How are you using your eHow earnings?

My experience has been that earnings - even small amounts of earnings - take on greater significance if they are used for a purpose.

I currently have three streams of income - one from my 'day job' and two others from side jobs, including eHow - and I recently went through an exercise where I assigned each stream of income a 'job'.

First, I identified three major income goals that we have right now:

1. Paying down debt.
2. Home repair and improvements.
3. Saving for my daughter's college expenses, which will be beginning about a year from now.

My eHow earnings have been assigned to goal #3.

A little background: We have a small college fund for my daughter and another for my son, but of course they're worth significantly less than they were this time two years ago. In any event, we had always planned to pay for college expenses out of earned income and that will still be the case. eHow is going to help us do that.

I started by transferring the total of my eHow earnings to date, $1044.13, to the college savings account. Then each month between now and and next August I will continue to do the same. Even if my eHow earnings remain at the April level, this account will have more than $3600 in it by the time she starts school.

Now, $3600 isn't going to pay for anybody's college education. But it will take care of some of those extra college expenses and I'm sure it will be nice to have when the time arrives.

But the second part of the plan involves growing my eHow earnings as much as possible between now and then. This will not only increase the amount in the account at the time she starts school, but will create a nice residual income stream that will help with college expenses the entire time she's in school.

Assuming all goes as planned, and eHow remains a viable source of earnings, that income stream will continue while my son is in college and then, after that, can be assigned to some other purpose.

Since I formulated this strategy, I've found that I look at eHow in a whole new way. Even a relatively modest amount of income like $175/month suddenly seems more powerful. And I'm motivated to grow that income stream in a way that I haven't been motivated before.

Do your eHow earnings have a job? If so, I'd love to hear what it is. If not, I would recommend that you have some fun finding a purpose for them. Dream big!