Andy Hough

June Income – $3221.68

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Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

Online Income

$232.83

Interest

$82.63

Survey/Bonuses

 $103.00

Stock Dividends

$62.32

Ebay/Craigslist

$65.77

Medical Study

$2425

Cash Back

$250.13

Total

$3221.68

This was a great month for income. Since I’ve started tracking my income this is the first time I’ve made over $3000 in a month. The bulk of that was the $2425 from the medical study but I also made a solid $796.68 from other sources. My online income was a measly $232.83. This might seem ok but I’m on pace to make less online this year than last. The main cause for that is a severe decline in credit card affiliate income this year. Combined with dropping adsense on this site I have a lot of income I need to replace. I am looking at different ways of making extra online income. My experiment for last month didn’t work but I’ll keep trying different things.

I received a $250 check from my credit card company for accumulated rewards. That was nice but since they changed the reward program it doesn’t look like I’ll be receiving a check that big again. It was also a good month for dividends due to how the quarterly payment schedule fell. This month’s income will likely be down since the medical study is ending and I need to pay some taxes out of this month’s check.

June Expenses – $1093.06

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

Household

$410.75

Entertainment

$337.95

Transportation

 $122.79

Food

$20.04

Medical/Dental

$112.16

Phone

$34.59

Debt

 $80.00

Total

$1093.06

My expenses this month were higher than my goal of $1000. I also have a goal of having only $10,000 in expenses for the year and my pace so far this year is well in excess of that goal. Things should change in the second half of the year as I have some low cost months hiking and living in Guatemala.

The entertainment expense was high for June because it includes my round-trip ticket to Guatemala. I should probably create a new travel category rather than lumping my travel expenses in the entertainment category because they are inflating my entertainment expenses. I did great on food this month buying just three meals out and a couple of snacks. It helped being in-house for the study the last few days of the month and not having the option of buying any food. That will go up next month as I will be on my own for food the last half of the month.

Transportation expense should go down slightly next month as I won’t be driving half the month. I will have a bus fare though. Medical expense will be about the same since I have a doctor bill to pay. Household expense will go down since I won’t be home half the month. Overall I expect my expenses to go down by about a third this month and even more the next month.

Frugality 101: Mindset

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I haven’t written too many “how-to” types of posts on frugality. This is mainly because frugality comes natural to me and I do not put much conscious though into being frugal. People do seem to be interested in how I can live on so little so I’m starting a series on frugality to give everyone an idea of how I do it. You might find some of my ideas a little extreme if so you can adapt these ideas to fit your own needs and still be pretty frugal.

I think the most important thing to change when becoming more frugal is your mindset. You need to get out of the mindset that money is the only way to solve problems and that money is the key to happiness. With a little creative thinking you will find that it is often possible to solve problems without spending money or at least without spending too much money. You will also find that there are plenty of things that make you happy that cost no or very little money. I’ll have specific examples of the most common categories as this series goes on but I think it is best to establish the mindset first.

You also need to be conscious of your spending. Many people buy a meal out, the latest bestseller, or some electronic gadget and don’t give the purchase a second thought. I consciously aware of every purchase I make. I don’t agonize over whether I should a McDonald’s extra value meal or not but I am aware that I am unnecessarily spending money and make a mental note of it. Making occasional small, unnecessary purchases of this sort won’t keep you from being frugal but allowing them to become a habit will.

There are several tools you can use to help develop a frugal mindset. Tomorrow I will post about the best tool for helping you develop a frugal mindset and seeing where you have the most room to become more frugal.

June 2009 Goal Review

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F-side
photo credit: FLY2005
It is the last Sunday of the month and time once again for the monthly goal review.

My first goal is to increase my passive income. I didn’t make any progress on this goal. I looked at buying a rental property but that didn’t happen. I have a different house I’m looking at buying now. I might buy another dividend stock next month but I’m holding off until I see what happens with the possible house purchase. If I’m able to buy the house I’ll consider this goal met for the year. If not then I’ll need to come up with some other ideas.

My second goal is to lose 30 pounds. I went backwards on this one. My weight went from 218.8 pounds last month to 220.4 pounds this month. I went the first half of the month without eating any extra fast food meals or drinking Dr Pepper. That resulted in no weight loss so I decided “screw it” and resumed indulging in fast food and Dr Pepper. That quickly led to weight gain.

I’ve lost some of that weight being in-house for the study. When I have limited choices in what to eat I don’t eat very much. I’m not hungry either although I’m craving a burger. This is only day 4 of 9; I’ll probably really be craving one by the time I get out of here.

Despite my lack of progress I still think I can get down to 180 pounds by the end of the year. This is because I’m going to spend a month hiking and three months living in Guatemala. In my previous hiking experiences I’ve always lost about 10 pounds a month. Hiking 15 miles a day with 30 pounds on your back and only the food you are carrying to eat does work well for losing weight. I lose the 10 pounds a month even though I pig out when I make a town stop while hiking. This isn’t a good long term weight-loss strategy though because when you quit hiking your appetite will remain although you are no longer burning the calories. This causes the weight to come back rapidly.

I also have averaged losing 10 pounds a month when I’ve lived in Guatemala. This was without even trying. I attribute it to walking everywhere and having less fast food and soda. When I first lived there they didn’t have any American fast food places. They just had Pollo Campero. The last time I visited they had a McDonald’s and that has been nine years ago so there might be more chains now. That might make losing the weight a little more difficult but I still think it will happen.

My last goal was to increase my RSS subscriber count to 500. I made progress on that goal this month. I finally went over the 400 subscriber mark and had a high mark of 409 subscribers. I’m not sure if I can improve on that in July because I will be traveling half the month. I’ll need to do more to promote this site to reach the 500 subscriber mark by the end of the year.

I only made progress on one of my three goals this month. I still think I have a good plan to meet these goals by the end of the year. I’ll keep checking in each month to make sure I don’t stray too far from my plans.

Medical Study Update

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My new Guinea Pig!
photo credit: j.reed

I checked in today for a nine-day stay at the clinic that is conducting my medical study. It has been easy money so far but having to stay in-house for nine days will be a drag. Considering the money I am getting paid I won’t complain too much. We have tons of free time which is generally spent on the Internet, watching TV or reading.

I was hoping to get a lot of work done on the Internet while I was here. Unfortunately, their wi-fi Internet here sucks. It has been out most of the day and when it is working the speed reminds me of the old dial-up days. If the connection doesn’t improve I might be posting sporadically over the next nine days. I will make sure I get on tomorrow to draw the winner of the Amazon $5 gift card giveaway.