My Family’s Money

The process of moving, trying to make money online, starting school, and getting settled into my new home has not been good for My Family’s Money.  A quick look at the archives shows that I have not posted since May 23, 2009.  Whoa.

It is my plan to change all that.

While I don’t think I’ll be able to pick back up to posting several times a week, I do plan on pumping out a couple of posts a month – which should help keep me honest with our finances and process some of the different decisions that my family is going to be making.

But before we get all into the here and now, I have about 10 months of history to update.

What’s Been Happening

Our savings are pretty much gone.  We have lived for around 10 months, bought a van, and paid for 2 semester of graduate school with the money that we had saved up.  All this spending with small earnings has meant that our savings are now mostly gone .  We still have somewhere around $5000 hidden in the electronic coffers of financial institutions deemed to big to fail, but that seems really low to us now.  Going from over $30,000 in savings to this number  has given us an appreciation for the cushion and freedom that having that type of cash available provides.

We still have about 2 months of living expenses left, which we understand is a huge blessing to have - but we are certainly used to have much more in reserve.

We have substantially increased our online income, but not enough to live off of.   The plan in making the move to Louisville was not to get another ‘real’ job right away but to put time into getting adjusted to our new life and to focus on earning money online.  While I have not yet been able to earn the ~$1800 each month we need to live, I have broken $1000 a month a few times.

The plan for now is to take all the money that we are earning from our online endeavors and pump it back into our business until we have a revenue equal to or greater than our personal expenses.   It may take us a few more months to get there, but that is the plan.  In the mean time, I have tried to find other ways to make some money.

I am once again gainfully employed.  I got a job with a major telecommunications provider working in a call center.  I’ll be making enough to cover expenses (or at least that is what I project) so we will be able to save lots of money once we stop pumping our online income back into the business.

I’ll be working a 2nd shift so I can still get classes in during the morning – but it does look like I might be slowed down at least for a semester or two until I can get back into a groove balancing school work, family responsibilities, and the job.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I don’t really know what the next several months are going to hold for me and my family, but it certainly does feel like an exciting time for us.  It feels kind of strange going from a season in life where we had very little income and were draining our reserves to being at a place where we will be making at least 50% more than we need to live.

The question that we are going to be asking ourselves over the next few weeks is this: how are we going to be using our newfound wealth to make the world a better place?