Doing a Better Job Tracking My Passive Income Streams and Retirement Savings

I’ve got to admit: 2012 was not a bad year as far as my passive income streams go! Before blogging and investing, I was relying on sign-up bonuses, credit card rewards, and small stuff like online surveys to make a little side cash. A lot can change in a year and half …

Since taking a leap of faith on blogging and investing, I’ve made a lot more money than I ever thought I would from passive income. Blogging has by far been the front-runner with its endless possibilities of advertising, affiliate sales, writing, etc. After a lot of research, I also laid the first brick of my soon-to-be castle of dividend paying stocks – an effort I expect to cross $100 per month mark in no time.

But one thing I regret not doing since the beginning of all this was taking the time to keep track of all this information. With the exception of tracking my blog income for tax reasons, I really couldn’t put a figure on all the loose rewards I’ve earned over the years. Yes, sure, writing things down on paper isn’t going to make me any richer. But it would be nice to have some records that I can compare to year over year. It would also help to see which of my efforts is generating the best return (or the least).

In addition, with my retirement savings it is pretty the same story. I know I’m maxing out my 401k and IRA’s, but how does that compare to my income? What percentage is that? What about my newer investment goals? What percentage do they add to this?

How I’ll Measure My Passive Income Streams and Retirement Savings:

As many of you know, I have an annual budget. This is an easy way for me to see how much money I plan to make and spend throughout the year, and how that will affect me at any given month throughout this time. If you want to download your own copy to use, check out my post How to Budget – Download My Excel Budget Template

To do things just a little differently, I’ve made a separate tab that is specifically for tracking my passive income streams and retirement savings.

For our retirement savings, this will be easy. I plan to note the gross employment income for my wife and myself, and then record our 401k, 403b, and IRA contributions. This way I can see exactly what percentage of my earnings I’m saving at any given time. I prefer to use gross income over net income because then you don’t have to deal with how to address issues of taxes, union dues, insurance stipends, etc.

Tracking this should mostly be the same throughout the year except for 1) this month when I plan to alter the contribution levels and 2) midyear when we usually get our raises.

For my other passive income streams, I’ll add new rows for each one. Right now, the new bins are as follows:

• Blog income

• Dividend income

• Credit card cash back

• eBay / Craig’s List sales

• Sign-up bonuses

• Stock music licensing

My predictions:

• Blog income will continue to be the most lucrative of my side income.

• Dividend income will ramp up as I tend to funnel more resources into this investment effort.

• I’m pretty sure my cash back total was over $1,000 last year, which made it a very significant part of my passive income strategies (I could probably round up all my old statements to find out). However, I’m not as confident that I’ll be able to pull this off again. Last year we ROCKED every opportunity possible by making every purchase possible with a credit card (things we were already planning to buy of course). For example, one of the larger purchases we made right away in January of last year were two new sets of modern bedroom furniture for our kids. At 2% cash back, we got $100 right off the bat! Although we have a few more large purchases planned this year, we don’t really have the same magnitude of large purchases planned. But in hindsight, that means we’ll be spending less which is a good thing!

• eBay and Craig’s List aren’t really considered passive income I guess because it’s really just selling things around the house – not really a sustainable form of income.  But its nice to make some side cash. Going back to the bedroom furniture example, we did really well selling the old furniture on Craigs List. I asked my wife how much she wanted for them, I added $50 for each set to her price, and then listed them. They both sold within a day! What does that tell me? That I still left money on the table by not asking for more!!

• Sign-up Bonuses will probably lag unless I find some new attractive credit cards to take advantage of.

• I don’t plan to put any additional effort into my stock music effort. If you think writing blog posts takes time, try making recordings!  But what’s already posted will continue to be available for licensing.

What I expect to get out of all of this is to create the most amount of return for the least amount effort. For example, by tracking this information, I might find that putting more effort into my stock music initiative would not return as much income as putting the same (or possibly less) effort into blogging. Time is finite, so I want to really make sure that what I work on will produce the greatest benefit!

Other Bloggers Who Enjoy Making Passive Income:

In case you missed them, here are a few great stories you should check out this weekend:

• Club Thrifty – My Escape from Hotel Hell
• Canadian Budget Binder – A Personal Story:Chores and Money Lessons Growing Up
• Money Life and More – What Did I Do With My Raise in 2013?
• Eyes on the Dollar – Improve Your Attitude: Turn Negatives Into Positives
• Making Sense of Cents – So You Want to Be a Freelance Writer?
• Master the Art of Saving – Amazon’s New Feature: AutoRip (Free MP3s)
• The Fugal Path – Which Debt Would You Pay Off First?

Carnivals & Mentions:

My Money Design was featured on the following sites this week:

• Work Save Live – Personal Finance Week in Review #46
• Modest Money – January 12th 2013 Favorite Blog Posts
• Eyes on the Dollar – Can’t Take My Eyes Off These Blogs #21- It’s Cold!
• The Family Finances – Friends of the Family: Rearranging the Furniture Edition
• My Money University – The Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #49
• Narrow Bridge Finance – Yakezie Carnival
• Street Smart Finance – Which Credit Card for Bad Credit is Better: Secured or Unsecured?
• Making Sense of Cents – Carnival of Financial Planning

Thanks to everyone for linking to my site and enjoying my posts. I really appreciate your support and hope you continue to visit!

Posts This Week:

• Optional Extras to Consider for My Home Contents Insurance
• Should I Sell My Structured Settlement? Some Reasons Why You May Want To
• How to Save Money Effectively While at University
• P2P Investing Denied! What Should be My Next Passive Income Ambition?

Image Credit: Rotten eCard