Michael
I'm living the path to financial success and sharing everything I learn in this blog. I believe in the power of cash flowing investments, due diligence and time. This is my journey so far.
I learned everything I know from books, podcasts, conversations with friends and family and of course through real world experience as a cash flow investor. And I'm always pushing to learn more.
To see my investing timeline, check out our about page
The Complete Airbnb Cleaning Process (that we use)
I’m skipping the intro fluff in this article. Below you’ll find our complete Airbnb cleaning process. We’ve been using this process more or less for the entire 5+ years we’ve been hosting and managing Airbnbs. Our Airbnb Cleaning Process Here’s a list of everything we do when we clean one of our Airbnbs, and the list is roughly in the order the tasks are completed. 1. Strip all used beds, gather towels and start laundry The process of cleaning (we usually use the term “flipping”) and Airbnb is somewhat repetitive, and after you have 50 or so flips under your belt you start to learn some small tricks to minimize the amount of it takes to finish. One of these tricks is to start all your cleaning machines first. You’ll learn this quickly the first time you finish cleaning and…
Best Dishes And Dinnerware For Your Airbnb
The best dishes or dinnerware set for your Airbnb is affordable, preferably white (or light colored) and made of porcelain. Why porcelain? Well we haven’t tried every material, but in our experience, porcelain dishes are easy to clean and don’t often stain. That’s certainly not the case for plastic dishes. Dinnerware is not a make or break item in your listings (mattresses are), so as long as you get reasonably durable dishes that won’t stain over time, then you should be good to go. Cleaning Kitchens With and Without a Dishwasher Airbnb guests love listings that have full service kitchens. I live in a college town, so we get a lot of guests that are parents coming to visit their kids in school. Lots of the parents want to come down and give their kids a home cooked meal. They…
How To Spend Less Than $100 A Month On Food/Groceries
Spending $100 or less on groceries today is quite the challenge. And with the ever present force of inflation slowly pushing prices up and up, it only gets harder to survive on that $100. The last time I lived on such a budget was more than a decade ago, but the same strategies that got me through the poorest time in my life still work today. And even though I have more flexibility today with my financials, I’ve always been tight with money, and I’ve picked up some new ways to make each dollar go farther. My College Days I graduated in 2008, so it’s been a little while now and food is more expensive now than it was then. However, I’m no stranger to the $100/month meal plan. I worked for the school cafeteria about 20 hours a week…
Good Average Position In Google Search Console?
While I don’t personally use average position to track my websites’ health, I typically like to see an average position of 30 or better. As we’ll see, there are many factors that influence average position, and when you average position goes down (by down I mean from 25 to 30 for example) it’s not always a bad sign. A worsening average position can often mean that Google has decided to rank your articles for new search terms, and that’s a GREAT thing. Now if you’re looking for a comparison, I’ll be sharing numbers from my own sites, so feel free to keep reading. Finding The Average Position Across My Sites I currently run three websites, and I have Google Search Console set up for all three. First, I want to take a look at my average position for each of…
Best Pots and Pans For Your Airbnb
My wife Kate and I have been Airbnb hosting for about 5 years now across 4 different listings and we’ve picked up on a thing or two in that time. One of those things is that a well stocked home makes for happy guests. It’s true that not every guest will have a need for a pot or pan. But most guests have the need for something slightly out of the ordinary. Maybe they have allergies and need tissues, maybe they’re having their local friends over and want to play a board game, or maybe they want to cook a meal and need some things in the kitchen. We regularly have guests inquire about our kitchens and what amenities are available. So we do our best to keep those spaces well stocked with all the common items a guest might…
Best Soap, Body Wash and Shampoo for Airbnb
My wife Kate and I have been hosting Airbnbs for over 5 years now and we’ve slowly refined all our processes to maximize our guests’ experiences and minimize any and all complaints. We want all our guests needs to be met during their stay without our interference. So we’ve learned that the best soap, body wash, shampoo and conditioner for an Airbnb is hypoallergenic with either no fragrance or a non-offensive fragrance. The only complaint we’ve received over the years is that a product is bothering someone’s skin or is too fragrant. Now we just don’t stock anything that has those problems. I’ll share with you the products we buy most frequently. Should You Stock Soap and Shampoo? We stock body wash and shampoo for our guests. We don’t use bars of soap like you’ll find in many hotels because…
Best Pillow Protectors and Mattress Covers for Airbnb
Kate and I have learned over the past 5 years of hosting Airbnbs that pillow protectors and mattress covers are a good investment for Airbnb hosts. They protect your bedding and allow you to keep more of your profits. The best pillow protectors and mattress covers we’ve found are waterproof, noise free (or low noise), durable and affordable. Through the process of trial and error we’ve found 2 brands of pillow protectors and only 1 mattress cover that meets our needs. Early Lessons From Hosting We opened our first Airbnb more than 5 years ago and in those early days we learned some valuable lessons about how guests treat your bedding. Two stories come to mind for me. The first is from a pair of guests that stayed with us in our first month being open. We had some grey…
How Many Blog Posts I Write Per Week
Over the last three years, I’ve published about 3 blog posts per week on average. But in recent months I’ve taken a more methodical approach to blogging and have increased to about 15 posts per week. I think new bloggers should be publishing 2-4 articles a week. And when you get serious about blogging I think you should use your financial goals to determine your weekly output. How Many Articles To Write When You First Start Blogging I think using financial goals is a great tool to determine publishing goals. However, I don’t think it makes sense for new bloggers to start out and say “I’m going to publish 30 articles a week.” Why? Well mainly because you don’t yet know what a good article looks like yet. But also because it’s hard to write lots of articles when you’re…
How Much Do Bloggers Make Per Post?
Every blogger, every blog and every blog post has different earnings numbers. There are many factors that affect how much you can make from blogging. However, when we look on a broader scale and average together hundreds of articles, I think we can deduce what the average blogger makes per article. This is exactly what I’ve done. Although to be fair my numbers today are based primarily on the earnings from my own blogs. All in all I believe the average blogger who studies, works hard and perseveres to reach the 100 article mark can expect to make at least $2-5 per month for each article they write. Now I’ll show you where I got that number. Two Ways To Think About It There are two ways to think about how much a blog post makes. Each way has it’s…
How Many Blog Posts You Need To Make Money
The cheeky truth is that you can make month with only one blog post, but based on my personal experience over the last three years blogging, you’ll want to publish at least 50 articles if you want to cross over the $100/month mark. I’m going to walk through my time blogging, how many articles I’ve published and the income milestones I’ve hit (recently crossed $1,000 a month!). Then we’ll look at a hypothetical path to $10,000 per month. One which I am planning to take over the next 3-4 years. The Unsatisfying Answer How many blog posts do you need to make money? The unsatisfying answer (but the truthful one) is that you need only one blog post to make money. That’s really all it takes, but you won’t be quitting you day job after you write one article. And…