Monthly earnings and debt payments November 2010

November has been a great month in a lot of ways, but not financially. I finally found an apartment to live in, but this also means I am now paying rent (a lot). And I had to buy a lot of stuff, like paint for the walls, some cupboards, a vacuum cleaner, and some other things. This ate away at my budget. I didn’t work as much as I hoped either, there weren’t that many shifts available. I did start a third job now, so that should be bringing in some more money in December. I did achieve my goal of keeping my bank account in the positive though, and I did pay off half of my debt to Brother 2 (€125). Here is a financial overview of November.

November

Money earned: €947,03

Money spend: €813,87 (+125 debt payment)

Debts: 

Brother 2 €250

Dad €612

Mom €9657,50

College loans €a lot

Total €loads

Debt payment this month: €125

Paid off so far: €291

New Total debt: €still too much

Again, I did not achieve the internet income goals I set for myself. Not even close actually. Between the working and the  moving houses I just did not have that much time. With Amazon I earned $5,03 and with Adsense I earned €8,73 (which is 5 cents less than last month). Still not enough for a payout.

Goals for December

Internet goals

Hubs: 100 (now 76)

Infonus: 40 (now 22)

Squidoo lenses: 5 (now 1)

Hopefully this will increase my Adsense earnings to €15 this month, and bring my first payment a little closer. I hope it will increase my Amazon earnings a little as well, as December is supposed to be a great month with all the Christmas shoppers. And I hope I can get my Squidoo earnings up to $1, so that I will be able to get paid as well ($1 is the pay-out minimum and I am stuck at $0,57 at the moment).

Other goals

- Keep my bank account in the positive

- Pay off the second half of Brother 2's loan (so another €125)

So wish me luck! 

How to make moving places cheap

If you have to move out somewhere and move in to a new place, this can be quite an expensive affair. But there are some ways to make it cheaper. I recently moved into a new apartment and I was very worried it would cost me a fortune. But luckily I figured out some things to save money on, and in the end it didn’t cost me too much!

Decide what needs to be done and do it cheap

Does the new place need a new paint job? Are there things that need fixing? First of all, when you move in somewhere new, everything should be fixed and working. For my new place, the toilet was constantly flushing a little bit. So I called the landlord and he fixed it before I moved in, as this would cost me a fortune in water bills as well.

Then I did the minimum in painting and laying floors and other stuff. Most of the walls still looked good, and I decided I wouldn’t re-do them. I just painted one wall, and took out some shelves and put up some new ones myself. I shopped around to find a nice colour of paint that was also fairly cheap but still good quality. Same for the shelves. There are several big stores in my area where you can buy paint supplies and wooden shelves and things, and I visited several before making a purchase.

Ask your friends and family for help

Hiring people to fix up your house, and to move all of your belongings can be very expensive. It is much cheaper (free actually) to ask some of your friends and family to help out. One of my friends helped me with painting, another one helped me out with putting up shelves, and my brothers helped with moving all of my things. They may not be professionals, but that does not mean they won’t do a great job!

Buy cheap furniture

In my old place I live right under the roof, and I did not have any straight up walls. Which also meant I did not own any cupboards, but I kept my things on shelves I put up myself, and in piles on the floor (in a stylish good-looking way, not in a messy way). In my new apartment I have normal walls, so I needed new storage solutions, and had to buy a bookcase and a cupboard for my clothes. Instead of buying them new, I looked at second hand stores and on the internet for nice and cheap offers. Buying second hand does not have to mean things aren’t stylish or do not match each other. I bought two cupboards, a dining table and four chairs, and a fridge for €85.

Do you have more tips? Let me know in the comments section!

How to stay motivated to keep paying off your debts

When you have large debts, and it is taking you a while to pay them off, it is hard to stay motivated to keep on going. It can be hard to keep living on a small budget and putting all your extra money towards your debts. These are some of the small things I do to stay motivated.

Reward yourself every now and then

For example buy yourself a little present every time you pay off a debt. Or when you’ve paid of half your debt, or maybe every time you’ve paid off another 20%. I buy myself a little gift, like I go out for a nice dinner, I buy a new computer game, or I think I will treat myself to a little trip to Spain when I’ve paid of the debt to my family, and before I start on my university loans. This sort of coincides with me paying of 20% of my debt, and I’m a massive travel addict. Then I will be totally motivated to continue paying off the rest of my debt.

Keep track of the numbers.

I am a total numbers nerd. I love calculating the percentage of debt I’ve already paid off, and to calculate what percentage of my income I’m using to pay off my debts. Looking at these numbers makes me want to improve them, and totally motivate me to keep going. Sometimes these numbers can be a bit daunting too though (if the percentage of paid off debt is only moving slowly), so if this gets you down, do not look at these numbers too often.

Share your thoughts with someone

If someone knows about your debts, and your goals to pay them off, this can really help. They can keep you accountable, and tell you you are doing great when you are, or that you should pay a little more attention when you’re not doing very well. It is best to buddy up with someone who is also trying to pay of debts, so they know what you are going through, and you can support each other.

Do you have any other suggestions? Let me know in the comments section, I would love to hear more!

How to save more money every month

It is not so hard to save a little extra money every month. And think of what you could use it for. You could put it towards paying off your debts faster. Or just to increase your savings or your emergency fund savings. Or maybe you are saving up to buy something new, like a tv or a car or something else.

What are you spending your money on?

In order to find out what you could save money on, you have to see what you spend it on first. So make an overview of your monthly costs, create a budget. Write down everything, from your major expenses like rent, car payments and mortgages, to all the little things, like that fancy coffee from Starbucks, gifts, and snacks. Now take a very critical look at your list.

Now look at where you can save some money?

Look at every item on your list. Do you really need it? Is there something you could stop spending money on, or maybe spend a little less money on? Are there any surprises? Are there things you spend more money on than you may have thought previously? Looking at you spending habits all neatly written down can be a bit confronting. But it is also smart to do it every now and then. It is very easy to slip into bad habits, and to let your purse strings loosen up.

Cancel subscriptions and memberships you don’t need.

Do you pay a monthly gym membership fee, but never go? Cancel it, just go outside for a run, it’s free. Do you have a subscription to a magazine you never read? Cancel it, and when you do find the occasional time to read up, catch up on your old copies, or just buy it every other month. Do you use all the minutes and texts you have on your cell phone contract? If not, get a cheaper contract. If you go over your limit you have to pay a lot extra every month. Either try to cut back, or find a contract that is more suitable to your needs and cheaper.

Cut back on little treats

The little snacks or luxurious coffees you buy for yourself may not seem like a lot of money, but if you add them up per month, or per year, it is actually a substantial amount. Maybe you could do without them a little more often. Bring cheaper snacks from home, or cut back to buying them only once a week.

Stay in

Eating out and going to the cinema or the pub can cost you a lot of money. Next time try staying in. Rent a film or cook a fancy dinner for some friends. If you alternate with you cooking for them and them cooking for you, this can be a great new way of spending quality time together.

Find other things in your budget

Just take a good look at your spending habits. Even little changes can make a big difference. Like doing your grocery shopping at a cheaper supermarket every now and then. Or eating vegetarian once a week. Or buying your furniture from a second hand shop instead of new. Or maybe smoking a few less cigarettes every day.

Do you have any other tips? Tell me in the comments!

How to make money with Hubpages

Hubpages is a site for writers. You can write fiction or informative articles, whatever you like. If you set up an account you can publish articles for free, and they actually share part of their revenue with you. Some people who write on this site make a full time living with it. I am not quite there yet, but I am working on getting there! You can also use hubpages to promote your own site or blog by linking you articles (or hubs) back to them.

How does Hubpages work?
Hubpages is an article website. You can sign up and write articles and post them on their site. This is a free service, which means you don't have to pay hosting fees or anything like that. You can also sign up for several affiliates, and then Hubpages will split the revenue with you. What they do is give you 60% of the pageviews, which means 60% of the people visiting your article will see your ads and whenever they click on them the revenue goes to you. The other 40% sees the ads that belong to hubpages. You can write hubs about topics that interest you, poetry, short stories, product reviews, or whatever else you can come up with. There are a few rules though, so make sure you check out the Learning Center when you sign up.

How to make money with the different affiliate sites
You can make money on hubpages with Google Adsense, Amazon, Ebay, and Kontera. You sign up with each of these programs and fill out your account details on hubpages. Adsense and Kontera will automatically show up on your articles (unless you specifically choose them not to be there), and for Amazon and Ebay you have to make capsules in which you can choose which products to show.
For Adsense and Kontera it works best to write informative hubs. People who come to these articles are looking for solutions for a problem they have and are most likely to click on a link if it looks helpful. So write articles on how to grow a garden, how to fix your computer, or anything else you have some knowledge about.
Ebay and Amazon work best when you write specific product reviews. This brings in people who are already looking for information on this product, and they are most likely to click on a link to go to Amazon or Ebay to buy the product. So write reviews about things you are already using around the house, like kitchen appliances, your favorite books and movies, furniture, gardening tools, or something else.

Using Hubpages to promote your own sites or blogs
You can use hubpages to build up backlinks to your own site, and increase traffic. In every hub you are allowed to have two links to the same domain. So if you have a blog about gardening for example, you could write a hub about growing tomatoes, and put two links back to your blog in it. I would advise you to put one link on the top of the hub, where people can see it immediately, and one at the bottom, so people can click that if they finish reading your hub. You can create several different hubs with backlinks, and this will give your site ranking a boost.

Make money from referrals
You can refer your family and friends to hubpages. If they sign up, you get 10% of their pageviews as well. So this would mean your referral gets 60%, you get 10% and hubpages keeps the remaining 30%. So if you have lots of referrals, and if they are very active this is an easy way to earn some extra money.

If you have anymore questions, please let me know and I will try to answer them as best as I can. Or click through to Hubpages and have a look around there. There are tons of hubs on how to make money with hubpages, how to write hubs, and much more. The forums are quite helpful as well. So sign up now and start making money!

Monthly earnings and payments October 2010

October has been a good month financially. My goal was to get my bank account back into the black numbers, and I did that. I also managed to find some money to pay off my first debt to Brother 1. So it has started, the first payment has been made. So that sets the debt back €166, which doesn't seem like a lot just yet, but it is a start. My account is back into the black numbers, but only by €25 euros. It will be a challenge to keep it that way throughout November. Also because my next college fee payment is scheduled for the end of November and it is €380 euros, which is quite a lot. I have been working like a crazy person, picking up lots of double shifts. I won't be able to keep this up for long, as I will get a lot busier with uni assignments very soon. Plus I'm in the running for an apartment and paying rent will set me back a lot as well. Here is a financial overview of October.

October
Money earned: €961,18
Money spend: €324,11 (+166 debt payment)

Debts: 
Brother 1 €166
Brother 2 €250
Dad €612
Mom €9657,50
College loans €a lot
Total €loads

Debt payment: €166
New Total debt: €still too much

I did not achieve my goals for internet income for October, because I have been very busy with my first exam that will be later this week. But I did manage to earn $4,60 on Amazon and €8,78 from Adsense. That is not enough for a payout from either, but the monthly earnings are moving up.

Goals for November

Internet goals
Hubs: 100 (now 74)
Infonus: 40 (now 21)
Squidoo lenses: 5 (now 1)

Hopefully this will increase my Adsense earnings to €15 this month, and bring my first payment a little closer.

Other goals
- Keep my bank account in the positive
- Pay off at least half of Brother 2's loan (so at least €125 of €250)

So wish me luck!

How to avoid money stress and worrying about debts

If you have trouble with money issues it can cause some serious stress. For example if you don't have enough money to pay for your monthly expenses, or if you are in debt. I for one know that my debt is troubling me, and I am working very hard at the moment to make ends meet every month. So how do you deal with this kind of money stress?


I find it very helpful to make a very clear list of my debts, and of incoming and outgoing money. So go sit down and have a good look at your finances. You might think this is scary, as it can be very confronting. But it actually eases the stress to know where you stand, and if you make a plan for the future.

Make an overview of your debts
Look up all your different debts and loans, and write the amounts down. Also write down monthly payments for each debt, and the interest rates. Now see if you can make the monthly payments each month. And if you could maybe send some extra money to pay off some of the debts. And if you have any extra money, decide which debt you want to pay off first. Most people try to pay off the loan with the highest interest rate first. But you could also start with the smallest debt, so you slowly decrease the number of debts you have. I want to start with the smallest debt I have first. Because it is the most manageable to pay off soon, and because it is a debt to my brother, so there is a personal factor to it as well.

Make a list of your monthly expenses and the money that comes in
This is a great way to see how much you actually spend on a monthly basis and whether you are spending more than you are earning or not. I like to write all this down, so I can see where my money goes, and where I could possibly save some pennies. This way you keep an accurate overview of how much money you could save every month, or how much you overspend.

Now take action
Now that you have a clear overview of your monthly budget and expenses, and of all your debts, use this to ease the stress. You now have a clear overview, and know exactly what you have to pay every month. For me this helps me set goals, and keeps me focused. And because I know exactly where my finances stand I worry less. Sure, I'm still very concerned about my high level of debts, but now that I have structured it, I know what to expect every month, and how to deal with it. So set your own personal goals. Like where to start paying off, whether you will only pay the monthly fees, or if you will throw all the money you have at your debts. Or where you could save some money in your monthly expenses.