I can’t quite comprehend what happened in October. I’ve been blogging for just 8 months. I’m doing lots of it wrong. I’m still breaking a bunch of the “rules”, because I honestly don’t know any better. And yet, I’m making money.
There are millions of people making their living online, from home. Some of the work-from-home-online jobs are pretty obvious (- if you’ve ever been on pinterest, you’ve probably seen the “how to start a blog” tutorials.) Maybe you’ve even considered blogging or joining in the work online world some other way, but just haven’t quite found your “thing”? OR maybe you prefer to be behind the scenes? Then become a virtual assistant.
Be it a “side hustle” to pay down debt or an effort to ditch the 9-5, we dream about living the dream. Be our own boss, control our own schedule, determine our own salary. I get it – because that was me just a few months ago… (and now here I am, making my dream a reality). Blogging was an easy choice for me – because I’ve always loved to write.
SO. It’s been a month since I received my first real “paycheck” (as in, deposited money into my bank account) that was earned through my blog. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to transfer the money into the checking account, because I am so certain it can’t possibly be real. (Also since I’m still at my day job for another month and a half we aren’t desperate for the money yet.
I’ve mentioned before that we are debt free. We decided early in our marriage that we would STAY debt free (not including a mortgage. Some day we will have a mortgage, if the timing is right.) The decisions we made that helped us be debt free from the beginning were hard decisions. We lived with my parents for two years, we saved the money it required to build our home. Then we actually BUILT our home.
Part of me can’t believe I’m doing this. Not because I have any qualms about sharing my blog income – I’ve worked so. freaking. hard. for. it. (And prayed hard for it!). I want to tell the WHOLE WORLD that I have a blog income. ( I might feel differently if this were my main source of income.) No, I can’t believe I’m doing this because I can’t believe that I have a blog income to report.
How often do we spend money on frivolous things without even considering that they are frivolous? Writing 10 Things I Quit Buying (to Save Money) really made me think hard about that. It didn’t take me long to come up with ten things I STILL spend money on that are “wants” and not “needs”.
I never, ever, thought of Hawaii as a budget destination. Especially with the current weak Canadian dollar. But we chose Hawaii last year as our budget vacation spot, and for the same reason we chose it again this year! Hawaii did NOT disappoint. We spent under $3000 Canadian dollars total each time we went, for 10 days. That’s less $1500 per person!
In April last year, G and I spent 8 days in Hawaii for $2995.31 – all in. Oh did I mention that’s 2995.31 CANADIAN dollars – So more like $2000.00 (at the time) American? I love love love making travel happen cheap. For me, a big part of living with intention is taking the time to enjoy life, but also being aware that I can’t blow all our savings on one trip. This is where the budget holiday comes in!
Travel Hacking is becoming such a popular phrase. Especially in the budget travel world. I get it – I mean, who doesn’t want to travel for FREE? And possibly travel in style for free?
On the off chance that it’s a new to you phrase, Travel Hacking is the (refined) art of using credit card rewards and membership point programs to travel for FREE. It is legal. It works. It can be complicated.