Goal Update: End of March 2016

At the end of each month, I post an update of my goals, including a brief discussion of any notable events that might have occurred during the month. The latest month's figures can always be found under the Featured menu in the menu bar at the top of the blog.

Last updated: End of March, 2016
Current value: $22,063
Change from last month: +$950
Percent of Goal:  20.29%

Note that the funds in this account are invested in stock, so there will be fluctuations in value that are outside my control. I never withdraw money from this account, so any dips are purely due to stock price changes.

Events Of Note Last Month:

Income this month from my online courses was the highest ever - $597! It will be interesting to see what the next couple months bring because Udemy is changing their pricing. Previously, you could set your course price to be pretty much whatever you wanted. If you opted in to their promo program, Udemy would then promote your course with various coupon codes, which could be up to 90% off your list price. Beginning April 1, they are now limiting the price of a course to $50 and coupon codes, both from Udemy and instructors, will be limited to 50% off.

Two of my courses were priced over $50, but I've adjusted all of them to be a lower price now. I don't think there will be a huge impact on my revenue - most of my sales were at a big discount from the list price already. The 50% discount limit might actually result in a slight increase in my average sales price. In any event, it'll be June before I start getting payments for courses bought under the new pricing scheme.

After selling my stock last month to move into a hard money loan, I've started purchasing more again to build up another $20,000 for the next loan. I bought some more of my favorite stock, Realty Income (O) at $59 earlier in March. I still think that's somewhat pricey (and it's close to the 52-week high), but at that price, the dividend is still giving me a 4% return. That's the minimum return I'm looking for. The price continued to rise the remainder of the month and on the last day of March, it closed at $62.51 - a new 52-year high. Crazy high, if you ask me. However, as I mentioned in my post on dividend investing, no matter what the price does, I'm still going to be earning 4% on that money.

Two Milestones

There were two milestones reached this month. First, I hit 20% of my goal, so I unlocked a new achievement!

(Click For Explanation)

The second milestone was reached by Telsa. They unveiled the Model 3 at the end of the month. There were long lines at the local Tesla showroom of people waiting to place a deposit. This is amazing considering the car won't be shipping until 2017.

The line outside the Tesla store in Scottsdale Fashion Square

Last month, I posted my net worth figure. I've since been added to Rockstar Finance's Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worth Page, so I'll start reporting this figure monthly. At the end of March, our net worth hit another milestone:

That's an increase of roughly $21,000. This mostly came from stock appreciation in our various investment and retirement accounts. If there is any interest, I can start blogging more about where that number comes from - our income, expenses, assets, etc. (I use Mint.com to track the details.) Let me know by leaving a comment or dropping me a note using the contact page. As a reminder, if you have any questions or suggestions for topics, you can also contact me!