March 2016 Income/Expenses
It was payday yesterday which means time for this month’s Income/Expenses!
I think it’s important to keep track of your income/expenses every month as it allows you to spot trends and areas for improvement. I find it really useful to track the spending changes each month, and really motivating to see the networth improvements. Sometimes it can seem like financial independence is so far away, but by watching your networth steadily increasing you’ll know you will reach that point eventually. I’ve created a new page to keep track of total networth, you can find it here.
March absolutely flew past for me. I’ve been so busy with work, wedding planning, kindle and betting that I’ve fallen so behind with my usual blog updating and reading. Almost every day I’ve been coming home from the day job and then working on the side income streams all evening. Weekends are similar with a 10am – 8pm side income work schedule. Because of this I’ve really neglected this site, however the hard work is starting to pay off as you’ll see below…
My two main side incomes at the moment are Matched-Betting and Kindle Publishing (under the helpful guidance of Huw). So, how did they do in March?
I had an amazing month for Matched Betting! I scaled up just in time to hit the Cheltenham festival which netted me £400 in just 3 days. This good fortune continued through the month with some very fortunate football results. My Matched Betting income for March was £2206! Unbelievable! For the first time ever my side income actually brought in more than the day job! Remember this is 100% tax-free (in the UK, thank you Gordon Brown) earnings as well so everything earned is pure profit. If you’re interested in starting Matched Betting I strongly recommend you signup for a site like the one I use. It gives you all of the daily recurring offers and how best to exploit them for profit.
Click here to join the site I’m a member of: Profit Maximiser*
Kindle Publishing has had a real rocky ride. At the moment Amazon are in the process of doing a complete upheaval of many of their policies which are resulting in alot of books and accounts being suspended. I’ve been hit a bit by this as some of my previous book formats are now no longer allowed which means I’ve had to go back and re-edit them, plus I’ll see a significant drop in income from them as a result. Regardless; income paid for this month (earned in January) was still way above my expectations. I made £782 from Kindle Publishing.
Google Analytics tells me we’ve had 4,080 pageviews from 1,283 users. I’ve also joined the cool kids and started a Twitter account to post updates and a few random thoughts. Please feel free to ‘add me’ or whatever the Twitter equivalent is. I’m @EarlyRetireGuy
On to the report:
Income
Salary: £1,894.83
Pension Contributions: £506
Share Save: £250
Matched Betting: £2206
Kindle Publishing: £782
Total: £5,638.83 (+47.4%)
Expenses
Mortgage/Bills: £918
Groceries: £190.88
Petrol (Gas): £0
Maintainance/DIY: £25
Eating out: £100.22
Healthcare: £0
Entertainment: £58.20
Wedding: £510.19
Business: £83.79
Other: £29.85
Total: £1,916.13 (+14.2%)
A savings difference of £3,722.70 which is 66%.
Networth
House Equity: £35,400
Cash in bank: £6,664.22
Cash in betting accounts: £4,572.36
ISA Investments: £7,338.50
Sharesave: £1000
Pension 1: £16,377.74
Pension 2: £6,651
Total Networth: £78,003.82 (+8.6%)
A huge increase in income from betting and kindle, plus decent recoveries in shares/pensions have led to the biggest single networth increase I’ve ever experienced. Up over £6000 in just a single month.
Totalling these up has made me realise that there could well be the very real option of quitting the 9-5 this year. It remains to be seen if kindle income does come crashing down as a result of the recent Amazon changes and if matched betting income can be maintained at this high level.
*Affiliate link. The cost of joining is no different than if you went directly yourself and I only promote it because it’s been such an awesome site for me to use.
12 thoughts on “March 2016 Income/Expenses”
Congratulations on such an excellent month income – especially from the matched betting! Keep that going for a few months and you will be laughing – as you say you could leave work sooner than you thought! Although is it as “safe” as income from say the Vanguard ETFs?
I still need to learn how you manage to spend less than 200 a month on groceries…!
Thanks Rob. As far as how ‘safe’ it is.. I’d not bet the mortgage on it! The offers are changing all the time and bookmakers will ban you with no warning. Saying that however, Matched Betting has been going for well over a decade now so I think there will always be some form of potential. The risk is naturally spread out as you use offers from many different sites.
What is the kindle publishing income from? Have you written a book?
The matched betting income is amazing! As a higher rate tax payer you would have to earn about 4,000 pounds before tax to net that!
No, I’m just publishing books that other have written for me. And yeah; the betting income has been pretty amazing!
Congrats on yet another successful month. The Kindle publishing business seems to be doing great, maybe I need to look into that as a side hustle too. Got any tips? :)
Thanks Tawcan. No real tips I’m afraid, I exploited a pretty big loophole that Amazon have no closed so my Kindle income is going to drop like a rock in May. Huw is doing a course soon which will be good if youre interested in started Kindle.
Wow. How are you clearing over £2k through the betting? Congratulation!
I’m hitting alot of offers every month. Already in the 1st week of April I’ve done about 70 bets for a total of £580 profit.
Fantastic on the betting Guy. I had a good week in Cheltenham and was then “gubbed” by Paddy Power, Wm Hill and Ladbrokes. Deep sigh. I was doing pretty well and I think I just won too much in free bets compared to what I “gambled”. As you say – and good to seeing you say it – both Matched Betting and the Kindle publishing can be time consuming. I just couldn’t get into the latter and gave up on it. Huw’s coaching was great though, for anyone thinking about it. I do enjoy the betting and it does really feel like free money for not too much effort. I’d also echo your thoughts on Profit Maximiser, which you put me onto. For information, I started in mid-December and have earned just over £2,000 to the end of March, less £100 for membership of PM. If I put more time into it (or opened other accounts) it might have been double this..
Thanks Jim! Sorry to hear about the gubbings, just part of the game I’m afraid. I’ve also lost PP and Ladbrokes long ago.. and WH joined them this weekend. Fortunately my dear mother has decided to start gambling and coincidentally started opening accounts with them ;) It is alot of effort, but I still enjoy it.
Sorry to hear Kindle didn’t go as planned for you. I’m expecting to see a sharp drop of Kindle profits from May onwards so may reconsider my position then. I recall reading an article about the myth of diversification and how it’s better instead to find something you’re good at and then milk it as much as possible. I think I’m pretty good at matched betting so am considering investing in a tonne of cheap laptops & 3G dongles and really cranking the thing into overdrive. I thought the £2k+ last month may have been a fluke but its been 1 week in to April and I’ve already passed £600. If only we had found this years ago!
I know what you mean. My mum is also considering a Matched Betting career! Your Betfair account must be well stashed, enough for you to clean up on the Grand National Bet365 offer today. Get on it!