I will have to fork out extra money at tax time this year, but I try and remind myself that it's really a victory to owe a little, rather than to be refunded $2,000 that you could have been using all year!
Plus, I had to pay in a bit, due to my blogging income I made this year! With income from advertising on this blog, plus some additional articles I wrote on the web, I managed to make over $1,000 in extra income in 2011! (Specifically, $1,014.)
Since I've hardly been treating my blog like a true business, and since I've never made much in the past, I'm very excited about passing the $1,000 mark. That's $1,000 that I put towards my student loan, or perhaps it's $1,000 of the money I saved up for my upcoming trip to Spain. Either way, it's made me $1,000 richer than I was before. Also, my annual raise was about $3,000 this year - I increased my side income by about 33% of my regular income raise! When you think about it in those terms, it's pretty huge.
Some of my "other income" comes from writing articles for what used to be Associated Content, and is now Yahoo! Voices. The payment structure is pretty cool, because you get paid for all the page views that your articles get. Over time, this snowballs, and then the more total page views you've gotten, the more you get paid per-page-view. I made it to level 9 out of 10 on the per page view scale, simply because I've been a member for so long. If you're interested in signing up to write articles, you can create an account here. I am interested to know what it is like for new members getting in now. I think if you can write a coherent article on a searchable subject, you'll do well there. I like to keep the account open to write articles that I might not write otherwise, or to practice writing more "commercial" style, searchable articles than what I would normally write on my blog.
Check out some of the articles that I've written here:
Published on Yahoo! Finance: Budgeting for my post-college lifestyle
One of my most popular articles: The Benefits of Working at a Big Four Accounting Firm
Somehow this article about more exciting accountant workplaces than Big 4 is not quite as well-read: Accounting Jobs: FBI Special Agent (They take CPAs! I promise!)
Coming soon (unless they reject it of course), a new article about my top tip for the mortgage closing process. Yes, I do get 1 cent or so if four of you read these, but honestly, I just hope you enjoy them, and maybe even sign up to become a contributor yourself!
