July 2008 Site and Net Worth Review (+1.61%)

By Pinyo, on August 4, 2008

Net Worth Review

The S&P500 basically traded sideway in July going from 1280.00 to 1267.38, or a -1% decline in value. According to NetworthIQ, my net worth dropped another -2.04% — mostly due to the value of my house. Fortunately, my net investable assets actually went up +1.61%, or from 22.59% to 22.94% of $1 million goal.

Highlights

• According to Zillow, the value of my house dropped another $20,000 in July. For a while, it was holding steady, but I guess the weak housing market is finally reflecting in NYC market.
• I am also happy to say, despite the drop in the S&P500 my investment and retirement accounts actually improved slightly. Looking at my 401k portfolio, it looks like the strong gain in my small-cap investments helped the overall performance.
• My peer-to-peer investments continue to grow ever so slowly.
  • Prosper grew from $649.33 to $693.14. This represents 10.90% gain since I started in the end of December 2007, which I think is impressive.
  • Lending Club went down slightly from $460.80 to $448.65 as I continue to withdraw about $15 a month from my account (because I can’t lend out the money and it’s not earning interest).
• My alternative income from blogging improved by 10% this month — which is on track with my 10% improvement per month goal.

To follow up on my Building Multiple Income Streams As A Career article, I plotted my projected alternative income against my salary increase as a percentage of my total income (salary + alternative income).

The raise from my job was rather abysmal this year and I am glad that I restarted my alternative income journey over a year ago. Currently, my alternative income represents 8% of my total income and I am projecting 17% by the end of the year (this is an optimistic projection).

Blog Review

Although I didn’t blog for about a third of the month (due to our awesome family vacation), the blog did fairly well thanks to all the help from bloggers and readers.

Performance

At this point, I believe 10% growth per month through the rest of the year in these key statistics is sustainable. Here are the results from July.

• Subscribers grew +21% from 1,681 to 2,031
• Search traffic grew +29% from 9,422 to 12,160
• Visitors grew +11% from 34,606 to 38,571
• Page views grew +20% from 58,255 to 69,788

Top 5 Most Viewed Posts This Month

1. 40+ Alternative Income Ideas and Resources from 3/4/2008
2. Are You Financially Healthy? The 5 Stages from 6/25/2008
3. Say No To A Second Stimulus Check from 7/22/2008
4. 22 Money Maximizing Moves You Can Do Today from 11/20/2007
5. 50+ Frugal Tips, Ideas, and Resources from 1/31/2008

Top 10 Referrers

I wish I could list all 930 web sites and blogs that sent visitors my way. Despite listing only 10, I do appreciate everyone’s help, regardless of how big or small. Here are the top 10 referrers this month:

1. The Simple Dollar *
2. The Consumerist
3. Cash Money Life *
4. MSN Smart Spending *
5. Being Frugal *
6. I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… *
7. Frugal Dad
8. My Two Dollars
9. Stepcase Lifehack
   
10. Gather Little By Little

* Indicates the winners of 125×125 banner ad spot.

New Blog Features

I highlighted some new blog features in yesterday round up, please check it out.

Again, thank you to my readers and fellow bloggers for your support.

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Pinyo is the brain behind Moolanomy personal finance blog and a few other web sites. If you like this article, please subscribe for free daily email updates.

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