Side Hustles

I have been thinking about side hustles lately. I can just imagine as things change in our world, that the side hustle is going to be a help for many simply to survive. Making masks this spring was a side hustle for many people, however, I expect this will slow down over time. 

Reselling our household goods and clothing has been my primary side hustle since late 2001! Prior to that I did a few garage sales and the big seasonal consignment sales of children's clothing. I have no idea how much I sold. I tracked some of it at different times, but since I was reselling items for less than purchased I never tracked for tax purposes. I'm sure it has to be a few thousand dollars, as one year I made a goal to sell enough on eBay to cover our Christmas gifts which which we generally budget $600. I also had a goal for a few years to sell make an average of $100 on eBay sales. I never made it to the goal, but I did get close to $1000 one year. 

I sell on eBay much more sporadically and make an occasional FB Marketplace sale a few times a year. My guess is less than $150 per year at this point. I admit my efforts have lagged. The items we have to resell are also less, as the girls have grown. I would sell gently used clothes they outgrew, as well as toys, which are in high demand for young families. 

I plan to create a few more side hustles in the next few years as we transition out of the military. All sorts of things come to mind honestly, and it will probably take some trial and error to figure out which ones add value to our family and are worth the effort. As I write that I realize that is a bit of a luxury...to get to decide what side hustles to do, but at the same time, if it isn't lucrative and one needs the cash, that side hustle gets dropped in search of something else. 

I do admire people who have a knack for finding a side hustle that is lucrative. I see many on YouTube that seems to have built something that their family can live off of, yet, I know they work hard making it all come together too. 

Do you or someone you know have a side hustle for extra income? What is that side hustle? How much income does it bring in? How did you figure out it was right for you? 

Vet Expenses

Our cat, Liberty, was diagnosed with reduced kidney function this week. She has been vomiting more, drinking water more and eating less. And at the age of 15 it was definitely something to check out. Her numbers are not severe yet, but higher than normal. She is now on prescription food and a supplement which appears to be probiotics. Our cost at the vet was $302.

We paid with our American Express card and received a $5 credit through their Shop Small promotion. As we always do, the card will be paid in full on payday.

We do not specifically set money aside to cover vet expenses, as they are usually manageable just through cash flow. In this case, I did pull a little bit from our emergency fund in the budget to allocate towards the payment. That's what it's there for, to cover expenses that we could not foresee.

I know some have pets with chronic conditions and must plan for larger vet expenses by setting aside funds specifically to cover the expected cost. This is definitely a good idea! We will shift our budget slightly now to accommodate for the higher cost of prescription food, and more frequent vet visits.

We go back in one month to have her condition evaluated and we hope to see good results.

Do you have a pet? Do you set aside money in your budget monthly for vet expenses?

Cash Plan for Fall Tuition

Our youngest daughter is in college and will be going back to live in the dorm this fall. Classes start a week earlier than last year and the semester ends the day before Thanksgiving. The exciting part financially is that the Board of Regents did freeze the cost of tuition and housing for the upcoming school year. It is still higher than we paid last year because our daughter bumped into the higher tuition differential for engineering majors, but it would have been even higher if they didn't make that freeze. We are grateful for that and for her continued scholarship that is $2,250 a semester.

It takes diligence and effort to pay tuition in cash.

After the scholarship we will owe $9701.50 for the fall tuition, room and board.

Here's where we found the cash:

Saved $500/mo x 7 months $3,500
Spring housing refund $2,291
Tax Refund 2019 $1,308
ESA Funds $2,602.50

We bought a couple used textbooks this summer that I purchased out of current income. She has a few others that are immediate access books, technically ebooks, and ones that are loaded into her account and she is automatically billed for them because she is enrolled in the class. Those books will add another $200. I expect this will be bill by the University in September, which I will pay from current income also.

After this semester, assuming her plans do not change and she stays on track, we will have just three more semesters to pay! We think we will use her portion of the Post 911 GI Bill for the upcoming spring and fall of 2021. It feels like light at the end of the tunnel since we starting paying college expenses for our oldest daughter in the fall of 2015.

Are you saving for college, paying for college, or changing plans for college? Tell me about it in the comments!

Simplifying Finances

On many levels our finances are not complicated, but I started thinking about how to convey our accounts to my husband and it sure sounded complicated! I'm not ready to make big swift changes, but I think we have some room for improvement.

The first change has already occurred. I transfered over $7,000 we had in second checking account with our bank, USAA, to our money market savings account. There was really no reason to have that amount of money sitting in a checking account earning nearly no interest when we could have it combined with other funds at a second bank and earning closer to 1% interest. I'm scared to check rates right now since they are dropping! But I do know it will always be better than what that checking account earned.

This account at the second bank is primarily our emergency fund. It is money we want access to at any time, but don't regularly need or dip into. So while two banks (we actually have three) doesn't seem simple, the way we use them is. And since I mentioned it, the third bank is where we have more cash parked in a few CD's (certificates of deposit) earning even more interest. So each bank has its purpose and reason for being!

A few other things we are considering for finance simplification, is closing some credit cards, paying off our daughter's car loan and moving two accounts with one mutual fund company into the other one where we have most of our investments.  Quite a few years ago now, credit card companies were offering rather large cash incentives to open cards. We did our fair share of taking advantage of those and the number of cards we have is more than needed. It will take a little time to make all the decisions, but I sure like the idea of simplifying things.

What could you do to simplify your finances? Cut some expenses and or subscription services? Combine investments or cash savings? How about debt? Not making debt payments is so freeing!

Everything Is Up for Review

Everything is up for review these days, financially and health wise. 

In fact, if you found me from Saving Advice, you may have noticed I'm not posting over there. Even where I spend my time on the internet is up for review. I recently removed the Facebook app from my phone, to avoid spending as much time there each day. I need less stress, and seeing others lives and hearing their opinions on any topic was adding to my stress. I'm not sure how long I will stay away or if I will ever return. Time will tell. 

Today, I decided to change our internet plan with AT&T. We didn't need increased speed of service, but I noticed that they charged $10 less per month than our current plan if we signed up for a faster plan. Ten dollars savings per month is $120 a year. I think it may only last 12 months, but I'm okay with that and can downgrade to a lower plan next year when it comes around.

While I was on the website making the changes, I noticed we have access now to HBO Max included with our service. This would normally be $14.99 per month. We honestly don't need more media to watch. We just got Disney+ for free for a year for change our Verizon Wireless Plan. We already have Netflix which we pay $12.99/mo and Amazon Prime Video! The options are now endless. 

We are still working with our oldest daughter, who just graduated college in the fall, about her car loan. We want to pay it off in full and have her pay us back with interest. I'm working on a proposal. I know she is aware of interest, but I'm not sure is understands how it is calculated so I want to educate her at the same time I make a proposal. I think a Google Doc with a basic amortization schedule would be helpful, maybe one I could edit as she makes her payments. 

Everything is up for review! Are you making any financial changes? 

American Express Small Business Offer 2020

Hello! 

Just a heads up to any American Express cardholders, American Express is offering $5 Cash Back on some of their cards if you spend more than $10 at a designated small business. You can earn up to $50 Cash Back in this Shop Small promotion happening through September 20, 2020. If you have an American Express card, you will likely find the promotion advertised when you log in. The offer does require activation before you are eligible. Go sign up now!

We recently took advantage of this when we had a small business do a repair on one of our vehicles. We spent far more than $10, but it was nice to get a little bit back and help a small business at this time when potentially others are struggling to keep their doors open.

We redeem all of our credit card rewards for cash when possible. This works well for us as we never pay interest on our credit cards, using it much more like a debit card than a credit card. We are paid twice per month and on payday log in to our accounts and pay the balances in full. We do not recommend using credit cards for rewards if you cannot pay off your balance in full each month. The reason is that most rewards are only1% of the purchase, if you are also paying interest for any interest rate above 1% you are not coming out ahead by using the card this way. These rewards are only beneficial if you pay the balance in full by the due date each and every month.

As usual, I will post our credit card earnings for July at the beginning of August. 

If you are new to following our journey, I will attempt to bring you up to speed in future posts, but for now I will say that we are currently on a big savings journey that we used to call our Big Goal. We now refer to it our Pot of Possibilities. Some day as my husband nears military retirement we will start using our pot of cash to start a new adventure!!