making money Archives - Page 3 of 4 - the frugal millionaire

Here’s Why We Upsized Our House

We recently purchased a house – a big, beautiful home in an awesome neighborhood with an incredible lot. We by no means maxed out our budget, but this was at the very high end of what we wanted to spend. We’ve been here roughly two weeks now, and I can honestly say that this was a great decision for our family.

When we first moved to Charlotte, our goal was to downsize and simplify our lives. All the talk nowadays seems to be on downsizing and living simply. Trust me, I can get on board with that and understand why people want less bills, less stuff and less to take care of. In just our two weekends here, we’ve been swamped with errands and chores. But honestly? I like that! I still relax, but I kind of enjoy the fast-paced lifestyle of working FT, freelancing on the side, being a mom and wife, taking care of the house and more. I’m never bored, and that is a huge blessing!

Hobbies: Are they costing you money or making you money?

Hobbies – we all have them. In fact, we all probably have multiple hobbies. A hobby is defined as an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time. A few of my hobbies include baking, going on walks, reading blogs, relaxing on my deck, going on coffee dates with my husband, exploring Charlotte and watching movies in the evenings. Hobbies are constantly changing, too. Before I had kids, my hobbies were more focused on working out and going out, haha. My main focus wasn’t on relaxing. Now that I have kids, the word “relaxation” takes on a whole new meaning. You guys with me on that?!

How I made my first $100 blogging

After five months of blogging, I finally made my first $100! I’ve shared before how I didn’t start this blog strictly as a hobby, I started it because I eventually do want to generate an income from it. Some blogs make money right away, some blogs take years to start generating an income – mine seemed to take an average amount of time. My goal was to start making money within six months of starting my blog.

I started blogging at the very end of September 2014 and made my first $100 at the end of February 2015. That’s five full months of consistent posting, sharing, commenting, switching themes and the like for $100. If you’re looking to “get rich quick” from your blog, you’re in the wrong place. In order to make money blogging, you have to really love writing or else the fun factor is going to fizzle out and your blog most likely will, too.

So how did I make my first $100 blogging? It could not have been easier…

How to Save a Lot of Money

Do you want to know how to save a lot of money? Here are some tips that will ramp up your savings and allow you to save a lot of money!

How to feel rich regardless of income

Happy Wednesday! Before I dive into today’s topic, I don’t know if anyone noticed but I got a new theme installed on my blog! It’s from Pixel Me Designs and I could not be happier with it. Laura, the designer, is wonderful to work with. I purchased a pre-made theme but emailed her a question and she responded immediately. I am all about good customer service and Laura surpassed my expectations! For those of you new to my blog, I have a self-hosted WordPress site and am using Genesis Framework. Laura provided me with the Child Theme that goes along with Genesis Framework. You can read more on how to start a blog here.

The original theme I was using didn’t properly load “page 2” and on, making it difficult to navigate my site. I deleted that theme a few weeks ago and was just running off of Genesis Framework. I took my time purchasing my current theme because I wanted to find one that I LOVED and that was functional. Having an appealing, easy-to-navigate, fully functioning site is vital if you wish to make money from your blog.

Anyways, on to today’s topic…

Keeping your relationship a priority when working from home

Anyone that works from home knows that it can be hard to separate your work life from your home life. That means emails may be checked while playing with your kids, blog ideas may be brainstormed when cooking dinner and you may be spending your evenings glued to your computer instead of with your loved ones. I know all about this first hand, as I’ve been working from home (with kids, no less) for nearly three years now. Along the way, it’s been a top priority of mine to not lose sight of the important things in life – especially my marriage. With close to half of all marriages ending in divorce, I want to make sure mine isn’t one of them. While I truly enjoy working and love what I do, it shouldn’t be my entire life.

Today I’m sharing tips on how I manage to keep my relationship a priority while working from home with little kids over on Tie the Money Knot. If you’ve been struggling with balance in your life, this isn’t a post you’ll want to miss! Head on over and check it out!

Grow your income as a freelance writer

I’m in the process of reading How to blog for profit (without selling your soul) by Ruth Soukup *this is an affiliate link* and plan on doing a review of her book soon. In addition to blogging, I’m a freelance writer and editor. I’ve been doing this for nearly three years now and feel like I have some pretty good tips for those starting out or for those who are looking to take their blog / freelance writing career up to the next level. It’s all about hustling and striving daily to hit your goals. Success doesn’t happen overnight for anyone, but especially for those of us in the freelance career.

To see my entire post on growing your income as a freelancer, head over to Debt Discipline here!

photo credit: 401kcalculator.org from flickr

Stock progress

I recently did a post on what stocks we bought. Quick recap – we purchased Verifone Systems, Deck Outdoor, Walmart, Realty Income and Starbucks. John and I set goals as to when we would sell and watched the market closely.

Two days ago, we sold Walmart and Deck Outdoor. Continue reading for our profits…

The secret to getting rich

While we all know there are many ways to get rich (including inheriting the money, winning the lottery, earning a high income and saving saving saving, living way below your means, etc.), there really is only ONE, SUREFIRE way to actually accumulate wealth. This is something everyone can do, everyone can learn and everyone can benefit from. While you may lose money in the process, you can’t get rich by playing it safe.

I’m a believer in being either all-in or all-out. I don’t really do things “half way.” This includes everything from working to being a mom to saving money to making decisions (I’ve said before I make decisions very fast). I’m on a quest to become a millionaire and while I know I could play it safe by working hard and saving my money, the reality is if I go that route, I won’t be a millionaire until I’m retired (at no earlier than age 65, of course). I would much rather be a millionaire while I’m young. I want to take risks, see my money grow, make my money start working for me, be able to enjoy traveling with my girls while I’m still young, be able to donate, etc.

So how am I planning on doing this?!

How to start investing

Investing is something that both John and I are rather new to. Other than our company 401K plans, we’ve never invested any of our money. We’ve always saved and set goals, but when it comes to taking risks with our money? Nope. Not gonna happen. Recently, our mentality has completely changed. We want to take risks, we want to learn about stocks, mutual funds, REITs and dividends, we want to generate passive income streams, we want to see our money grow, we want our money to start making us money. We want to start investing. In other words, we want to be rich 🙂