Andy Hough

March Income- $549.11

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Here is a breakdown of my income for March.

Online Income

$416.24

Interest

$46.89

Bank/Other Bonuses

$25

Survey

 $6

Stock Dividends

$45.14

Cash Back/Ebay

$9.84

Total

$549.11

My income for March was down as expected because I didn’t have any medical study income in March.  My online income did go up a little but I expect it to fall this month.  My interest income is overstated because I’m including the principal I was paid back from my Lending Club loans.  Dividends were higher than normal because so many of my stocks pay dividends in February. Overall I expect my income to go down slightly this month.

March Expenses- $989.20

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for March.

Household $491.15
Transportation $16.50
Food $46.43
Entertainment $222.95
Debt/Education $116.00
Phone $34.51
Medical/Dental $61.66
Total $989.20

My expenses were up a little from the previous month due to purchasing a plane ticket to Atlanta to start my hike next month and school expenses. My food expense was too high last month and I’m going to cut that back down this month.  My entertainment expense was also a little high even without my plane ticket so I’ll look at those expenses a little more closely this month.  My school expenses should go down this month since I don’t have any graduation expenses or books to buy this month.  Everything else should be about the same.

I barely met my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under $1000.  To meet my goal of having my yearly expenses under $10,000 I need to cut my monthly budget even more.  That should happen once I start hiking.

Reader Questions #1

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This is the first of what I hope will become a weekly or monthly feature depending on the amount of interest shown where I will answer reader’s questions. I have consolidated and changed the questions some where I felt questions overlapped or just needed to be changed so I could make one answer to several questions.

How did you and your GF meet?

We met through eHarmony.  I read on Maggie Wang‘s blog how she met her husband through eHarmony and shortly after that I saw a deal for a free preview weekend and eHarmony and decided I should give it a try.  My GF was the first one I met through the service.  We hit it off pretty quickly so I canceled the service and didn’t bother meeting anyone else.

It was somewhat serendipitous that I signed up for the service and we met.  Maggie Wang’s blog is not a personal finance blog, although she occasionally posts on personal finance, and is not a blog I’d normally read.  I happened to click through from some PF blog to her site though and that eventually led to me signing up for eHarmony.

Why did you decide to hike,how are you planning it, and how does your GF feel about it?

The hike is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.  I’ve already gone on two long hikes and it is one of  my lifetime goals to complete a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail.

Since I’ve already done two long hikes on the AT I am not doing much planning.  Most people seriously over plan for their hikes.  I just make sure I have enough food to get to the next resupply and make up the rest of my plans as I go along.

My GF is not wild about me going on this hike.  This was discussed when we very first started going out though and she agreed to it then.  I will be bringing a cell phone to keep in touch which I probably wouldn’t do if I didn’t have a GF back home.  We’ve reached a comprimise on this hike but any future adventures I have that require a long time apart will probably create a major problem.

What are your plans for after the hike?

This is still somewhat up in the air.  When I return I will get a job of some sort. I haven’t worked since last August and I’ll need to start earning some money.  Although I am burnt out on law right now I hope that whatever job I get utilizes my J.D. in some way.   At that time I’ll decide whether to sit for the February bar.  I will probably go ahead and take it just to give myself more options.

That isn’t all the questions but I’m going to save the rest for next week.  If you have any other questions or want clarification of any of my answers just leave a comment.

Book Giveaway: Nobody Wants a Million Dollars

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I won the book “Nobody Wants a Million Dollars” in a giveaway at My Two Dollars last week and now I’m going to give it away also. It is a slender book and I was easily able to read it in a couple of hours this weekend. The subtitle explains what the book is about; viewing money as a personal finance tool instead of a life goal. The first part of the book covers that and the rest of the book is dedicated towards standard personal finance advice.

This giveaway will have the usual rules. Just leave a comment to enter and I will draw the winner at random this Friday.

**I accidentally deleted a couple of comments. If you left a comment and it isn’t here please comment again.

Ask Tight Fisted Miser

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I’d like to start a weekly feature where I answer any questions my readers might have. You can ask me anything to do with frugality or personal finance. If you want to ask about my upcoming hike or anything else I’ve posted on you can ask that too. Heck, you can ask me anything you want. I won’t guarantee that I’ll answer anything though.

I’m having a hard time coming up with stuff to post about. Most frugality topics seem either too obvious or they have already been written about many times or both. If you have any topic you would like to post about let me know.

Just leave a comment on this post with your question or topic and I’ll do my best to follow up. Thanks.