Welcome to the first net worth update of 2019.

 

As I mentioned previously, I will be changing the layout of the net worth update since the past layouts were just all over the place. I want the net worth updates to stay as simple as possible and reflect real numbers and situations.

 

January 2019

 

The month went by so fast and I can’t believe we are now on the first week of February.

 

For personal life update you can check out Goodbye January, Hello February 2019 post.

 

The month actually went by pretty nice in the money department. My emergency fund also grew significantly thanks to the medical allowance I have at work (Php 5,500) paid every January. More about this in the net worth update below.

 

I also reached my Adsense Threshold!!! This will be the first Adsense payment for the year 2019. You will be surprised by how much money I earned this month for the blog. I was personally surprised myself and excited to report to you all.

 

Related read: My First Google Adsense Payment

 

 

January 2019 Blog Update and Highlights

 

One of the highlights for the month of January 2019 was my mention at Moneymax.ph’s Top 10 Financial Bloggers in the Philippines post. It was an honor to be included along Sir Fitz Villafuerte, Sir Randell Tiongson, Sir Marvin Germo and Sir Chinkee Tan. Thank you MoneyMax.

 

I also launched the new Archive Page of the blog which is a lot simpler and clearer. I segregated it by month and included the clickable blog post title. If you want to binge read SavingsPinay just click here.

 

This month I was able to publish seven posts! That’s double the amount of posts compared to last month and even January last year!

 

Here are the posts for January 2019 in case you missed something:

• 40 Financial Habits for Life You Really Need to Know
• Do You Have Poverty Mindset?
• How to Take Control of Your Finances This 2019
• 2019 Goals
• Archives
• 2018 Year End Review
• Citi Mobile App Review – A Must Have App for All Citi Users

Traffic and Income Breakdown

 

In terms of traffic and income, January 2019 was my best month ever! I hit the highest number of pageviews for both blogs – SavingsPinay and IzzaGlinOFull.

 

Since I use only one Google Adsense account for both blogs whatever increase of pageviews I generate on each blog definitely helps create a spike on the income I generate every month.

 

Here is a quick snippet of the traffic and income breakdown for each blog:

 

 

In January 2019, I earned a total of $59.48 from blogging. With my starting balance of $93.94 from last year, I have a total of $153.40 withdrawable money by February 21. Yehey!

 

The amount will surely reflect on next month’s net worth update as part of my Extra Income Fund which is currently sitting at Php 22 only. LOL.

 

 

January 2019 Goals

 

Something I am excited to include in this new monthly recap is the update on my goals. I believe one of the biggest mistake I made last year was not reviewing and taking notes of my progress. Thankfully, I learned my lesson and this 2019 I want to do it every month and be as transparent as possible.

 

The set up of my goals update is based on Sir Joe of Retiredby40.org. He is one of the top bloggers I follow.

 

Financial Goals

 

End 2019 with Php 250,000 net worth. For 2019, I want to be back as near as Php 250,000 in net worth. Even exceed the said target if possible. And this January 2019 I am 66% near the target. From my salary alone I was able to up my current net worth by around Php 10,000! And I can’t be so happy and proud of myself in doing so. Next month this shall increase again with the money coming in from my blog income! Yes!!!

 

Tithe 10% of whatever Money I Earn Every Month. This is a very important goal for me. Tithing is more than just a financial term. All of us are called to tithe and bring every tenth of whatever we have back to God. I am tithing way much this year though compared to what I did last year because I re-calculated how much I am earning in a month and in a year. I have cash benefits I receive that I need to tithe to like holiday pay, bonuses and allowances which I failed to include last year. So yep, whatever money I earn every month including the blog (or any side hustle) income will be tithed.

 

Php 60,000 emergency fund. This is the main goal for 2019. I’ve failed this countless times and I don’t want to fail at it again this year. For January there was a major increase in the emergency fund because I automatically added the medical allowance I received last January 10 – Php 5500. The rest of the money can from my last year’s leftover and the 10% fund transfer I make every payday. 16% progress! Sweet.

 

Monthly Transpo and Food <4400. I failed the goal of staying below Php 4,400 for my both my transportation and food allowance. I spend Php 200 more because of habal-habal (twice to get to work on time) and way way more money on food. I have to re-challenge myself in February and stay her. If you wonder how I know if I was overspending on transportation and food, that’s because I track every expenses now in my little handy dandy notebook. I will share update on how I track my expenses soon.

 

Maintain a Working Opportunity Fund. The Opportunity Fund is composed of every side hustle I do. Since I just reached my Google Adsense Threshold, I cannot add anything on this area yet. This will have a guaranteed increase next month.

 

Monthly Phone Bill <1500. Another failed goal for January 2019. I don’t know I can’t help but use my data to browse Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. My plan is Php 999 but I am paying almost double the amount. I have to do something about this because it is affecting the money I could save or spend on something else.

 

Invest Php 48,000. For 2019 I plan to successfully maintain 30% saving rate every single month. I skipped some months last year and so this year, the goal is to not skip a month ever. To better track this I decided to just write down the amount I plan to invest with is 20%. The other 10% is saved on emergency fund anyways so you already have idea on my progress from above. So far I am on track with this goal. I invested a total of Php 4,000.

 

Blog Goals

 

Create a better “Archive” for the Blog. As mentioned earlier I was able to publish a new archive page for SavingsPinay. But, I still have more things to do. Another archiving I wanted to do as a project this year is the “per topic” which was suggested during my 2018 Reader Survey. I am also including my other blog, IzzaGlinoFull, for this goal and I have yet started doing any progress on the said site.

 

$500 Adsense Income. Such a huge increase on the blog income for January 2019. $59.48! Wow! This is really the biggest amount I’ve ever earned since I started putting ads of my blog. I am so happy.

 

Double My Total Published Content. Happy to be publishing more content here on SavingsPinay. In January 2019 alone I was able to publish 7 posts! Hopefully I can keep up with the number next month.

 

Personal Goal

 

Read 30 books. I’ve been reading a lot. And for January 2019 I read three awesome books, one non-fiction and two fictions. Here are the books I read for January 2019.

 

Fun Goal

 

Hike again. My initial goal is to do this every quarter but because of weather considerations I decided to just do it in the first and third quarter instead. The planned months are March and August 2019.

 

 

January 2019 Net Worth Update

 

 

Something that you will notice in my net worth update is that I separated my mutual fund accounts. I am currently invested in an Equity Fund and an Index Fund so I thought it would be nice to see them grow separately.

 

For the Investments what you are seeing are the net meaning the money I have invested so far. For the current market value as of February 2, 2019 here are the figures:

 

Stocks – ₱40,738.10

Equity Fund – ₱44,794.81

Index Fund – ₱25,270.84

 

For now aside from Equity Fund, the rest of my investments are down or in other words at paper loss. But the good news is the market is now at 8,000! That’s a big leap compared to last year.

 

Next Month’s Plans

Aside from the blog income coming in, February 2019 will surely be calm. I don’t have planned expenses except for the Bosu Ball I wanted to buy for working out. I also have some good news to share next month and I’m excited to spill the tea.

 

Final Notes from SavingsPinay

 

What a month in has been for January. I hope you are okay with the new format of this monthly recaps. Let me know in the comment section below.

 

How’s your finances in January 2019?