September 2016 Progress Report

Well, summer’s officially over (if it ever started here in the UK!).

The night’s are drawing in, Halloween is on its way and I just picked up a Christmas food catalog this morning.

Before we all know it we’ll be putting lights on the tree, and wondering if Uncle Jim has managed to learn any new jokes this year.

But before we put away the shorts for another year, it’s time to round-up all the latest happenings at Frugality Magazine HQ during September.

In last month’s round-up I mentioned that I was expecting September to be an expensive month.

Thanks to some less-than-ideal scheduling all the following fell within a few weeks of each other:

• A weekend away to see a show, including the cost of tickets, hotels, restaurants and more.
• My better-half’s birthday
• A week with family down involving lots of driving, eating out etc.
• My car tax

And expensive it was.

However not quite as bad as I expected. As it turns out, despite all these extra expenses I still managed to put some money away and move towards the goals I set in January.

But how exactly did we do…?

Goals Update

One of the key purposes of these monthly updates is to report back to you on how my own personal finance goals are going.

Reporting in this way, on a regular basis, helps to keep the pressure on me! In that way I’m more accountable, and you get to see my progress towards the targets set.

Project 10K

The single most important goal this year has been nicknamed “project 10k” – it’s as simple as saving an additional £10,000 this year on top of my normal savings.

Now, for me, saving the equivalent of an extra £833 a month is far from easy. If you’ve been following along then you’ll know we made an impressive start, had a painful Spring, and then starting to pick up steam in the last few months. Now we’re on the final home stretch and there’s everything to play for!

Last month I reported that I was running slightly behind my goal.

In August we hit £5,900 with a pro-rata target of £6,667, putting me some weeks behind target. However I also said that I had a number of ideas to help pick up the pace.

Right now, at the end of September, we should be up to £7,500. So have we managed to close the gap at all?

I’m pleased to report that things are speeding up nicely now, with each of my new plans coming to fruition.

At the end of September our total now sits at £7000 (once a check I’m waiting on clears).

In other words we’ve closed the gap yet further, and we’re just £500 behind where we need to be. With 3 months left of the year I’ll need to be hitting £1,000 a month in savings which is going to be painful – but not necessarily impossible!

So how have we managed to pick up the pace?

Matched Betting – My new income-generating idea has been going very well so far. As of the time of writing I’ve managed to turn £200 into just under £500 in about 7 weeks.

With plenty of time before Christmas I expect to increase this even further in the coming weeks. If matched betting is new to you then you can read my introduction here. Regular readers can expect a detailed update on my betting results in the next few weeks.

Affiliate Payments – I have started to request any outstanding sums of affiliate income scattered around. During September I’ve had about £250 of extra funds paid to me, and I reckon I have a similar amount outstanding which I should be able to claim before Christmas.

Pay Rise – Yep, my annual review came around and sure enough I was fortunate enough to land a small (but gratefully-received) pay rise. This also is going to have an impact going forward.

Stay tuned next month to see how much closer we get to our final goal!

New Blog #1

One of my other key goals this year was to “redo” an old and unloved blog of mine. I started it years ago, but it fell by the wayside and slowly started to lose traction.

Looking back, many of the articles weren’t up to my current standards, but the site was in a niche I love, and it had some decent backlinks. I therefore thought it had potential to grow.

This year, therefore, I have been carefully re-working it. Old content has been updated and expanded, new articles have been written, it’s had a face-lift and a few new links and seems to be responding positively.

Last month I reported further healthy growth for the third month running, and I’m pleased to report that September, too, was a good month. Overall we saw traffic increase by 36%.

Right now, there’ no monetization, but I’m not worried about this. As long as the blog keeps growing I can always add some advertising in the future. I’l be devoting a fair amount of time in October to producing more content for the site, in order to keep it growing.

New Blog #2

The one key weakness of re-working my old blog is that it is in quite a small niche. What this means is that I’m quite limited on the eventual traffic (and profit) it might achieve.

In the summer, therefore, I decided to launch a second blog, this time of scratch. This is in a niche that I also love – but one where there’s loads of potential for traffic and profits.

I haven’t done much during September on this site. In essence there are plenty of articles written, which are being automatically published over time.

Traffic is still tiny, but I am seeing some gentle growth now. In October I’m hoping to push through another load of content, which will keep the blog fresh and new right through till the New Year.

Goals Summary

Once again I’m pretty happy with my progress. While spending went up in September, this was expected. Thanks to a number of other plans I managed to offset much of that spending, allowing me to make ever more progress.

Right now, while I’m starting to get a little tired of the battle this year, I’m quite pleased with the progress so far.

Top Posts

There are some truly awesome blogs out there, helping you to reach your financial goals and live the lifestyle you want. I gladly share loads of articles on social media throughout the month, but it’s always interesting to see which articles got the best responses.

Below, then, are the articles I shared in September which got the most clicks, likes and shares on them. I strongly encourage you to check them out if you’re serious about your financial future…

• The Link Between Frugality and Long-Term Financial Success
• 9 Things You’re Wasting Money On (and What To Do Instead)
• Using Last Month’s Income for This Month’s Expenses
• Five Things I Wish People Understood About Frugality
• The Six Biggest Lessons I’ve Learned About Money
• Our Financial Makeover: From £41K in Debt to £50K in Wealth
• A Money-Saving Manifesto for Life
• What To Do When You Feel Like Giving Up on Your Financial Journey
• In Debt? Don’t Stick Your Head In The Sand. You Can Fix This
• Who Owns Your Paycheck?

That’s pretty much it for now. Hopefully after the mayhem (and expenses) of September we’re now entering a rather calmer time of the year where I can make even more progress towards my goals.