On January 1st, I set a number of financial goals, and will update every couple of months through the year. Here is the third review. You can check the January-February one here and March-April there, May-June here.
Two goals were added then, live off online income, and donate 10% of said income to sponsor children education in my Guatemalan village.
The main financial goal was to grow my net worth by 30%. After spending over $40K in house renovations and the land development so far, I have not updated any of those assets’ value. As I explained from my hotel investment gone wrong, until someone is ready to pay for your house what you think it is worth, the return is not certain. I had not updated the potential returns on that investment either, so no NW drop. Since January, I am up 8.9%.
A little behind, although it is still a strong 5 figures jump and I expect most of the growth to come on the last part of the year via selling some plots on my 90 acres land.
Second financial goal was to pay $25,000 of debt that was used to finance several investments over the past years. I have paid $9,500 to close a loan in January plus $750 in capital each month and $7,700 on a 0% CC in June, totaling $23,950. I still have a $3,000 balance at 0% until December, the money is already on my account, bringing interest in the meanwhile. Just with normal monthly payments until the end of year, that is a PASS in November.
Other financial goals
Sell plots on the 90 acres land to get back the purchase price. We are not comfortable taking money while we are still waiting for the plot deeds to come out of the registry, a couple of month ago we were not very optimistic but now it looks like it would be by the end of the year. We had an offer to buy the whole land which we rejected. ONGOING
5 25 50 times more blog income than 2012. That goal was revised on May 1st. I am now at 41.88 times. ON TARGET
The blog income in 2012 was only for Q4. Things have really picked up since February and it looks like we are on target with this one.
Take a trip back to Europe: Went to France for four weeks in May. PASS and I am going AGAIN for two months!
Take a trip to the US: I will be looking for last minute September deals or may go to Europe once more to enjoy my bike. I am writing this from Paris! The US trip will have to wait 🙂
New goals
Make $3K on Make Money Your Way
My new website, Make Money Your Way, has launched on July 1st, and the goal is to make $3K with it by December 31st. PageRank update, where are you?? Total so far: $0. Maybe a few cents with Adsense but I don’t know how much came from each site. Ongoing!
Live off online income
My minimum goal to cover Guatemalan expenses was $1,000, my comfortable goal was $2,000, my stretch goal $5,000.
I made $4,000 in July and about $2,500 in August. Out of those $6,500 I have spent $3,500, donated $650 and have $2,350 left. As I’ll be traveling around Europe in September and October and paying for BF’s expenses too (he paid for last year’s trip around Europe), I think I need around $8,400, meaning $7,000 of online income (as 10% gets donated) over the next couple of months. I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to put into the blog during that time but with the help of my lovely VA I hope to keep on top of things.
Donate 10% of online income to charity
At the moment I have $650 to donate and the school year ends in November so all that money will go towards scholarships for the new year, I have already gone to the school to let the students and teachers know that the best two will have a full ride next year. If there is some money left I’ll help other students buy school supplies and uniforms for the new year.
Conclusion
Not too bad! I am very happy with the online income and thinking about investing the proceeds, but don’t know where yet.
See you in two months!
Congratulations on the online income.
I would love to see the gradual progression of the income for Make Money Your Way. Any future reports on that would be gratefully received.
Where are you planning to go during your two months in Europe?
There will be one tomorrow! I am taking my motorcycle down to Spain, Portugal and Morocco, really excited and I hope the good weather lasts for a while longer.
Pauline,
Our big goal this year is to grow our net worth by more than what we make in a year. As long as the market doesn’t collapse and we continue to save at the current rate, we should hit that achievement for the first time.
Pretty awesome and ambitious goal, I love it! I used to make 2-3 times my day job’s income on the side when I was employed so used to have a similar goal. Well done!
I have two goals – reduce my credit card debt by £10,000 – and start to build some income on the side.
Easy to say – not easy to do.
Good luck! Not easy but with dedication you’ll get there.
I think it´s so great that you´re donating money to a school! Education is such an important thing to support! And btw, yay for you visiting Europe again!:-D
yay for some September sun! May was really pathetic, cold and humid. I hope it lasts.
You’re making good progress Pauline. I would really like to see the income report of your new site.
By the way, I’m also waiting for my PageRank to change from zero to something and it never happened since, I wonder why Google haven’t updated it yet.
Here is the income report of my new site. Pace yourself. Ready? $0 :). Tomorrow I will publish August’s income report on MMYW.
I’m looking forward on that post Pauline. 🙂
Impressive! I’m looking forward to seeing how quickly MMYW takes off too!
it’s sloooow. I wish Google would update PR now!
I made a goal at the beginning of the year to make $1k/month in side hustle income. June – August was really good for me and I should reach (and exceed) that goal on a per month basis. I’m pretty happy about that.
“until someone is ready to pay for your house what you think it is worth, the return is not certain”
This part was really important for me, because I think a lot of people inflate their NW’s based on their home’s value when in fact it is the opposite, and just gives the illusion of being rich.
Where in the U.S. would you go?
I was thinking Miami that I don’t know, NY that I love or California that I only briefly visited last year, but instead hopped on a flight to Paris 🙂
I lived in Miami for a while, it’s only good for the beach in my opinion or if you like wild nightlife.
California would be my pick, even Boston or Chicago was cute. I also lived in NYC but found it too jarring for my nerves.
Miami is the easy option from Guatemala, super cheap shopping for items I don’t find here, maybe rent a car and visit the keys… Chicago I visited last year and loved it, Boston is a great idea, haven’t been since a school exchange in 1995!
The land development is such a headache for you. Were you tempted to sell when the offer came? Would you be tempted to sell if the potential buyer came back with a slightly sweeter offer?
yes, we would be ready to sell for the right price, that would be an easy out, although that was about 2 weeks ago and things have really moved forward since then so I am not sure anymore that I would sell unless you made my time really worth it.
I want a PR update also! It’s been so long and now I’m just so curious as to where my sites stand.
I am still looking forward my goal to earn some income. One of our goal for this year is to fix partition wall for our home and it was done already with simple attached cabinets. Next year, I am looking to have a simple perimeter fence around our main residence.
Congrats for your progress Pauline.
Thank you Walt. We put some fence around the house to avoid the chickens going away, it doesn’t look really pretty but does the job. Now we planted a lot of small trees and in a few years hopefully the whole fence will be vegetation.
Lots of great progress there. Not much you (or I) can do about pagerank. It’s one of those frustrating things we have no control over. Hope you’re enjoying your time in France.
Yes, thank you! The weather has been gorgeous so far, sunny but fresh, ideal for running too. Good to see friendly faces and eat stinky cheese 🙂
Nice work Pauline! My big goal, blogging income wise has been to grow my affiliate income and I had my best month so far last month which is really exciting to see. God only knows when G will do anything about the PR or if they do anything at all. If you come to the US, my vote would be for Chicago or San Diego…though that couldn’t be because it’s been too long since we’ve been to either. 😉
congrats! I am super lazy with writing affiliate posts but want to increase them too.
It’s always nice to see someone attaining their goals and then challenging themselves even further. Nice progress, Pauline.
thank you!
Looks like you’re doing great against your goals, Pauline. Two months in Paris sounds great! Are you traveling on your bike again or will it not be bike weather when you go? We have good friends who go for rides almost every weekend. They love the open air. I do too but I prefer it in a convertible. LOL!
I am riding the bike to Morroco with my boyfriend 🙂 details in a post to come I am super excited! The weather should be fine until October.
Lol total for MakeMoneyYourWay – $0. I hear that a ton of bloggers are waiting for that PR update – maybe Google’s completely eliminating PR?
Yes, that’s the rumor but they are being really secretive about it. argh!
I love that 10% charity goal. How did you decide to just give the money to two children instead of dispersing it evenly?
They are in their last year of middle school, and most won’t continue to high school. They are only around 15 but it is “old” in Guatemala and if you are going to run a small chop or harvest some corn you don’t need further education. My scholarships are going to the two best students who want to pursue further education. The promotion is only 13 kids, I’d say maybe 4-5 are interested and if they just want to go to trade school I think I would have enough to send them all. Saying there are only 2 scholarship should push the kids to get better grades by the end of the year as well.
That must have been amazing to tell the school that two of them would get a scholarship. That is ultimately one thing I would like to expand upon, setting up or contributing to a scholarship fund. I have two big projects I would love to complete this year: The selling of the last part of my business, and finishing and listing the flip for sale. That could substantially raise our net worth. It will happen, hopefully on my time line, but sometimes we just have to roll with the punches.
yes it was fun, they should get the visit from the scholarship kid from last year soon, to explain how life is at boarding school, that kid also won 2nd place in a national math contest and it looks like his sponsors will finance his college education as well. It is nice to see that become reality.
I love what you are doing with 10% of your income. Sometimes it is hard not to be a little jealous of your amazing success, but it is clearly the result of a lot of hard work and talent, and it is also going towards a great cause. Congrats on your continued success!
oh yes there is a ton of work behind!
Inspiring, Pauline! And I love the idea of donating toward an education fund for Guatemalan children. Most of us pay lip-service to education while you are actually putting your money where your mouth is. Well done!
Thank you CJ, I like to see directly how the donation is used, no “administrative fees” like many charities.
I can imagine what those two hardworking children and their parents will feel like when they get a full ride next year. What a generous gift, Pauline!
the two kids who are at boarding school this year are doing really great academically and that is really rewarding for their sponsors to see that they take the scholarship really seriously. I hope this year is a good one too.
Thanks for sharing, Pauline. Reading your goals and updates motivates me with my own. 2013 looking way better than 2012 for me, though still some way to go! I’ll be watching your Make Money Your Way with interest – best of luck!