Crescendo May 2020
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For the income report of May 2020 I had to step back and reflect. Without a doubt May 2020 was a dense month for the world and especially for the (not so) United States of America #GeorgeFloyd, #ICantBreath, #BlackLivesMatter. In all of this outrage and confusion I want to find the positive as we work our way through this. In several European countries protests have been held peacefully to denounce what has happened in Minneapolis. My sincere hope is that we come together and fix what is currently broken. Future will tell.
Due to the COVID pandemic I have not spend as much time on this blog and on social media in general. Keeping my family safe and taking care of things at home while working remotely has been my main focus. Now when you read that I am working a 9-5 job you may think that this whole passive income thing is not working. Well I can tell you that I do not yet earn anything close to quit my full-time job but I have made some significant changes in the past few weeks to help me re-adjust my destiny.
Re-balancing asset allocation
I have consolidated multiple 401k ( retirement savings ) accounts into fewer accounts to be able to better control my assets. In the US you get to collect one 401k account every time you change jobs. Then I also converted almost al of our retirement accounts ( IRAs, and Roth IRAs ) into self directed IRAs/Roth IRAs. This move also means that I do now have to take full ownership of navigating our financial destination.
Finally I converted my passive income generating portion in Fundrise to a re-investing growth oriented investment strategy. This account had $2000 invested in Fundrise and have received quarterly dividend payments of around $30-$39 which turns out to be about a 7%-8% return on investment ( ROI ).
I also signed up with WeBull to take advantage of their two free stocks and have a platform I can use to experiment in the stock market. I do not expect WeBull to ever replace my ETrade accounts but rather using them for small pocket gambling strategies. Nevertheless I could add some additional revenue for the income report for May 2020 because of using WeBull.
The last thing I have changed was to stop auto-contribution to Stash and directed $100 monthly to Fundrise. The return from Stash in the past few years has turned negative and I do not see any better performance than to simply invest into E.g. QQQ. The big difference though is that it is much harder to get to your money. In the next week or two I am planing in closing my account and move the excess money into my ETrade account.
Stock market-mania
Finally I have also moved out about 50% of my retirement accounts into money market accounts as the future is hard to see and even Warren Buffet has turned a net seller in these times. I would recommend that every one does his or her own research and act in accordance with what you truly believe is going to happen over the next 12 -18 months. If you feel that we will have a strong recovery you may want to follow the opposite allocation strategy. If you think, as I do, that we have yet the worst to come, then go ahead and change your investment accounts accordingly.
I have arrived at an age now where I will not be able to ride out another major correction and retire. So I stay on the conservative side. At this time we are in a steep deflationary period where prices drop due to reduced consumer demand. This is the main reason why we have not seen inflation spike up. The US is in the process of re-opening the economy and lawmakers are haggling over another stimulus jolt to keep the economy from burning down. If we get will inflation or not will depend largely on the next steps by the FED and lawmakers to address the systemic issues we face with the 40 million people who are now unemployed.
Unemployment benefits will run out in November and things could get ugly. On the flip side additional federal relieve could soften the impact and continued deflation could allow for another set of monetary help from the FED. Again, future will tell.
Do I think the Stock market is over valued ? Yes. Do I think there are some good stocks out there for the long term ? Yes. Do I think you should move 100% of your money into the marked now ? No. But that's just my 2cents.
Traffic report
Here is the traffic graph for my income report May 2020. I have to admit that I have not looked at it in a couple of weeks and I don't know what happened around the 15th that reduced the number of impressions that dramatically. I have not changed my schedule or run out of PINs to PIN. It may be an algorithm change by Pinterest. Let me know in the comments below if you experienced a similar drop in impressions around that time frame.
Analytics overview for May
Achievements
This May 2020 has been a very intense month and I have only published two posts that month. I am following 586 people while 298 are following my profile. As my focus has shifted, so has the relative increase in user acquisition. I am using Tailwind to help schedule my images and it has been a life saver for me.
Having a blog takes a lot of time and effort even if you are not 100% focused on growing your content or readership. It also has a therapeutic benefit, as it allows me to write about things which affect us at this time. Providing information on how to earn additional passive income is a fantastic topic which I love writing about. Going forward will commit more of my time in growing the content on this site.
“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.” - Erich Fromm
App side hustle
Using MoPub for my apps for the past 5.5 months has been slow and income was very limited as compared to my previous AdSense income. After almost 6 month of no response from the AdSense team with regard to the appeals request. And as expected the answer was no we don't give you back your account, and no we can't tell you why.
Aside from losing the revenue from AdSense I think what is really bugging me is that they do not let me or any one else know the reason. A shitty way to terminate any relationship, really. I wonder how this reasoning would hold up in any other contractual agreement.
Nevertheless, I received my first paycheck from MoPub, with a whopping $107.35 for the time between December 2019 and March 2020.
WeBull gift
I have signed up with WeBull transferd $100,- into the account and received my two free stocks. I have not yet sold them.
LEVI. That is LevisStrauss & Co. Was $12.43 when I received it. Currently $13.51
GNW. Thats Genworth Fincl. Was $2.85 when I received it. Currently $3.10
You can sign up following this link and also get two random free stocks. The first stock you will receive is simply for opening the account with WeBull and is worth anything between $2.50 and $250.00. The second free stock is yours if you transfer at least $100 into your account and can be worth anything between $12.00 and $1400.00.
As you see from my example I received stocks which were only pennies away from the lower value range. But hey never complain about a free gift. It allowed me to book additional money for the income report for May 2020. Plus if you follow my affiliate links I may get some more free stocks. So please help me grow your financial expertise as well as mine. That is a win-win worth for the taking.
Blog income report February 2020
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Overall I earned $169.57 in May. The majority came from the ad-revenue for my app side hustle. Since I stopped expanding there I have re-focused on investing and I am growing my investment portfolio overall. I will get into more details in a future article on my game-plan to not only achieve financial freedom but to also earn some dividends.
Investment wise month I received $29.92 for my investment of $2000 with Fundrise, which is payed out quarterly. $16.61 came from free stock from WeBull.
Through the sale of apps on the Play Store I received a full $5.39. and the already mentioned $107. 35 from MoPub. This money about reflects the amount of energy I currently expend on my app portfolio.
In summary
The month of May 2020 has truly been tough month here in the USA. The events which are currently rippling through our communities are bad and my hope for June would be to see the unrests to stop and COVID-19 restrictions to be eased. We certainly want to be on the careful side of the virus and adopt the best possible transition back to a semi-normal environment.
Unfortunately as for the virus we may have to remain in this 'suspended animation' until we will have a vaccine for it in early 2021. If there is a bright side in this it is that most of us have adapted to the new norm ... for now.