Goal Update: End of June 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 June, 2016
Current value: $24,085
Change from last month: +$924
Percent of Goal:  22.15%

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 a somewhat poor $102. Next month is looking to be about twice that, which is good. Overall though, I think Udemy's new pricing structure isn't having the effect they hoped. It seems my monthly income has dropped, which means Udemy's has dropped as well. They probably hoped the lower base pricing with fewer discounts would attract more customers. I think the problem is people feel they aren't getting a great deal anymore when the discounts aren't so high, even though they may be paying less. This is exactly the situation JCPenny found themselves in a couple years ago when they tried the same tactic - lower prices overall but fewer or no sales. It didn't work for them either.

Even though it makes no logical sense, people seem to prefer getting a 65% discount off a $100 price than a 15% discount off a $35 dollar price. The latter results in a lower overall cost, but all people seem to focus on is the discount percentage. I personally liked the old pricing model better because once in a while, I'd get someone who paid the full price for a course. Even if only one person a month did that, it was enough to provide a significant boost to that month's numbers. I wonder how long it will be before Udemy reverts back to their old pricing model.

My hard money loan continues to pay on time ($133.33 a month). Ho hum. Real estate investing is so boring (and I love being bored like this). I also received $17.47 in a class action settlement for something or another.

I received $100 in blog income from my real estate blog. Even though I am not actively writing for that site anymore, apparently it still gets a fair amount of hits from search engines. I have been contacted a couple of times by people asking if I allowed sponsored posts. After some thought, I decided sure. I'm not going to publish anything I disagree with and I will make sure the posts are clearly labeled as being a sponsored posts, but I figure I might as well leverage the site to create some additional income.

Net Worth Update

Our net worth continues to grow, increasing by $10,602 from last month to a new total of $648,807.

May 2016

June 2016

Note: Mint.com categorizes our HELOC as a credit card debt, not a loan, hence the apparently high credit card balance.

The big increase was due to gains in our stock market accounts. Despite the huge drop in the market after the Brexit vote, our accounts held up pretty well. And you wouldn't really know it from looking at these numbers, but my wife and I took a 4 day trip to Las Vegas this month. We ended up losing about $900 gambling and spent close to $200 on food and lodging. I've got a post going over all the details of that trip coming up in 2 weeks, so I won't go into it here.

If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please drop me a line!