fun along the way. Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of May. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Cash Back </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.11 my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.11, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card from AMEX Offers. This was for $20 back on $100+ purchases made at Wayfair. We bought some furniture. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.14, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $30 off $30 on purchases made with PayPal checkout. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.22, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$4.20</span> cash back statement credit on my Citibank ThankYou Preferred credit card.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.23, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$0.18</span> cash back statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business credit card. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.24, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$0.41 </span>cash back statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business credit card.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.29, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$22.63</span> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for their Saks Fifth Avenue credit, which offers up to $100 ($50 per 6 months) credit on purchases made at Saks. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.31, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business credit card from AMEX Offers. This was for $25 cash back on purchases over $500. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rental Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We did not receive any rental income this month because our tenants are currently having financial difficulty. We are giving them some time to get back on better financial footing. The pandemic has been hard on their income streams. This is one of the risks of rental property investing - consistent income is not guaranteed.</span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Survey Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.7, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5 </span>Amazon gift card from The Vision Council for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.17, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> check from My Impact Network for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.18, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$40 </span>virtual Visa credit card from E-Rewards Medical for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.19, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$35</span> virtual Visa credit card from E-Rewards Medical for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.24, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25 </span>Gap gift card for completing a survey through Gap. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.26, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> direct deposit from GLG Survey for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Miscellaneous Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.6, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1</span> Amazon gift card from MyPoints. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 5.14, I received a cash payment of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1.01</span> for recycling a small bag of plastic water bottles and aluminum beer cans. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Monthly Totals:</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$112.42</span> from cash back income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$185 </span>for completing online surveys</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$2.01 </span>of miscellaneous income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> of sales income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">All of this totals $319.43 from our side hustles for the month of May! </span>We took a hit to our side hustle this month due to missed rental income payment. With a large emergency fund, we are not stressing about this missing income yet. That may change in the future. For now we continue to enjoy our journey towards financial freedom. Our finances and investments are automated. And we keep growing our points and miles stash in anticipation of future international travel. Keep hustling! </span></p><div><br /></div>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-78878320992297861062021-05-01T07:38:00.003-07:002021-05-01T07:38:33.140-07:00Side hustles April 2021<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">Once a month (usually on the 1</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Welcome to May! Did you have a good April? </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It has been a busy few months but our home renovation is finally complete! No more sharing one single sink or toilet for the whole house. No more doing dishes in the bathroom sink, or having the whole family sleep in a single bed. We’ve used this opportunity to purge a bunch of unused items such as clothing, furniture, toys, dishes, etc. We’ve been slowly selling, donating and trashing items over the last few months. It feels great to reduce clutter.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We’ve been able to take our kids out to more fun places as they continue to open up (with covid safety protocols). We were super excited to visit the Natural History Museum again. At low levels of capacity, we felt like we had the whole museum to ourselves. We’ve also been able to visit the Los Angeles Zoo, Aquarium of the Pacific, and the La Habra Children’s Museum. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-POghvNA2bjc/YI1nMa9dVjI/AAAAAAABFTU/dUgg4rQrt9AKyyRWqlT30CD170ZDsRorACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/6C8B5889-F7A9-4FC6-8391-CA51D7280FC1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-POghvNA2bjc/YI1nMa9dVjI/AAAAAAABFTU/dUgg4rQrt9AKyyRWqlT30CD170ZDsRorACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/6C8B5889-F7A9-4FC6-8391-CA51D7280FC1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Eb9ilwX61Qo/YI1nMi-vbdI/AAAAAAABFTY/9CfX_qrSXe0s6QNYGbZAEMmNOcBArON3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/46A12402-09D8-4923-A505-DA5F6BBC69E8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Eb9ilwX61Qo/YI1nMi-vbdI/AAAAAAABFTY/9CfX_qrSXe0s6QNYGbZAEMmNOcBArON3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/46A12402-09D8-4923-A505-DA5F6BBC69E8.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L1eFOkKtPA4/YI1nMrbqvtI/AAAAAAABFTc/Wfs-Ny_61Rgvu1-JtjhIYfvG6iAyLf-ewCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/A08E7B7F-EEFA-49F5-B7E3-5126776458EF.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L1eFOkKtPA4/YI1nMrbqvtI/AAAAAAABFTc/Wfs-Ny_61Rgvu1-JtjhIYfvG6iAyLf-ewCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/A08E7B7F-EEFA-49F5-B7E3-5126776458EF.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ddN35UMEF7c/YI1nNVSYe8I/AAAAAAABFTg/j0LO8dSicxgSrou2XjXg3iKAfMsqjL2zgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/B7272D62-D75F-41BB-B188-5B0340C52496.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ddN35UMEF7c/YI1nNVSYe8I/AAAAAAABFTg/j0LO8dSicxgSrou2XjXg3iKAfMsqjL2zgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/B7272D62-D75F-41BB-B188-5B0340C52496.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">The weather has been great lately.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">It’s been perfect for going on walks around the neighborhood. </span><p></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nPL5da_unBk/YI1nb6WwfJI/AAAAAAABFTk/Qxr0YnOCW5gwaV8Ah1h5Rk-1kCgk0_xOQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/5277AE3A-61A4-42CE-A703-6C64542FB2B1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1484" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nPL5da_unBk/YI1nb6WwfJI/AAAAAAABFTk/Qxr0YnOCW5gwaV8Ah1h5Rk-1kCgk0_xOQCLcBGAsYHQ/w464-h640/5277AE3A-61A4-42CE-A703-6C64542FB2B1.jpeg" width="464" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of April.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><p></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cash Back </span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.4, I redeemed <span style="font-weight: bold;">670</span> Citibank ThankYou points towards an Amazon purchase of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5.36</span>. While this wasn’t the <span style="font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-style: italic;">best value</span> use of ThankYou points, we still got to save money. We are currently not collecting ThankYou points so we did not have much use to hold onto these points long term.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.1, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10.53</span> from the Mr. Rebates cash back portal. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.6, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.6, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $30 off $30 on purchases made with PayPal checkout. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.22, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$29.77</span> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business credit card. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.28, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$6</span> statement credit on my Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card from Chase Offers. This was for 10% cash back on purchases made at Petco. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rental Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.5, we received a net profit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740 </span>from our rental property. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Survey Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.5, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> PayPal deposit from GLocal Rewards for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.5, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> DoorDash gift card from Evolve Medical for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.6, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> Gap gift card from Gap Inc. Insiders for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.6, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.7, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5 </span>Amazon gift card from The Vision Council for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.13, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$15</span> check from M3 Global Research for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.14, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> check from My Impact Network for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.17, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> Amazon gift card from My Impact Network for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.20, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$110</span> Amazon gift card from M-Panels for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.27, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25 </span>Amazon gift card from M3 Global Research for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Miscellaneous Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.16, I received a cash payment of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$4.62</span> for recycling a few bags of plastic water bottles and glass beer bottles. We’ve never been paid for recycling before - just never thought it would be worth trying. With our home renovations underway, we’ve been drinking water from plastic bottles and thought we would give paid recycling a try instead of our usual city recycling bin pick up.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sales income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On 4.30, my wife received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20 </span>cash for selling a sleeping pack through Facebook Marketplace. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Monthly Totals:</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$91.66</span> from cash back income<br />
We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740</span> from rental income</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$310 </span>for completing online surveys</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$4.62 </span>of miscellaneous income</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> of sales income</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All of this totals $1,166.28 from our side hustles for the month of April! </span></span></p>
<p style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our home remodel has been our biggest splurge in the last 8 years. We love our neighborhood and don’t see ourselves moving anytime soon. Hustling for more income on the side helps us fund our splurges - as well as our financial freedom. Keep hustling my friends. </span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-68191558879249539902021-04-07T08:56:00.000-07:002021-04-07T08:56:09.343-07:00Over 700K invested<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Today, our investment accounts have now hit the biggest financial milestone to date: surpassing </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">$700,000</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> in value! </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M64rBbXYivE/YG3Vn5tCQzI/AAAAAAABEOo/tZ2kKaCa7qoZevkDq4hy-IOffrSTNdK2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2082/E55F2C10-9E7E-458D-8A92-C82D9BD3A853.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="2082" height="116" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M64rBbXYivE/YG3Vn5tCQzI/AAAAAAABEOo/tZ2kKaCa7qoZevkDq4hy-IOffrSTNdK2wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h116/E55F2C10-9E7E-458D-8A92-C82D9BD3A853.jpeg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our investment accounts include money in our 401Ks, Roth IRAs, taxable accounts, HSA and 529. Index fund investing allows us to diversify our portfolio and keep our costs very low. This does not include money in our checking accounts, savings accounts, home equity or rental property equity.</span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It’s both incredible and slightly scary how well the stock market is doing. There are great reasons for why the market will continue to soar. There are equally good reasons for why the market is frothy and will crash soon. The current market sentiment is that the economy will continue to improve. Covid deaths are declining, millions are getting their covid vaccines, businesses are re-opening, and consumer confidence is up. There is pent up demand to travel, visit amusement parks, attend sporting events and spend money. This is great for the economy and investors believe the economy will continue to boom. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We are conservatively riding this wild stock market. At this time, we are more comfortable with less risk of financial loss than missing out on bigger financial gains. Being too conservative has risks though - I don’t even want to think about how much potential upside we have missed out on! Our portfolio is currently sitting at about 67% stocks and 33% bonds and slowly moving towards a 70/30 asset allocation. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The stock market can continue to go up or it can sharply pull back. No one can really predict the future. Our asset allocation keeps us invested and helps us sleep well at night. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here is a look back at the timeline of our previous investment milestones:</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">July 2010: I opened up my first Roth IRA investment account.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 2, 2014: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2014/06/major-milestone-reached-over-100k.html"><span style="color: blue;">100K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">March 12, 2016: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2016/03/another-milestone-reached-over-200k.html"><span style="color: blue;">200K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 5, 2017: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2017/06/over-300k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">300K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">July 15, 2018: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2018/07/over-400k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">400K</span></a> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">April 16, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/04/over-450k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">450K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 5, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/11/over-500k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">500K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">January 18, 2020: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/01/over-550k-invested.html">550K</a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 7, 2020: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/11/over-600k-invested.html" target="_blank">600K</a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">January 12, 2021: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2021/01/over-650k-invested.html" target="_blank">650K</a></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">April 7, 2021: <b>700K</b></span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We continue to hit new financial milestones, with each milestone coming sooner than the one before it. The power of compounding is truly incredible. We are looking forward to reaching financial freedom. Keep investing my friends.</span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-28389302982351681032021-04-01T07:32:00.000-07:002021-04-01T07:32:32.532-07:00Side hustles March 2021<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Once a month (usually on the 1</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-style: italic;">), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Welcome to April! Did you have a good March? With our home remodel project still underway, things have been very hectic around the house. The crew has been continuing to work 6 days a week, 6 to 8 hours a day. We have needed to move most of our furniture and household items into the garage, which looks like a hoarder’s living space now. For a week, our family needed to all sleep in the same bed. The project is estimated to be complete in about 2 to 3 weeks.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jK7ZLA_ChME/YGXYopBz4ZI/AAAAAAABEL4/Yq-t9zb7N9ghdRAUhLd_NjNMlF7mENj_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1333/32BA0F20-F332-4291-A5B1-009290A4989A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1333" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jK7ZLA_ChME/YGXYopBz4ZI/AAAAAAABEL4/Yq-t9zb7N9ghdRAUhLd_NjNMlF7mENj_wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/32BA0F20-F332-4291-A5B1-009290A4989A.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Our kids have been pretty flexible with all the new changes going on at home, especially the need to be away from the home for hours at a time.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We’ve taken plenty of trips to local playgrounds.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We’ve taken plenty of walks around the neighborhood.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uua2tAsRY54/YGXYvdkpitI/AAAAAAABEL8/hUdzpKe-bCA5kHPwHgYoXAG7GZUBOUdsACLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/2DBC718B-5469-4E12-840E-5026FE5D075F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uua2tAsRY54/YGXYvdkpitI/AAAAAAABEL8/hUdzpKe-bCA5kHPwHgYoXAG7GZUBOUdsACLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/2DBC718B-5469-4E12-840E-5026FE5D075F.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach has recently reopened the indoor exhibits with safety protocols such as mask mandates and limited capacity. Visiting the aquarium has become a weekly or bi-weekly activity for our family.</span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FozlhEXMVHs/YGXY9lgctaI/AAAAAAABEMA/tDSHjQxzqFkT4iqy6p9N9Zfgf1_l5LvzQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/8FE2B0B6-924F-4B13-8AC1-8C509DA11B82.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FozlhEXMVHs/YGXY9lgctaI/AAAAAAABEMA/tDSHjQxzqFkT4iqy6p9N9Zfgf1_l5LvzQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/8FE2B0B6-924F-4B13-8AC1-8C509DA11B82.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We recently visited </span><a href="http://www.longbeach.gov/park/marine/beaches-and-amenities/mothers-beach/" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">Mother’s Beach</a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> and found it a great place to take the kids.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The water is shallow here and the waves are very gentle.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> The sand is clean. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">There is a fun playground here as well as many accessible public bathrooms and beach showers.</span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cmvHco6OTwQ/YGXZJLZ22iI/AAAAAAABEMI/Pw1oCyuk-QQAvmTZwAY3LALrqF85ieRegCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/CE091E62-EFDD-480F-822F-0F595125D1E8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cmvHco6OTwQ/YGXZJLZ22iI/AAAAAAABEMI/Pw1oCyuk-QQAvmTZwAY3LALrqF85ieRegCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/CE091E62-EFDD-480F-822F-0F595125D1E8.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of March.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span><p></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Cash Back </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.1, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$62.29</span> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for getting gas, which qualifies as a Chase Travel credit eligible purchase. This card is essentially providing us with $300 worth of free gas each year. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.1, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $30 off $30 on purchases made with PayPal checkout in February. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.4, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> in statement credits ($25 x 2) on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card. This was for two separate purchases of greater than $500 for our kids’ school tuition. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.4, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.5, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $30 off $30 on purchases made with PayPal checkout.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.7, I received an <span style="font-weight: bold;">$18.06</span> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card from the Chase Travel Credit benefit. This was for a purchase made at a gas station. We have already used up the $300 Chase Travel Credit this year. It was nice to have $300 worth of gas covered by Chase. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.15, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This was for the AMEX Gold dining credit - $10 off $10 spent at Cheesecake Factory.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.21, I redeemed <span style="font-weight: bold;">4,786</span> Citibank ThankYou points towards an Amazon purchase of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$38.29</span>. While this wasn’t the <span style="font-style: italic;">best value</span> use of ThankYou points, we still got to save money. We are currently not collecting ThankYou points so we did not have much use to hold onto these points long term.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.22, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$29.11</span> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card as automatic monthly cash back deposit. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rental Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.5, we received a net profit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740 </span>from our rental property. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Survey Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.2, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5</span> Amazon Gift card from the Vision Council for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.9, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> Amazon Gift card from M-Panels for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.9, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$40</span> direct deposit from GLG survey for completing a survey</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.14, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$3</span> Amazon gift card from MyPoints.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.15, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1</span> Amazon gift card from MyPoints. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.15, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$30</span> check from My Impact Network for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.30, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> Amazon gift card from Sermo for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.31, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$35</span> Amazon gift card from Sermo for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Surveys continue to be a fun and easy way to earn extra income on the side.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Miscellaneous Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.16, we received a direct deposit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5,261.20</span> from the IRS as our third stimulus check. I list this as a side hustle, just like our last 2 stimulus checks, because our income qualifies only after taking into account the tax deductions on our gross income. These deductions include two maxed out 401Ks ($19,500 each), a maxed out Dependent Care FSA ($5,000), a maxed out HSA ($7,000) and a partial Medical FSA deduction ($1,000). We have been rewarded for saving more. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Additional work income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 3.31, I received a direct deposit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$144.28</span> for picking up extra hours with my employer.</span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Monthly Totals:</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$277.75</span> from cash back income<br />
We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740</span> from rental income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$154 </span>for completing online surveys</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$5,261.20 </span>of miscellaneous income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$144.28</span> of extra income from my work</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">All of this totals $6,577.23 from our side hustles for the month of March! </span>We continue to slowly make progress towards our financial freedom every month. Side hustles help us reach our goals a little bit faster. Keep hustling my friends. </span></p><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-75847761579394180442021-03-01T08:00:00.030-08:002021-03-01T08:00:02.862-08:00Side hustles February 2021<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> <span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span><span style="color: #548dd4; font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="color: #548dd4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Once a month (usually on the 1</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="font-style: italic;">), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Welcome to March! Did you have a good February? </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This has been a big month for us as our home renovation project has officially begun. We’ve been wanting to do some home remodeling for the last 10 years. There have always been reasons to delay such as not having enough money saved up and waiting for our kids to get just a little bit older. For the last 3 weeks, we’ve had remodeling crew in our home (wearing masks) working 6-8 hour days, 6 days a week. Our 40 year old kitchen has been demolished. All the carpeting (with multiple stains) has been torn out, soon to be replaced with luxury vinyl flooring that is 100% waterproof, scratch, stain, and dent resistant. We wanted to upgrade the flooring to make it low maintenance and easy to care for - great for 2 young kids and a dog. Electricians have installed over 70 LED recessed lights throughout the home. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P22w59Dei_8/YDwM4wwPFDI/AAAAAAABEJU/ScAaCURYMhMzqaGf0paiUp_CsvQ8tELgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_2263.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P22w59Dei_8/YDwM4wwPFDI/AAAAAAABEJU/ScAaCURYMhMzqaGf0paiUp_CsvQ8tELgwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/IMG_2263.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">During this time, we purchased a <a href="https://amzn.to/2O5RnXA" target="_blank">Ninja Foodi</a> to help us with cooking food. This little kitchen appliance does so much, it can: pressure cook, slow cook, steam, make yogurt, sear/sauté, air fry crisp, bake/roast, broil, dehydrate, and keep foods warm inside the pot! We’ve used our Ninja Foodi to make rice, cook chicken, make French fries and even make fall-off-the-bone ribs. The Ninja Foodi has been a game changer for us, since we won’t have use of our kitchen for up to 8 weeks. The Foodi pretty much helps us prepare all of our meals during this renovation. <i>As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. </i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As coronavirus case numbers continue to decline, and covid vaccinations continue to rise, I am increasingly hopeful that we are getting closer to beating the virus. Many venues are cautiously re-opening with new safety protocols. Our kids have enjoyed going back out to fun places such as the zoo, playgrounds and the aquarium. These places all have outdoor spaces with social distancing and mask requirements. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fYYJyDuTs-M/YDwNTrvS67I/AAAAAAABEJc/_bRo0Iql3dYbVH30m9u-vhgXm3ilEFooQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1686/IMG_1784.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1354" data-original-width="1686" height="514" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fYYJyDuTs-M/YDwNTrvS67I/AAAAAAABEJc/_bRo0Iql3dYbVH30m9u-vhgXm3ilEFooQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h514/IMG_1784.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iUk-cuyz50Q/YDwNT1wtJyI/AAAAAAABEJk/Wx-sucUF1lQFIGLZ9NpECljx3S4sjioswCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_1798.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iUk-cuyz50Q/YDwNT1wtJyI/AAAAAAABEJk/Wx-sucUF1lQFIGLZ9NpECljx3S4sjioswCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_1798.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gzc2yje7OG0/YDwNUHrEY3I/AAAAAAABEJo/G5-mcMiu0noQHD6_AOOFUmnRACA4dOhlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_2265.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gzc2yje7OG0/YDwNUHrEY3I/AAAAAAABEJo/G5-mcMiu0noQHD6_AOOFUmnRACA4dOhlQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/IMG_2265.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We did a new fun activity this month, which was a drive thru dinosaur exhibition called <b>Jurassic Quest</b>. Our family drove through a huge parking lot to get up close and personal to mechanized robot dinosaurs. Our drive was synced with an audio tour that had music and facts about all the prehistoric creatures we drove by. Masks were required to be worn as long as windows were down, which helped keep the adventure safe for all. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4T69MUPPW3g/YDwNn39esaI/AAAAAAABEJ0/HCo1ZRflj6EgC0BJsIpTgTtJ8FuyXeKRwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_2264.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4T69MUPPW3g/YDwNn39esaI/AAAAAAABEJ0/HCo1ZRflj6EgC0BJsIpTgTtJ8FuyXeKRwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/IMG_2264.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of February.</span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Cash Back </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.1, my wife received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10</span> statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card. This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.4, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> in statement credits ($25 x 2) on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card. The card currently has a promotion for $25 cash back on purchases over $500, up to 10 times. These credits were for two separate charges at Wayfair for home supplies. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.8, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$31.58</span> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was credit towards a purchase made at a gas station, which qualifies towards the $300 annual Chase travel credit. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.9, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$15</span> Target gift card as cash back from spending on my Target Red credit card. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.10, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$59.27</span> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card for credit towards gas station purchase, from the Chase travel credit program. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.10, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1.80</span> statement credit on my Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card from Chase Offers. This was for 10% cash back on purchases made at Starbucks. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.14, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$50</span> in statement credits ($25 x 2) on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card. The card currently has a promotion for $25 cash back on purchases over $500, up to 10 times. These credits were for purchases made for our kids’ tuition. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.24, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$25</span> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.27, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$49.39</span> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card. This was for 10% cash back on the purchase of 3 toilets from Lowe’s. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.27, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$40.81</span> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for getting gas, which qualifies as a Chase Travel credit eligible purchase. This card is essentially providing us with $300 worth of free gas each year. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rental Income</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.5, we received a net profit of <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740 </span>from our rental property. </span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Survey Income</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.1, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a survey.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.6, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$40</span> check from M3 Global Research for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.22, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$45</span> check from M3 Global Research for completing a survey. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.23, I received a <span style="font-weight: bold;">$35</span> Amazon gift card from M-panels for completing a survey. <span style="color: #4f81bd; font-weight: bold;"><br />
</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-weight: bold;">Sales Income<br /></span>On 2.5, I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$45</span> cash for selling an old Blu-ray player and a set of speakers on Facebook Marketplace. These have been sitting around unused for at least 8 years. With streaming services available, there really is no need to watch DVDs. Also, the speaker set was too loud for our kids.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.7, my wife received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$20</span> cash for selling an old lamp. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.7, my wife received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$45</span> cash for selling an old children’s playpen. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.10, my wife received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$10 </span>cash for selling an old slow cooker. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 2.16, my wife received <span style="font-weight: bold;">$100</span> cash for selling some gently used women’s flats.</span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></span></p>
<p style="color: #4f81bd; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Monthly Totals:</span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$332.85</span> from cash back income<br />
We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$740</span> from rental income</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$140 </span>for completing online surveys</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <span style="font-weight: bold;">$220</span> from selling used items online </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">All of this totals $1,432.85 from our side hustles for the month of February! </span>Every little bit we earn helps us reach our financial goals (such as our home remodel) and our financial freedom. Keep hustling for that income. </span></p><p style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-60558241443488722112021-02-01T08:00:00.081-08:002021-02-01T08:00:08.791-08:00Side hustles January 2021<p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms. The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make. You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want. It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it. Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation. </i></span></p><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Once a month (usually on the 1st), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Welcome to February! How was your first month of the New Year? Here in the RFI household, we have been focused on keeping our kids entertained and healthy. We continue to visit all the different playgrounds in and around our neighborhood (with masks on of course!). </span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lRz5NjOrxEY/YBcitDolwyI/AAAAAAABEF8/ANWexXuzE4sjGdCnwD_SGYr4QKzl6Mj5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_1688.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lRz5NjOrxEY/YBcitDolwyI/AAAAAAABEF8/ANWexXuzE4sjGdCnwD_SGYr4QKzl6Mj5QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/IMG_1688.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At home, our kids enjoy reading library books, painting and drawing. </span></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C-aL94NK9fM/YBcizwfCvCI/AAAAAAABEGE/G3ah-jzj810OMqUkZ7mUdCWXqVHwr824QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1805/IMG_1545.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="1805" height="422" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C-aL94NK9fM/YBcizwfCvCI/AAAAAAABEGE/G3ah-jzj810OMqUkZ7mUdCWXqVHwr824QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h422/IMG_1545.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mloyi9Mi2ks/YBciziaWIXI/AAAAAAABEGA/IJEBM5vwJjkLaShZwPExXb3Npt3cZLfcACLcBGAsYHQ/s1810/IMG_1547.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1810" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mloyi9Mi2ks/YBciziaWIXI/AAAAAAABEGA/IJEBM5vwJjkLaShZwPExXb3Npt3cZLfcACLcBGAsYHQ/w534-h640/IMG_1547.jpg" width="534" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’m happy to report that I received my second COVID19 vaccine shot earlier this month. My mom received her first vaccine shot last week. COVID19 cases and deaths seem to be finally coming down in California (and the rest of the US). I truly hope that the worst is behind us and that we can slowly move past this pandemic. We are itching to take a family vacation! </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Recently, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach opened up their outdoor exhibits. Our kids were excited to visit the aquarium again. They got up close with jellyfish, sharks, stingrays, penguins, seals and more. It was such a treat for them to be able to get out of the house again. Our kids got a chance to touch jellyfish, stingrays and even small sharks. We made an appointment (guest capacity limits) to visit the aquarium as soon as they opened first thing in the morning. It wasn’t crowded at all and guests wore masks the entire time. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2rRN5_gxUZE/YBcjAllC5NI/AAAAAAABEGM/IueFrPbq0lARNqR1avoNAoZqUzqeZLEoACLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_1687.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2rRN5_gxUZE/YBcjAllC5NI/AAAAAAABEGM/IueFrPbq0lARNqR1avoNAoZqUzqeZLEoACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/IMG_1687.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of January.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Cash Back </span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.1, my wife received a <b>$16.98</b> statement credit on her <a href="http://refer.amex.us/JENNICC2pU?xl=cp19" target="_blank">AMEX Platinum credit card</a>. This was an AMEX offer for up to $20 back on streaming services per month. We enjoyed a free month of HBO Max and Hulu.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.4, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$60</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for the annual $60 Door Dash credit. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.9, my wife received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$22.98</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. American Express has a $50 statement credit offered for purchases up to $50 at Saks Fifth Avenue. This credit is offered twice a year, $50 every 6 months. My wife bought some clothing online and got it reimbursed.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.13 my wife received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$30</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. American Express has a $30 statement credit on purchases made with PayPal checkout for the next 6 months.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.21, my wife received a <b>$7</b> statement credit on her </span><a href="http://refer.amex.us/JENNICSeYy?xl=cp19" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">AMEX Gold Card</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. This was an AMEX offer for $7 back per month on $14.99 or greater purchases made with HBO Max. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.22, I received a <b>$36.16</b> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. From now through June 30, 2021, gas station and grocery store purchases will count towards earning free travel credit up to the first $300 in travel purchases.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.28, I received a <b>$51.83</b> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for the Chase Travel credit used towards gas station purchases. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Rental Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.5, we received a net profit of <b>$740 </b>from our rental property. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial;"><b>Miscellaneous Income<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.1, we received a direct deposit of <b>$2,233.90</b> from the IRS as our second stimulus check. I list this as a side hustle, just like our last stimulus check, because our income qualifies only after taking into account the tax deductions on our gross income. These deductions include two maxed out 401Ks ($19,500 each), a maxed out Dependent Care FSA ($5,000), a maxed out HSA ($7,000) and a partial Medical FSA deduction ($1,000). We have been rewarded for saving more. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Survey Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.20, I received a <b>$55</b> check from My Impact Network for completing a medical survey.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.25, I received a <b>$20</b> check from E Rewards Medical for completing a survey. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 1.25, I received a <b>$5</b> Amazon gift card from The Vision Council for completing a survey.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>Monthly Totals:<br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$224.95</b> from cash back income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$740</b> from rental income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$2,233.90</b> from miscellaneous income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">I earned <b>$80</b> for completing online surveys</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">All of this totals $3,278.85 from our side hustles for the month of January! </span></b> I hope you are all doing well with the start of 2021. I hope the start of the new year ignites your motivation and passion for pursuing financial freedom!</span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-70314819911571511282021-01-12T10:15:00.000-08:002021-01-12T10:15:21.699-08:00Over 650K invested<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Today, our investment accounts have now hit the biggest financial milestone to date: surpassing </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">$650,000</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> in value! </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lwdNJjRqplA/X_3jbJfsEyI/AAAAAAABED8/2FpvjEzoIfg9YeBhDjA9eA9sMKvvKzbXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1050/06DE46C3-C43A-44F7-B0B5-4C2368F89398.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="1050" height="144" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lwdNJjRqplA/X_3jbJfsEyI/AAAAAAABED8/2FpvjEzoIfg9YeBhDjA9eA9sMKvvKzbXQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h144/06DE46C3-C43A-44F7-B0B5-4C2368F89398.jpeg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our investment accounts include money in our 401Ks, Roth IRAs, taxable accounts, HSA and 529.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Index fund investing allows us to diversify our portfolio and keep our costs very low.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">This does not include money in our checking accounts, savings accounts, home equity or rental property equity.</span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It’s hard to believe how fast the stock market has recovered since the crash in March and then exploded towards new highs. There is a lot of bad news out there. The U.S. COVID-19 death toll continues to rise to record highs. Swamped hospitals are having to ration care for the surge of sick patients they are managing. Racial tensions and inequalities have become more and more glaringly obvious. Small businesses are suffering. Unemployed people are suffering. Just last week, domestic terrorists rioted and breached the U.S. Capital. Yet none of this bad news seems to be putting a dent into stock market returns. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The roaring stock market is due to a combination of historically low interest rates, government intervention to protect big corporations and record stimulus spending. Despite all of the doom and gloom this year, stock market investors are forward looking. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">With the certainty of a new president and a Democratic control of the Senate, it’s likely that more will be spent on economic stimulus. The COVID-19 vaccine roll out, while slow, promises to finally bring the coronavirus death toll down. More industries can start to reopen, especially travel. This will lead to increased consumer confidence - and spending. The Federal Reserve has indicated that interest rates will stay low for the time being. This helps businesses and individuals keep borrowing costs down. Homeowners can refinance to record low interest rates to save more money. The stock market looks attractive in this kind of environment. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The harsh reality of this recovery is that the growing divide between the rich and poor continues to widen. Those that are invested in the stock market have become more wealthy than ever before. People in the hardest hit industries of this recession aren’t doing well at all. Small business owners, travel, hospitality, performance and art industries are all suffering as lockdowns continue to punish them. Those suffering are dependent on unemployment income and government assistance, which has been severely lacking. Millennial-Revolution wrote a great post explaining what a K shaped recovery is <a href="https://www.millennial-revolution.com/invest/what-is-a-k-shaped-recovery/" target="_blank">here</a>. It really is unfair to be on the wrong side of this economic recovery. I hope this new administration can better support those with the most needs.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w_BCdFx28k8/X_3mFo0M_FI/AAAAAAABEEI/Pd6yPDZ1BPwXgSUeNp09yLO_AuAAc_58gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1981/A666D0B0-9837-4692-A0FB-023B08EB24A3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="947" data-original-width="1981" height="306" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w_BCdFx28k8/X_3mFo0M_FI/AAAAAAABEEI/Pd6yPDZ1BPwXgSUeNp09yLO_AuAAc_58gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h306/A666D0B0-9837-4692-A0FB-023B08EB24A3.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We continue to ride this wild stock market. As our investment accounts have grown, we have become more conservative with our stock to bond ratio. Our portfolio is currently sitting at about 65% stocks and 35% bonds and slowly moving towards a 70/30 asset allocation. While we are missing out on potentially greater returns, we are comfortable with the safety our bond funds provide. </span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here is a look back at the timeline of our previous investment milestones:</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 2, 2014: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2014/06/major-milestone-reached-over-100k.html"><span style="color: blue;">100K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">March 12, 2016: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2016/03/another-milestone-reached-over-200k.html"><span style="color: blue;">200K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 5, 2017: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2017/06/over-300k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">300K</span></a> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">July 15, 2018: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2018/07/over-400k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">400K</span></a> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">April 16, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/04/over-450k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">450K</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 5, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/11/over-500k-invested.html"><span style="color: blue;">500K</span></a> </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">January 18, 2020: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/01/over-550k-invested.html" target="_blank">550K</a></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 7, 2020: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/11/over-600k-invested.html" target="_blank">600K</a></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">January 12, 2021: <b>650K</b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Volatility in the stock market goes both down and up. While we are enjoying our net worth gains right now, we will not be overly greedy. We will continue to steadily invest towards our financial freedom.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 18.4px;"><br /></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-38755736009481902712021-01-06T11:02:00.003-08:002021-01-24T13:34:23.982-08:00Adventures in Mental Time Travel<p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 16.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-U1bOoHrNo/X_YHWbpTeiI/AAAAAAABEDY/NQliBtsg_lAbwm8PqykuWxaEPzAq0QhxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/4F336912-51A9-4B00-8F48-35B5C108966D.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1356" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-U1bOoHrNo/X_YHWbpTeiI/AAAAAAABEDY/NQliBtsg_lAbwm8PqykuWxaEPzAq0QhxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/4F336912-51A9-4B00-8F48-35B5C108966D.jpeg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I took the title of today’s post from a chapter in Annie Duke’s book <a href="https://amzn.to/3mR7dBA" target="_blank">Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decision When you Don’t Have All the Facts</a>.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the latest book I have finished reading.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I found the information I gained from this book so useful that I wanted to share some excerpts and insights with you.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Today I will discuss how we can use mental time traveling on our journey towards financial freedom.</span></span><p></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To quote a passage from Annie Duke’s book, <i><span style="color: #0b5394;">“For all the scientific research on the battle between our immediate desires and long-term goals, a particularly succinct explanation comes from Jerry Seinfeld, on why he doesn’t get enough sleep: “I stay up late at night because I’m Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late. ‘What about getting up after five hours of sleep?’ ‘That’s Morning Guy’s problem. That’s not my problem. I’m Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want.’ So you get up in the morning: you’re exhausted, you’re groggy. ‘Oooh, I hate that Night Guy.’ See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy.”</span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Why do we have such a difficult time preparing for our future and planning for our future-selves?</b> Why do we spend (sometimes frivolously) now instead of saving in our retirement accounts? Investing towards financial freedom means that we need to find ways of saving money or earning more money now, instead of placing the responsibility on our future self. Don’t let your current self screw your future-self.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Temporal discounting</b> is the tendency to favor our present-self at the expense of our future-self. In a way, we are built to behave this way. We use up the resources available to us right now instead of saving those resources for a future self that we don’t have any strong connection to right. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So how can we get to know our future-self right now? The future we can imagine for ourselves is usually based off our past. One way we can get to know our future-self is to remember past experiences. Putting our past memories together can help us remember and construct an idea of our future. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Annie Duke goes on to say that <i><span style="color: #0b5394;">“Night Jerry can access memories like oversleeping and missing appointments or dozing off during morning meetings that he can use to imagine how tired Morning Jerry will be or what’s going to happen to Morning Jerry’s schedule when he doesn’t want to get up or how his day will go when he can’t pay attention.”</span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>“Wouldn’t it be great if Morning Jerry could travel back in time and tap Night Jerry on the shoulder to tell him to go to bed?” </i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Studies find that when participants are shown software created images of their aged, older looking selves (complete with wrinkles, hair loss, and white hair), subjects allocated extra money towards their retirement accounts. <b>Getting a glimpse of how we will look in the future can be a powerful reminder of the importance of saving up in the present. Thinking about our future situation can get us to think about the consequences of not properly saving for that future. </b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Annie Duke says these types of apps can be a: <i><span style="color: #0b5394;">“tap on the shoulder from our future-self. “Hey, don’t forget about me. I’m going to exist and I’d like you to please take that into account.”</span></i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>We’re not perfectly rational when we ponder the past or the future and engage our deliberative mind, but we are more likely to make choices consistent with our long-term goals when we can get out of the moment and engage our past- and future-selves. We want Night Jerry and Morning Jerry colliding on the decision of when to get some sleep.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>And we want our aged, wrinkly self colliding with us when we decide between spending more money now on something like a nicer car versus saving more money for retirement.”</i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Do you have older family members, colleagues, or friends that have failed to save for their own future? What are their struggles? Are they working much longer than they’d like because they don’t have a nest egg that can support them? Are they dependent on their children or family members to take care of them and help them pay their bills? Imagine if you were put into a similar situation. Would you have any regrets? How can you avoid the mistakes that led to these outcomes?</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Harness the power of regret</b><br />
While many consider regret to be an unproductive waste of time, Annie Duke argues that regret can be a powerful motivational tool. Instead of sulking over something that has already occurred, she suggests <b>moving regret to the front of our decisions</b>. This way regret can help us alter choices that could lead to poor outcomes. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Look into your future. Will you be struggling to get by due to poor retirement savings decisions when you were younger? Will you be dependent on government checks to cover your daily expenses? Will you be a burden on your family and friends? Will you regret what you see in this possible future? Are there any decisions that you’ve made in your past that you regret? These moments of decision interruption can get us to imagine how we will feel in the future based on the decisions we make today.</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Moving regret forward can also help us come to terms with accepting a bad outcome. If we know what to expect, we will be less likely to be blindsided. No one likes to hear the phrase “I told you so” - especially from themselves. </span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The 10-10-10 question</b><br />
Author Suzy Welch came up with the 10-10-10 guideline to help us think about our future situation, during our current situation. When considering decisions, ask yourself the questions:</span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>“What are the consequences of each of my options in ten minutes? In ten months? In ten years?”</i></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This line of questioning gets us to mentally time travel in the future. On the same concept, you can also use these questions to ask yourself how you feel about certain decisions you’ve made 10 minutes ago, 10 months ago, and ten years ago. <b>The 10-10-10 question can lower your risk of making poor choices that lead to unwanted consequences. </b></span></p>
<p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I highly recommend reading Annie Duke’s book <b>Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decision When you Don’t Have All the Facts</b>. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It’s changed my outlook and perspective on many things in my life. You can buy the book <a href="https://amzn.to/3mR7dBA" target="_blank">here</a> on Amazon or check it out at the library for free like I did.</span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-85643777516917995872020-12-01T08:00:00.094-08:002021-01-01T07:18:49.774-08:002021: Happy New Year, December side hustles and year end summary!<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Happy New Year! Goodbye 2020, hello 2021! We had a quiet New Year's Eve As a new year begins, many of us think back on what went right and wrong about the past year. There have been so many major events this year, including (in no particular order): </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Australian brushfires, the death of Kobe Bryant, the impeachment of president Trump, the covid-19 pandemic, another oil crisis, major shut downs of the economy and small businesses, one of the fastest stock market crashes followed by one of the fasts bull market recoveries, travel bans, PPE (personal protective equipment) shortages, toilet paper shortages, cancelled holidays, distance learning school, Black Lives Matters protests, Joe Biden’s presidential election win, the fires in California, president Trump testing positive for covid-19, and finally the rollout of new covid-19 vaccines.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our lives have been forever changed by the events of this past year. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Everyone has been affected by this pandemic, although not equally. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">So many family gatherings and trips have been cancelled. We have friends that have been unemployed since March. My wife gets to work from home now. All office meetings are done online through a web camera. Some friends have contracted covid-19 and have family members that have had to be hospitalized. Many of us want to completely forget 2020 and move on. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Did you have a good December 2020? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">With the air quality clearing up around here, this has been the month of visiting playgrounds. There are several playgrounds to explore around our neighborhood. We bring masks for the kids and lots of hand sanitizers. We also try to make outdoors time a regular part of our kids’ routine. They love getting outside and exploring.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NGSz8pOObgQ/X-6DbyETtqI/AAAAAAABEBw/VQTjFDDMlKQg6qOmPF9Lvvyq--zsmTY_gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1711/IMG_0776.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1311" data-original-width="1711" height="490" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NGSz8pOObgQ/X-6DbyETtqI/AAAAAAABEBw/VQTjFDDMlKQg6qOmPF9Lvvyq--zsmTY_gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h490/IMG_0776.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6zgh2uxG1ns/X-6Db8EUA9I/AAAAAAABEB0/vHi2Lkp7X88mlhx_OV96hRAd5O_kPnONwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_0891.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6zgh2uxG1ns/X-6Db8EUA9I/AAAAAAABEB0/vHi2Lkp7X88mlhx_OV96hRAd5O_kPnONwCLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/IMG_0891.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kMwqMfqdFWo/X-6Db1qrlmI/AAAAAAABEB4/0qASF1lTL6wNWJTbKgwHRgovfgLpoU8HwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_0995.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kMwqMfqdFWo/X-6Db1qrlmI/AAAAAAABEB4/0qASF1lTL6wNWJTbKgwHRgovfgLpoU8HwCLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/IMG_0995.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qHLQ4Gw2HHY/X-6DcY576uI/AAAAAAABEB8/4Co1BBUhk2UHwOVIg6OXyZeoNj5J8kyNACLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_1215.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qHLQ4Gw2HHY/X-6DcY576uI/AAAAAAABEB8/4Co1BBUhk2UHwOVIg6OXyZeoNj5J8kyNACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/IMG_1215.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While inside, our kids have been painting and drawing. </span></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--3HTMVDBDJk/X-6D52RJrGI/AAAAAAABECM/2SDKZx3KOWkk-nmHOotvuzdz3VEz7nQgQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_1081.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--3HTMVDBDJk/X-6D52RJrGI/AAAAAAABECM/2SDKZx3KOWkk-nmHOotvuzdz3VEz7nQgQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_1081.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sZQSmha1Ug/X-6D5xwnHcI/AAAAAAABECQ/LSKZhbWzSBcM0vl2fq-3Ncd7E1dCh0ouQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_1082.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sZQSmha1Ug/X-6D5xwnHcI/AAAAAAABECQ/LSKZhbWzSBcM0vl2fq-3Ncd7E1dCh0ouQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_1082.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We celebrated Christmas at home this year, without any outside family members. We haven’t seen any of our family since last Christmas due to covid-19 concerns. We took our family to a Christmas lights drive thru event, complete with animated lights and holiday music. The kids had a blast! </span><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KKsSnFCzqqc/X-6FCHJyHsI/AAAAAAABEC4/RubVEdQeI08dZM8_NJ58yPhL8_RTgIemACLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_1214.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KKsSnFCzqqc/X-6FCHJyHsI/AAAAAAABEC4/RubVEdQeI08dZM8_NJ58yPhL8_RTgIemACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/IMG_1214.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This month our little girl turned 3 years old! We are so proud of her and it’s been quite a fun journey having her in our lives. As typical during the pandemic, we had a little celebration at home and FaceTimed with our family.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k4HQhG3Dth8/X-6Ec57BonI/AAAAAAABECo/3KIFfWekUoMjO4iaY14cpsXY5CeR1-qJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_1155.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k4HQhG3Dth8/X-6Ec57BonI/AAAAAAABECo/3KIFfWekUoMjO4iaY14cpsXY5CeR1-qJgCLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/IMG_1155.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One of my highlights this year was getting my first shot of the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine. I’m looking forward to getting my second shot on January 11th. I will definitely feel much more comfortable visiting family after I am vaccinated.</span></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tzel-h8m7wk/X-6ELsic83I/AAAAAAABECg/r01hkFwHJnk59VOK20vY9jJISqkhWEpOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1544/IMG_1212.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1544" data-original-width="1158" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tzel-h8m7wk/X-6ELsic83I/AAAAAAABECg/r01hkFwHJnk59VOK20vY9jJISqkhWEpOgCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/IMG_1212.PNG" width="300" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of December.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Cash Back </span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.1, my wife received a <b>$20</b> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum credit card. This was for $20 back on wireless phone purchases after spending $20+. We made a pre-payment to our wireless bill at the end of November, and she got the credit on this date.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.1, my wife received a <b>$14.99</b> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum credit card. This was an AMEX offer for up to $20 back on streaming services per month. We enjoyed a free month of HBO Max.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.2, my wife received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$1.99</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum credit card. This was an AMEX offer for up to $20 back on streaming services per month. We enjoyed a free month of Hulu.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.5, my wife received another </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$20</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on her AMEX Platinum credit card. This was for $20 back on wireless phone purchases after spending $20+ in the month of December.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.22, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$9.43</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on my Citibank ThankYou credit card. Citibank offered me 5% on online purchases for the month of December.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.31, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$1.47</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on my Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card from Chase Offers. This was for 10% back at purchases made at McDonalds.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial;"><b>Rental Income<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.5, we received a net profit of <b>$700</b> from our rental property. The increase in monthly cash flow is due to our recent rental property mortgage refinance.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial;"><b>Miscellaneous Income<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.5, I received a <b>$3 </b>Amazon gift card from <a href="https://www.mypoints.com?rb=22510810" target="_blank">MyPoints</a>.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Survey Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.7, I received a <b>$20</b> check from M3 Global Research for completing a medical survey. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.9, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$50</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> direct deposit from GLG Survey for completing a medical survey.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.11, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$30</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> check from M3 Global Research for completing a medical survey. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.11, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$20</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.19, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$220</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> check from M3 Global Research for completing a live panel discussion. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Work Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.14 I received a direct deposit of <b>$494.85</b> for picking up extra hours of work with my employer. They needed extra coverage and the extra income is appreciated.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.18, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$1,000</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> check for consultation income that I do on the side.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.31, I received a direct deposit of <b>$247.50</b> for picking up extra hours of work with my employer</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial;"><b>Sales Income<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.4, we received a check for <b>$1,074</b> from Midwest Refineries. We sold them 0.675 oz of old gold jewelry, and received 95% market value ($1,767/oz) of gold. <a href="https://www.midwestrefineries.com/" target="_blank">Midwest Refineries</a> is the easiest way to get rid of old and unwanted gold, silver and platinum jewelry - e</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ven </span><a href="https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/08/22/how_to_sell_silver/" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">Mr. Money Mustache</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> recommends them! <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12.4, I received a net profit of<b> $15.63</b> from eBay for selling an old Nokia phone. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>Monthly Totals:<br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$67.88</b> from cash back income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$740</b> from rental income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$3</b> from miscellaneous income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$340</b> for completing online surveys<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">I earned <b>$1,742.35</b> from extra employment income <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$1,089.63</b> from selling used items online </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>All of this totals $3,982.86 from our side hustles for the month of December! </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial;"><b>Side hustle totals:<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">This is now the 7th year that we have been tracking our side hustle income. Here are the numbers:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2020, we earned $25,563.67<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2019, we earned $14,181.54<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2018, we earned $14,802.47<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2017, we earned $15,307.76<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2016, we earned $24,195.44<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2015, we earned $19,178.54<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2014, we earned $28,633.42</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This side hustle income adds to our quality of life and increases the amount that we are able to save and invest towards our financial freedom. This year, our investments <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/11/over-600k-invested.html" target="_blank">surpassed 600K</a> as we continue to get closer to financial freedom. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This past year I met my goal of focusing more on reading for pleasure. I have been reading an average of 1 book every 2 months. We have read our kids tons of books, every single day. We check out all these books from the local library for free! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For 2021, I want to continue maintaining my habits on reading and fitness. Ever since I read Atomic Habits by James Clear, I have been working on creating and staying consistent with better habits. One current habit I am proud of is that I have exercised every single day since April 1st, 2020. I have not missed a single day. Doing pushups, weight lifting, chin ups and pull ups are just a normal part of my everyday routine – like flossing and brushing my teeth. At this point in my fitness habit, it’s easier to keep the trend going than to stop and start again. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I wrote my review of Atomic Habits </span><a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/04/atomic-habits.html" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>As we begin our journey into 2021 I hope we all take a moment to reflect on where we’ve been and plan out where we want to go.</b> I am looking forward to seeing what 2021 has in store for us. </span><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rmWEorq4NWk/X-6Emp_y2mI/AAAAAAABECs/eXAKmjOX2rEnYEeeDVGgUqVrD7rneE_iQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_1052.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rmWEorq4NWk/X-6Emp_y2mI/AAAAAAABECs/eXAKmjOX2rEnYEeeDVGgUqVrD7rneE_iQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_1052.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-50697191547981405292020-12-01T08:00:00.066-08:002020-12-01T08:00:02.052-08:00Side hustles November 2020<p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms. The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make. You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want. It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it. Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation. </i></span></p><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Once a month (usually on the 1st), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Welcome to December! Did you have a good November? With coronavirus cases on the rise, it’s been a quiet month for us. We are staying away from amusement parks, public dining and large gatherings during this time. We did not have a big Thanksgiving dinner gathering this year, opting to stay home by ourselves instead. While some might think that we are being overly cautious, we have been most thankful for our health this year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We continue to try to come up with fun activities at home such as painting, reading, building Legos and drawing. With the air quality clearing up, we try to go on outdoor walks regularly. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ndrAJpj3xdk/X8Vx7_XXIfI/AAAAAAABD10/QZW_n6qLGrorjQfDBHQnr4Z0t2VfZljygCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_0273.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ndrAJpj3xdk/X8Vx7_XXIfI/AAAAAAABD10/QZW_n6qLGrorjQfDBHQnr4Z0t2VfZljygCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_0273.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Kil4R1FIFJc/X8Vx7_xFlDI/AAAAAAABD1w/mq74r0k0aiUFIhGDmA7y_IOfkLBGW7jfACLcBGAsYHQ/s1919/IMG_0277.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1919" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Kil4R1FIFJc/X8Vx7_xFlDI/AAAAAAABD1w/mq74r0k0aiUFIhGDmA7y_IOfkLBGW7jfACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/IMG_0277.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our son's latest artwork!</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of November.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Cash Back </span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.19, I received a <b>$150</b> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. Chase has been offering some users a retention offer bonus just for calling in. It was worth a shot to get $150 cash after a 5 minute phone call! Other users have reported getting up to $250 in statement credits.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Rental Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.5, we received a net profit of <b>$550</b> from our rental property. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Survey Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.3, I received a <b>$10</b> check from M3 Global Research for completing a medical survey. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.16, I received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$70</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> check from My Impact Network for completing a medical survey.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.19, my wife received a </span><b style="font-family: arial;">$5</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> Amazon gift card from WGU Labs for completing an online survey.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.23, I received a <b>$45 </b>Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a medical survey.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.24, I received a <b>$20 </b>check from My Impact Network for completing a medical survey.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.24, I received a <b>$25</b> check from M3 Global Research for completing a medical survey.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.26, I received a <b>$50</b> direct deposit from GLG Survey for completing a medical survey.<br />On 11.30, I received a <b>$25</b> check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Work Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.30 I received a direct deposit of <b>$247.50</b> for picking up some extra hours of work with my employer. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial;"><b>Blog Income<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.28, I received a direct deposit of <b>$13.46</b> from Amazon Associates from website income. Thank you for your support!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Sales Income</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.1, my wife sold an old vacuum cleaner for <b>$50</b> cash on Nextdoor. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.1, my wife sold an old purse for <b>$30</b> cash on Nextdoor.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.20, I sold a Staples coupon on Slickdeals for <b>$1</b> Amazon gift card.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">On 11.25, I sold an old iPhone 5s for <b>$25 </b>on MacRumors forums.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Monthly Totals:</span></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">I earned <b>$150</b> from cash back income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$550</b> from rental income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$225</b> for completing online surveys<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">I earned <b>$247.50</b> from extra employment income <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$13.46</b> from website income<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$106</b> from selling used items online </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">All of this totals $1,316.96 from our side hustles for the month of November!</span></b> It’s hard to believe that we are now in the last month of the year 2020. Stay safe out there and keep investing towards your financial freedom!</span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-43480978452564745352020-11-07T08:00:00.068-08:002020-11-07T08:00:02.595-08:00Over 600K invested<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This morning when I logged into Mint.com, I was surprised to see that our investment accounts have now hit another financial milestone: surpassing <b>$600,000</b> in value! </span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a-by6SxbXGY/X6XOQR_Oh1I/AAAAAAAA_pk/81ADTTKBTwEH0kG19URJ-oPXp8Ibtpe3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s385/600K.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a-by6SxbXGY/X6XOQR_Oh1I/AAAAAAAA_pk/81ADTTKBTwEH0kG19URJ-oPXp8Ibtpe3ACLcBGAsYHQ/s385/600K.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kxf4BPt4yQk/X6YjtYycqnI/AAAAAAAA_8E/ckouWfyLAhQ6srYhkUOpBTPZvjMt4tOqwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1007/IMG_0585.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="1007" height="120" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kxf4BPt4yQk/X6YjtYycqnI/AAAAAAAA_8E/ckouWfyLAhQ6srYhkUOpBTPZvjMt4tOqwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h120/IMG_0585.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our investment accounts include money in our 401Ks, Roth IRAs, taxable accounts, HSA and 529. Index fund investing allows us to diversify our portfolio and keep our costs very low. This does not include money in our checking accounts, savings accounts, home equity or rental property equity.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The stock market has been on a wild ride this year, triggered by uncertainty with the coronavirus and an unexpected oil crisis. We had one of the steepest stock market drops ever: a <b>~34%</b> drop from February 19th to March 23rd. It was scary watching the stock market take a nosedive. <b>We lost over $50,000 in our portfolio within 2 weeks!</b> This type of drop was more than I could stomach. This pullback tested our chosen asset allocation and made me realize that a 90% stock to 10% bond allocation was too aggressive. I couldn’t stop thinking about losing money.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I’ll admit it. I panicked. <b>I panic sold</b>.<b> </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When our portfolio was smaller, I never used to get worried about little drops in the market. Once our portfolio surpassed 500K, I was more focused on wealth preservation than aggressively growing our balance. <b>On March 5th, when our portfolio was down about ~8%, I “cut my losses” and exchanged over $300,000 worth of stock index funds into a stable value bond fund yielding a guaranteed 2.5%</b>. Stable value funds are accessible in some workplace 401Ks and can offer a much better place to store money in the short term than a bond fund or cash. This put our portfolio into a much more conservative asset allocation of <b>60% stocks and 40% bonds</b>. At the time all I could think about was how hard I had worked to save and invest only to be faced with an imminent stock market collapse. I told myself that if nothing else, I could at least hold onto a quarter of a million dollars worth of cash in an ultra safe fund. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As the stock market continued to drop by another 25% after I had panic sold, I felt great about my decision. I gave myself a pat on the back, thankful that I had sold and “got out” just before the bear market. <b> I seemingly got one part of market timing correct</b>. By March 23rd, the stock market had hit the lowest point in the drop.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Then things started turning around. Stocks started to rapidly recover. <b>The stock market has been on an unstoppable tear upwards since March 24th, resulting in the shortest bear market ever (33 days</b>)! My 401K plan requires a 30 day hold on selling and buying into the same fund to prevent excessive trading. I was looking forward to April 5th to move money back into my stock index funds. The stock market was continuing to surge at this point and (in hindsight) this would have been a great time to get back into a 90/10 portfolio. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When April 5th came, I chickened out</b>. I kept thinking that there would be another stock market pullback; it was only a matter of time. I knew this to be true! <b>Research tells us that losses generally feel about two times as bad as wins feel good. </b> Instead of moving all $300,000 over into stocks, I only moved a few thousand over. Over the next few weeks, I continued to nibble at the market, reluctant to move anything more than a few thousand dollars at a time. I kept telling myself that the stock market could still drop and that I would regret moving all my money from a stable and safe investment into a potentially volatile one. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To properly time the market, one needs to make 2 correct decisions. First, one needs to know when to sell. Second, one needs to know when to buy back in. </b> I sold some stocks early to avoid the pain of the stock market crash. But I missed out on capturing all the gains of the stock market recovery. Very few investors have been able to properly time the stock market. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I failed at my personal market-timing attempt. <b>My hesitation with fully investing back into the stock market will probably be the biggest investing mistake of my career.</b> As the stock market has come roaring back, I’ve been missing out on huge gains. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Over the last few months, I am continuing to increase my investments into stock index funds regardless of which way the market is heading. <b>I've learned my lesson on market timing - IT DOES NOT WORK. </b> I didn't do <i>too</i> poorly, as I didn't sell everything. I was also able to move much of my funds back into the market as it was rising. Our portfolio is now sitting at about 65% stocks and 35% bonds. Long term, I will be aiming for 70% stocks and 30% bonds. This is a more conservative (less greedy) holding that I will be comfortable with long term. I hope to be more calm in the face of uncertainty the next time we have another stock market pullback.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here is a look back at the timeline of our previous investment milestones:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 2, 2014: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2014/06/major-milestone-reached-over-100k.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">100K</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">March 12, 2016: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2016/03/another-milestone-reached-over-200k.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">200K</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">June 5, 2017: <a href="http://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2017/06/over-300k-invested.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">300K</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">July 15, 2018: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2018/07/over-400k-invested.html " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">400K</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">April 16, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/04/over-450k-invested.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">450K</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 5, 2019: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2019/11/over-500k-invested.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">500K</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">January 18, 2020: <a href="https://www.relentlessfinancialimprovement.com/2020/01/over-550k-invested.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">550K</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">November 6, 2020: <b>600K</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the long term, I expect that our investment account balances will continue to hit new highs - which I will share with you all. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I have to keep reminding myself that stock market volatility is normal. Repeat after me: <b>“stock market volatility is normal!”</b> Time in the market surpasses trying to time the market. We will continue to stay this new course with our investments on our way towards financial freedom. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iWwA0n9qVS8/X6XQWQgLr9I/AAAAAAAA_pw/LJrNYZdbelMzb38xVWpBguwr99ACNs2UwCLcBGAsYHQ/s952/Stock%2BMarket.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="952" height="250" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iWwA0n9qVS8/X6XQWQgLr9I/AAAAAAAA_pw/LJrNYZdbelMzb38xVWpBguwr99ACNs2UwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h250/Stock%2BMarket.png" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">How did you feel during the recent stock market dip?</span><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How are your investments doing? Have you learned anything about your behavior during a stock market crash and stock market bull run? Have you made any changes to your asset allocation?</span></span><p></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-91488137207521527342020-11-01T08:00:00.001-08:002020-11-01T08:00:03.820-08:00Side hustles October 2020<div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms. The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make. You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want. It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it. Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation. </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Once a month (usually on the 1st), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Welcome to November! Did you have a good October? The big scare of our month was that there have been some big fires in Southern California. At one point, our home was less than 5 miles from the evacuation zone and we were packed up and ready to go. This has led to some very bad air quality with smoke and haze in the air. Usually our kids love going outside to play – but they’ve been stuck indoors for the last few weeks. </span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bdAQj-AieKg/X54DkeVXH0I/AAAAAAAA_Ww/Xj_Wa6W2qCEJ4-GuommIfgA3hwJCoTWjwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1747/IMG_0514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1747" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bdAQj-AieKg/X54DkeVXH0I/AAAAAAAA_Ww/Xj_Wa6W2qCEJ4-GuommIfgA3hwJCoTWjwCLcBGAsYHQ/w554-h640/IMG_0514.jpg" width="554" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Due to the pandemic, trick or treating has been cancelled this year. Our son was really bummed about that. We got him a Captain America costume so he could still dress up and pretend to be a super hero. A friend gave me a strawberry costume for our daughter to wear – but she wasn’t too excited about it. </span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nzJ1SoKHqW4/X54CwrZ6OjI/AAAAAAAA_Wc/ozj2BAVdnK0TEUTIB7DIj74_996SJWz_ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1620/IMG_0518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nzJ1SoKHqW4/X54CwrZ6OjI/AAAAAAAA_Wc/ozj2BAVdnK0TEUTIB7DIj74_996SJWz_ACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/IMG_0518.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">With interest rates continuing to drop, we finally decided to refinance to better rates! We have refinanced our home mortgage from 3.125% to a <b>2.375% 15-year fixed</b>. Even though our home mortgage has been extended from 10 to 15 years, we have the flexibility to make more payments to reduce the length of our loan. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We have also refinanced our rental property mortgage from 4.00% to a <b>2.99% 30-year fixed</b>. Rental properties usually have higher interest rates than primary residence rates so were excited to find that we could save over 1.00% in interest. This refinance will improve our monthly rental income by about $190! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of October.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Cash Back </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.21, I received a $1.27 statement credit on my SimplyCash AMEX business card.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Rental Income</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.5, we received a net profit of $550 from our rental property. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Survey Income</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.6, I received a $20 Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a medical survey. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.21, I received a $30 check from My Impact Network for completing a medical survey.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.26, I received a $15 check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Work Income</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.30 I received a direct deposit of $489.49 for picking up extra hours of work with my employer. They needed extra coverage and I was happy to take it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Sales Income</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.10, I received a net profit of $216.97 (after shipping expenses) for selling an old TAG Heuer watch online via the Reddit subreddit WatchExchange.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.13, I received a net profit of $111.70 for selling an old Apple Watch online via WatchExchange.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 10.15, my wife received $15 cash for selling some old Halloween costumes on Facebook Marketplace.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We are slowly organizing our home by donating or selling used items.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Monthly Totals:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I earned <b>$1.27</b> from cash back income</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <b>$550</b> from rental income</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I earned <b>$65</b> for completing online surveys</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I earned <b>$489.49</b> for extra employment income </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <b>$343.67</b> from selling used items online </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">All of this totals $1,449.43 from our side hustles for the month of October!</span></b> Refinancing our home and rental property mortgages will save us several hundred dollars each month and increase our cash flow. We will still be able to pay off our home relatively quickly. The extra cash flow will be used towards some home remodeling projects as well as investments towards financial freedom. The recently stock market volatility has allowed us to pick up more shares for less money. Keep hustling! </span></div>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-23433969565610161862020-10-04T18:19:00.004-07:002020-10-04T18:19:40.208-07:00FWOTW: lowering our internet bill<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It’s that time of the year where our internet service provider (Spectrum) raises our monthly rates. We’ve been paying $44.99 a month for our internet for the last year and our promotion is now over. Unfortunately, Spectrum is the only high speed internet provider in our area so we cannot switch providers. This month, Spectrum wanted to increase our bill to $59.99, a $15 monthly increase. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GliEGiioy6Y/X3p0OZ2m05I/AAAAAAAA_KY/yfDF5N2bzTIDAEv4BqkFUVBUy57N9_ZCACLcBGAsYHQ/s495/New%2Bbill.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="495" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GliEGiioy6Y/X3p0OZ2m05I/AAAAAAAA_KY/yfDF5N2bzTIDAEv4BqkFUVBUy57N9_ZCACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h300/New%2Bbill.png" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">After my wife receiving the new bill, she went to Spectrum.com and saw that they had now increased the new customer promotion for high speed internet to $49.99 for 12 months, a $5 increase from prior years. She called customer service right away. In the past, we’ve had to cancel and re-sign up for new service to keep our monthly rate down and get the new customer promotion.</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M-Z5otDKYu8/X3p0es05MdI/AAAAAAAA_Kg/wXxgXF3avNcfG9ianoAO5bbRHqowxgJygCLcBGAsYHQ/s505/Spectrum%2B%252449.99.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="427" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M-Z5otDKYu8/X3p0es05MdI/AAAAAAAA_Kg/wXxgXF3avNcfG9ianoAO5bbRHqowxgJygCLcBGAsYHQ/w339-h400/Spectrum%2B%252449.99.png" width="339" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">To my wife’s surprise, the customer service representative instantly lowered her bill down from $59.99 to $49.99 to match the current new customer promotion. It’s a shame that big corporations like Spectrum would rather reward new customers than keep their existing customers happy. <b>This quick 5-minute phone call will save us $10 a month, or $120 a year!</b></span><p></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-33430534005617047432020-10-01T10:10:00.003-07:002020-10-01T10:10:44.540-07:00Side hustles September 2020<p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms. The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make. You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want. It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it. Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation. </i></span></p><p><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Once a month (usually on the 1st), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. </i></span></p><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Welcome to October! Did you have a good September? Here in Southern California it’s been a very hot summer with record-breaking temperatures and plenty of wildfires. Due to the heat and the poor air quality from the smoke, we have been staying indoors. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Our kids are old enough to start enjoying short movies, so we have been watching a few fun Netflix movies at home on the weekends. Their current favorite is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12759408/" target="_blank">Octonauts and the Caves of Sac Actun</a>. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Our kids are keeping busy making Legos, drawing pictures, and playing hide and seek around the home. Here is our son's latest creation, a T-Rex he decided to convert into a Mosasaurus:</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dnA-USo1llM/X3YMfUxgFUI/AAAAAAAA_I0/X7QjF2ob0LoSrsx_Z_2YfwzsVhpYBUubgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_0110.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dnA-USo1llM/X3YMfUxgFUI/AAAAAAAA_I0/X7QjF2ob0LoSrsx_Z_2YfwzsVhpYBUubgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_0110.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of September.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Cash Back </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.5, I received a <b>$450</b>, <b>$37.30</b>, and <b>$7.34</b> statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. I don’t normally redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points for cash back, but we don’t see ourselves traveling anytime soon while the pandemic is still raging on. I just got charged the annual fee on my Sapphire Reserve card, and didn’t feel like paying for the fee from our checking account. For us, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is a keeper.</span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u8l1P8n2M6E/X3YL2WjCwGI/AAAAAAAA_Ik/ImECz2dZUTUwoMQSv6NygPeEC_LUdDciQCLcBGAsYHQ/s939/Chase%2BPay%2BYourself%2BBack.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="939" height="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u8l1P8n2M6E/X3YL2WjCwGI/AAAAAAAA_Ik/ImECz2dZUTUwoMQSv6NygPeEC_LUdDciQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h350/Chase%2BPay%2BYourself%2BBack.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pug8Yf5Oh0E/X3YL2WSs5pI/AAAAAAAA_Io/gV-fs51LZ4snjRh76qmYY1NEeOPipGkGQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1116/Chase%2Bstatement%2Bcredit.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="1116" height="182" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pug8Yf5Oh0E/X3YL2WSs5pI/AAAAAAAA_Io/gV-fs51LZ4snjRh76qmYY1NEeOPipGkGQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h182/Chase%2Bstatement%2Bcredit.png" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">On 9.13, my wife received a </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-family: arial;">$5</b><span style="font-family: arial;"> statement credit on her AMEX Gold card from AMEX offers, which offered $5 off a purchase of $10 or more at a small business establishment – a restaurant in this case.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.20, my wife received a <b>$5</b> statement credit on her AMEX Gold card from AMEX offers, which offered $5 off a purchase of $10 or more at a small business establishment – a vet bill.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Rental Income</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.5, we received a net profit of <b>$550</b> from our rental property. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Survey Income</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.8, I received a check for <b>$15</b> from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.9, I received a check for <b>$50</b> from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.10, I received a <b>$50</b> Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a medical survey.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.18, I received a <b>$30</b> check from My Impact Network for completing a medical survey.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.28, I received a <b>$20</b> check fro E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.28, I received a <b>$30</b> check from M3 Global Research for completing a medical survey.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Miscellaneous Income</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.8, I received a <b>$3</b> Amazon gift card from MyPoints.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.18, I received a <b>$3</b> Amazon gift card from Pampers Rewards. While we no longer need diapers for our kids, I forgot that I had some unused points that I redeemed for this Amazon gift card.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On 9.25, I received a <b>$10</b> Amazon gift card from Blue Shield of California, for doing an insurance survey. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Monthly Totals:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <b>$504.64</b> from cash back income</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <b>$550</b> from rental income</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I earned <b>$195</b> for completing online surveys</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We earned <b>$16</b> of miscellaneous income </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">All of this totals <b>$1,265.64</b> from our side hustles for the month of September!</span> We are continuing to save and invest. We are saving money on fuel since my wife is working from home, and we don’t drive much. We are saving money on entertainment expenses, since most places are still closed. We are saving money on food, since indoor dining at restaurants have been closed and we mostly cook our food at home. Pretty much all of our usual expenses have gone down – except for our electricity bill, which has increased due to being home more and using air conditioning to cool our home. Keep saving and investing my friends!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div><br /><p></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-69701508716213373172020-09-26T14:32:00.000-07:002020-09-26T14:32:12.971-07:00FWOTW: free roadside treasure<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I was walking my dog around the neighborhood earlier this week and stumbled upon a battery powered Lightning McQueen car that one of my neighbors had left on the street. Attached to the mini vehicle was a piece of paper with FREE written on it. I didn’t hesitate to pick it up and bring it home. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The car had few dents and scratches on the paint, some missing stickers and a missing exhaust pipe but overall it was in good shape. We wiped the car down with sterilizing wipes and charged the battery. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the vehicle ran smoothly without any issues! Our kids have been so happy taking turns driving this car around the neighborhood and local elementary school! </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q4nbL_Mgojo/X2-yh3uAc-I/AAAAAAAA_HE/h07_iV9BfSEa4Cqlu86DcjJZwozN73MBACLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/IMG_9620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1242" data-original-width="1536" height="324" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q4nbL_Mgojo/X2-yh3uAc-I/AAAAAAAA_HE/h07_iV9BfSEa4Cqlu86DcjJZwozN73MBACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h324/IMG_9620.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bvYjbn0G1BE/X2-yh8S69KI/AAAAAAAA_HI/b5RrgxitKDwLCfEyrHDZMNdGzXdI2Ye7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1826/IMG_9623.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1451" data-original-width="1826" height="318" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bvYjbn0G1BE/X2-yh8S69KI/AAAAAAAA_HI/b5RrgxitKDwLCfEyrHDZMNdGzXdI2Ye7wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h318/IMG_9623.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Picking up this car for free allows another family (ours) to put this toy to good use without it going straight to a landfill. Picking this item up also <a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/Disney-Pixar-Cars-3-Lightning-McQueen-6V-Battery-Powered-Ride-On-by-Huffy/118505871" target="_blank">saved us $149</a> from buying it at a store. Picking up this roadside treasure allows us to be frugal and environmentally conscious. And when our kids are no longer entertained, we will be sure to pass it along. I think <a href="https://www.frugalwoods.com/" target="_blank">Frugalwoods</a> would be proud of us.</span></span><p></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-2945440756932413142020-09-01T08:00:00.017-07:002020-09-01T08:00:04.394-07:00Side hustles August 2020<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms. The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make. You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want. It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it. </span></i><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.</span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Once a month (usually on the 1<sup>st</sup>), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Welcome to September! Did you have a good August? With all the fun venues like zoos, aquariums and playgrounds still closed, we are doing the best we can to keep our kids entertained. Inside the house they are building forts with the couch cushions and are also enjoying hide and seek. The kids are drawing with crayons and painting with watercolors. We continue to check out a ton of books from the library for free. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_RxU2nSnRcY/X02pu8rIpDI/AAAAAAAA6hk/gM_ugYl8Sq0hTbwrjsv4wyJyuPMNKNCOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_9660.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_RxU2nSnRcY/X02pu8rIpDI/AAAAAAAA6hk/gM_ugYl8Sq0hTbwrjsv4wyJyuPMNKNCOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_9660.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our son got his first real Lego set and is quickly learning to follow directions and build his own creations. He loves building something and then immediately having us help him take apart all of the pieces so that he can build something else.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uuLjtMlbcoo/X02pnFll_eI/AAAAAAAA6hg/nwicwn4I3moLkqoic3WWifdltMXQFyDpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1396/IMG_9409.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="1396" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uuLjtMlbcoo/X02pnFll_eI/AAAAAAAA6hg/nwicwn4I3moLkqoic3WWifdltMXQFyDpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_9409.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s been pretty hot all month so we haven’t been able to go for family walks or spend too much time outdoors. Looking forward to getting the kids outside more once the weather cools down.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of May.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Cash Back<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On 8.6, I received a <b>$10.47 </b>PayPal deposit from <a href="http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=706219" style="color: purple;">Mr. Rebates</a> cash back shopping portal.<br />On 8.14, my wife received a <b>$5</b> statement credit on her AMEX Gold card from AMEX Offers. This was a deal for $5 cash back on purchases of $10 or more at local small businesses. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On 8.16, I received a <b>$0.64</b> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business card from AMEX Offers. This was a deal for 10% cash back on purchases made at Staples. I needed some pens.<br />On 8.21, I received a <b>$0.83</b> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business card from my monthly cash back distribution.<br />On 8.22, my wife received a <b>$5</b> statement credit on her AMEX Gold card from AMEX Offers. This was a deal for $5 cash back on purchases of $10 or more at local small businesses. <br />On 8.26, I received a <b>$2.54 </b>statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business card from AMEX Offers. This was a deal for 10% cash back on purchases made at Staples. I shipped a package through UPS from the Staples shipping department.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Rental Income</span></b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On 8.5, we received a net profit of <b>$550 </b>from our rental property. Our tenants income situation has improved and they were able to make a full rental payment this month.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Survey Income</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On 8.4, my wife received a <b>$20 </b>Amazon gift card from Amazon Preview for watching a movie and completing a survey about it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">On 8.21, I received a check for <b>$30</b> from M3 Global Research for completing a medical survey<br />On 8.21, I received a check for <b>$35 </b>from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey. <br />On 8.26, my wife received a <b>$3 </b>Amazon gift card for finishing a review with Amazon Preview.</span><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;"><br /><br /></span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Miscellaneous Income<br /></span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">On 8.24, I received a check for <b>$1,000</b> for consultation work that I do on the side.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Monthly Totals:</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$24.48</b> from cash back income<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$550</b> from rental income<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We earned <b>$88 </b>for completing online surveys<br />I earned <b>$1,000</b> of miscellaneous income<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">All of this totals $1,662.48 from our side hustles for the month of August! </span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">How are your finances holding up? I hope you have been able to continue saving and investing. This stock market recovery has been nothing short of amazing. We have already recovered from all of our stock market losses from the crash in March 2020 and are close to hitting new financial milestones.</span></span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-56879357213365087162020-08-27T13:29:00.002-07:002020-08-27T13:29:36.730-07:00 FWOTW: disputing a medical billing error<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">This is the first year that we have signed up for a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) to take advantage of a Health Savings Account (HSA).</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">HDHPs have great benefits if you don’t usually have a high amount of medical expenses (such as someone with a chronic condition).</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">The downside of having a HDHP is that it covers just one wellness visit each year.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">Other medical visits are not covered until you meet your deductible ($6,000 for our family).</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">An HDHP is pretty much a catastrophic plan.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"><br />HSAs offer tax advantages by allowing for pre-tax dollars to be contributed into the account.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"><b>For 2020, the maximum contribution amounts into an HSA are $3,550 for an individual and $7,100 for families</b>.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">This amount directly reduces taxable income.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">You can choose to invest the money you have inside an HSA.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">We are investing our balance in the Vanguard Total US Stock market index fund (VTSAX).</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">Withdrawing money from an HSA is also tax free for qualifying medical expenses. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"><br />An HSA has no time limit for when you must use your account to pay for medical expenses – you can save all of your medical receipts and pay yourself back anytime later.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">This essentially allows an HSA to act like a “medical expenses” savings account.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">There are no taxes on the money you contribute and no taxes on the money you take out.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">The Mad FIentist calls the HSA </span><a href="https://www.madfientist.com/ultimate-retirement-account/" style="color: purple; font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">the ultimate retirement account</a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"><br />So far we have been enjoying our HDHP and HSA.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">It’s nice to have another investment vehicle.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">Imagine our surprise when we received a bill for </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">$148.20</b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> from our son’s pediatrician after his annual wellness visit!</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> <br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p0sH2hAJFm0/X0gWrlLQF4I/AAAAAAAA6gw/1u9Uizd980E2mq7P4ICzKi4F8r9XXr9DACLcBGAsYHQ/s2016/IMG_8644.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p0sH2hAJFm0/X0gWrlLQF4I/AAAAAAAA6gw/1u9Uizd980E2mq7P4ICzKi4F8r9XXr9DACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/IMG_8644.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pUVXKXQxRew/X0gUVXAE5oI/AAAAAAAA6gc/u4_dHfToAfg1Mt_ykLYfu73CA1TDPxVmQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1456/Bill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1456" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pUVXKXQxRew/X0gUVXAE5oI/AAAAAAAA6gc/u4_dHfToAfg1Mt_ykLYfu73CA1TDPxVmQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Bill.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">It can be difficult to make sense of all the random jargon that comes with a medical bill.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">Instead of paying our bill right away, I decided to call our health insurance to find out why our son’s wellness examination was not covered.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">A very nice customer service representative looked into the medical claim and discovered that the office had incorrectly billed the visit as an urgent care visit instead of a wellness examination.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">Our claim was adjusted and now our balance due was $0.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xfeCeCNFRTA/X0gUqR_EqhI/AAAAAAAA6gk/iYKt9aQ1sSUiSDwccw6NlWRHWc1DGaDsACLcBGAsYHQ/s358/Adjustment.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="358" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xfeCeCNFRTA/X0gUqR_EqhI/AAAAAAAA6gk/iYKt9aQ1sSUiSDwccw6NlWRHWc1DGaDsACLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Adjustment.png" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16pt;">I’m glad I made the 5-minute phone call and saved $148.20!</span></p>Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-52404706511953790962020-08-01T08:00:00.002-07:002020-08-04T20:34:22.945-07:00Side hustles July 2020<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt;">The great thing about doing side hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms. The more hard work, time, and creative effort you put in, the more extra money you can make. You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want. It’s your extra money, and you can choose how you want to spend it. </span></i><i><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt;">Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you, try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for your situation.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Once a month (usually on the 1<sup>st</sup>), I like to post a short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on with our lives and our side hustles. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Welcome to August! Did you have a good July? We’ve had another limited shutdown of businesses in California as covid19 cases continue to rise. My wife continues to work from home and I have been professionally fitted with an n95 mask to wear at all times at my office. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">We’ve been trying to make the most of things by having our kids do lots of outdoor and indoor activities. Our friend gifted us an outdoor pool and the kids have enjoyed splashing around. We purchased a bubble gun for outdoor play. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">We’ve also been going on regular walks around the neighborhood.</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Our dog loves all the extra time she gets to spend outside.</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Having access to free books from the library has been awesome.</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">We’ve been reading new books to our kids every week!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of July.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Cash Back</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br />On 7.14, my wife received a <b>$5</b> statement credit on her AMEX Gold card from AMEX Offers spend $10+ at a small business and get $5 cash back.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">On 7.19, I received a <b>$6.73</b> statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash business credit card. This was for 10% cash back on shipping FedEx.<br />On 7.24, my wife received a <b>$5</b> statement credit on her AMEX Gold card from AMEX Offers spend $10+ at a small business and get $5 cash back.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Survey Income</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">On 7.6, I received a <b>$30 </b>Amazon gift card from My Impact Network for completing a survey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">On 7.13, I received a <b>$30</b> Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a survey.<br />On 7.14, I received a <b>$30</b> Amazon gift card from My Impact Network for completing a survey.<br />On 7.20, my wife received a <b>$20</b> Amazon gift card from Amazon Preview for watching a movie and answering some questions about it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Rental Income</span></b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">On 7.5, we received a net profit of <b>$550 </b>from our rental property. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Miscellaneous Income</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">On 7.1, my wife sold one of our old strollers for <b>$60</b> cash through Facebook Marketplace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 16pt;">Monthly Totals:</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">We earned <b>$16.73 </b>from cash back income<br />We earned <b>$110 </b>for completing online surveys<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">We earned <b>$550</b> from rental income<br />We earned <b>$60</b> of miscellaneous income<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">All of this totals $736.73 from our side hustles for the month of July!</span></b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"> <b> </b></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I’m hopeful that scientists will continue to come up with ways to effectively treat coronavirus infections - we just have to be patient. In the meanwhile, keep saving and investing!</span></span></div>
Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857035533992083318.post-72016720055971160832020-07-22T09:13:00.000-07:002020-07-22T09:13:13.556-07:00FWOTW: library books<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s time for another frugal win of the week (FWOTW) post.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I’ve written about the library before but I just want to remind you all what a wonderful service the library provides.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our local library recently started offering curbside pickup. The process of getting books has never been easier. We log into our online account, select the books that we want to place on hold, and then the library sends an email when the books are ready for pickup. Once we get to the library, we call a number and someone brings our requested books out onto a sanitized table for us to retrieve. The whole process is run extremely smoothly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">There is no shortage of books that we can get for our kids and ourselves.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Currently our kids are enjoying Pete the Cat, Little Critter and Wild Kratts books.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Checking out books from the library helps us adjust to our kids’ rapidly changing interests – and saves us a ton of money!</span></div>
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Relentless Financial Improvementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364694400899882492noreply@blogger.com0