Portfolio Update – August 2023

Posted in   Portfolio Updates   on  September 4, 2023 by  Money Bren0

Nothing in this article is financial advice. The writer is not your financial advisor. Investing contains risk and you can lose money. Consult your own professionals before making investment decisions. This article may contain affiliate links. 

August has been a quiet month.

I haven’t been working on the site much as I’m travelling right now and been in and out of Airbnbs.

It’s not really conducive to building so I’ve been mostly catching up on reading and writing a few articles here and there.

I did say when I started this site that I’d hustle to get the portfolio to $100k, then kind of let it simmer for a while and let the compounding do its thing. We are practically there now so I’ve been spending less time on the site and working on other things that quite frankly I find more interesting – mostly training for some sports events coming up and focusing on my health and fitness.

However, money never stops so as always, things have been moving.

If you’re new here, the public portfolio was about using various side hustles to generate income. 100% of that income is then invested into stocks, which comprise the public portfolio. The goal is to get to $1 million. Let’s look at how the side hustles and portfolio fared in August.

Niche sites

As my matched betting days are all but over, the only new “income” coming into the portfolio are from niche sites.

One I am actively building, and two are just sitting there earning a small amount of income passively. I haven’t worked on either of them in over a year.

That’s the great thing about niche sites! Once you build them, they will generally still earn something even if you stop working on them.

Of course, it’s ideal to keep writing articles and updating them as they will certainly earn more that way, but everybody only has so much time. A good niche site is a cash flowing asset that requires zero upkeep, so they’re great to have in your portfolio.

The one site I am actively building, ironically, isn’t even earning the most. I’ve spent probably over 100 hours on it, and it’s still not at the point where I would expect it to be. This is frustrating but a very normal part of the niche site game.

As far as I know, I’m doing everything right and doing all the things that Google wants me to do. The site itself is strong (in my opinion), it’s just the traffic that needs to build up. Whether that will happen over time as the site ages, I don’t know. To be honest, I’ve written pretty much everything I can on the topic (it’s a very micro niche) so all that’s left for me to do is build links and see if Google will show me some love. The site still brought in about $150 USD during the month, so it’s not a total disaster, but in my opinion, the site has the potential to get to $1k/month and above.

As you can see, there’s no strong uptrend in the traffic. If we’re lucky, in the future we’ll eventually get that “traffic boner” that niche site owners all dream about!

The real VIP of the niche sites is my years-old site that continues to deliver month on month. In August it brought in approximately $470 NZD from 3 different income streams (advertising, affiliates and product sales) It’s the site that’s detailed in my niche site case study, which you can get here.

Courses

I haven’t made any new courses and have no plans to since my course Simple Crypto came out.

I’m happy with the four courses I have, and I think they are genuinely the best courses on those subjects available in New Zealand today, at a tiny fraction of the cost.

As you browse the internet, you’ll see many courses are literally thousands of dollars just to learn basic investing. With my courses at just $49 a pop, I openly challenge anyone to find a course for Kiwis that is more comprehensive and better value for money than the ones I’ve built.

I’m proud to say that, as that was exactly what I intended when I created them! It appears the hundreds of Kiwis that have enrolled feel the same way – after hundreds of sales I haven’t had a single refund request!

Course sales aren’t a big part of the site’s income as the bulk of the sales have always come on launch day and then dwindled, but they do bring in a few hundred bucks a month.

In August, course sales brought in around $200 NZD for the portfolio.

If you’re looking to get started in investing or a side hustle that will build real cash flow, I highly recommend checking out my Simple courses.

You can view all my courses here!

moneybren.com

This site you are reading now is around a year old, and makes an income from affiliate commissions.

Affiliate commissions are where I recommend something to you on the blog, and if you purchase through my link, I receive a commission.

This is my favourite way to monetise a site, as it allows me to promote the products I want, versus display advertising which shows you ads based on your cookies, which could be anything, even if it’s something I don’t endorse personally, or even worse, something I want to avoid promoting.

An example of an affiliate commission I might receive is if I recommend Sharesies – the investing platform I use to build the @moneybren public portfolio. Whenever you sign up using my link, you will get a free $5 and I also get a free $5.

Some of the other platforms where I receive affiliate commissions are my web host Dreamhost, my crypto broker EasyCrypto, my personal sharebroker Interactive Brokers, and Trezor hardware wallets.

I’d like you to note you don’t get charged extra when you use an affiliate link to buy something. You pay exactly the same price as everyone else, I simply get a small fee for referring you. This means I get to earn something simply by recommending the products I genuinely trust and enjoy, meaning you get more trustworthy recommendations, and the seller makes more sales. It’s really win-win-win all around.

During August, the site made around $1,500 NZD from affiliate commissions, mostly from Dreamhost and EasyCrypto.

Portfolio Breakdown

We’re about $1,000 away from $100k, which could have happened this month with just a few percentage moves, but I guess the market likes teasing us.

This portfolio is made up of:

💥 BOOM weekly savings: $4,231
⠀⠀
🚮 Decluttering: $7,202
⠀⠀
💸 Matched betting: $47,847
⠀⠀
📦 Flipping: $2,676 ⠀
⠀⠀
📝 Surveys: $150⠀⠀
⠀⠀
🖥️ Simple Courses sales: $9,445

🏋️‍♀️ 1-on-1 coaching: $390
⠀⠀
🎉 Sharesies bonuses: $145⠀⠀
⠀⠀
🧧Leftovers from Chinese New Year Instagram giveaway because people didn’t want free money: $90⠀⠀

🎁Leftovers from 500 follower Instagram giveaway because people didn’t want free money: $300
⠀⠀
💰 Personal dividends: $2,014

🖱️ Niche Site A (Home Remedies): $7,846

🖱️ Niche Site B (Fitness): $2,619

🖱️ Niche Site C (Superfoods): $2,907

🖱️ moneybren.com (affiliate commissions): $4,074

💵 Interest: $61

💹 Sharemarket gainz: $6,271

💹 Crypto gainz: -$276

Top 10 Holdings

Literally no changes!

I did add one new position, which is Briscoes. I published a short thesis on the blog. It’s a small 2% position, which I may add to on dips.

Crypto took a dump during the month, so that’s down slightly. Am actively adding to Bitcoin, but all the alt positions will remain untouched, as was discussed when I bought them.

You can view all previous portfolio updates here.

Everything above can be done by you!

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