Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

The summer is flying by! I feel like I just made my goals update post for June. Overall, July was very good, except for our food spending. This is something that we really need to reign in. I think August will be easier (and so will future months), since I will have time to cook…

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Last Updated: May 26, 2023

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The summer is flying by! I feel like I just made my goals update post for June. Overall, July was very good, except for our food spending. This is something that we really need to reign in. I think August will be easier (and so will future months), since I will have time to cook after work and not let laziness and my tiredness take over.

August will be a good month. I graduate with my MBA, get my big raise, go to Vegas for 5 days, then go to DC for 5 days for work.

I can’t remember if it was the end of June or July where we kicked out our second roommate, but we kicked him out. Didn’t last long. He’s still a loser just in case any of you were wondering.

Rent income for August will be going up to $325. My sister said she wants to pay more because she feels like she isn’t paying enough. I will be giving some of her money back when she moves out as described here. I tried telling her no, but she insisted (so, no I am not evil).

Last time I had a goals update post, I talked about how we were planning on going on vacation to Turks and Caicos in November. We decided to save the money (since we already went to Kauai this year) and because the boy is about to get a new job (I will talk about this soon once everything goes through. don’t worry though, he still has his current job but wants to quit), which would erase all of his vacation time and make taking a vacation impossible.

JulyGoals
  1. Cut my food budget down to $400. FAIL FAIL FAIL. Yes, we only spent around $150 on groceries, but we ate out a ton.
  2. Workout at least 4 times a week and run with my dog.  FAIL. I did better at the beginning of the month, but towards the end it was just too hard because I was getting too stressed with school.
  3. Make an extra $1,000 this month. PASS. A lot of this extra income was from selling clothes, so of course that is not attainable in the future. I will have to try and figure something else out.
  4. Study everyday for at least 2 hours for part 4 of my work certification test. The test is coming up very quickly! PASS. I haven’t studied a lot lately, but I was studying for around 5 hours a night earlier in the month.
  5. Read 2 books. PASS. I read lots of books! This is surprising for me (usually I’m just reading text books…).
August Goals
  1. Cut my food budget down to $400. Laziness took over last month. We were both really busy and found happiness when we would go out to eat. Not no more!
  2. Workout at least 4 times a week and run with my dog.  This will stay as my goals until it’s completed. Now that I will never have school again for the rest of my life, this is much more possible.
  3. Make an extra $850 this month. This will be harder since I won’t have as many items to sell and we are only getting rent from 1 person, but I want to try and make this work.
  4. Start thinking about my CFA. I don’t have to take this just yet, but I do want to start reading up on it more, looking into books, etc. Who here has passed?
  5. Look for a pilates or boxing class to enroll in. I will have a lot more free time, and doing this sounds good for me.
  6. Find some sort of hobby to take all of my extra time. If I find a good boxing class, volunteer work, etc. then that will of course fill this 🙂

 

Blog Goals
  • Twitter followers:  Goal was for 850, I’m currently at 820. My goal for August is 900.
  • Alexa rank: Goal was to be under 90,000. I’m still stuck at around 89,000.
  • RSS readers: Goal was for 950, I’m currently at 937. My goal for August is to have 1,000.
  • Guest post at least 2 times this month. PASS!Would anyone else want guest posts?

 

Extra Monthly Income in June
  • Online Income – $350
  • Selling Clothes – $750
  • Mystery Shopping – $75
  • Rent – $250

 

So I actually made $1,425 extra last month!
How did you do in July? Any extra income?

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Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Author: Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Hey! I’m Michelle Schroeder-Gardner and I am the founder of Making Sense of Cents. I’m passionate about all things personal finance, side hustles, making extra money, and online businesses. I have been featured in major publications such as Forbes, CNBC, Time, and Business Insider. Learn more here.

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  1. Hi congrats on all your success. What I was wondering was do you do any link building or are these all natural? Also you say featured on Wall St Journal and others, how did you accomplish that?

    1. Do you mean link building for my blog?