Andy Hough

Getting Rid of My Car

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After much consideration I have decided to get rid of my car.  My plan is to get rid of it after my last final for the semester in early December.  Next semester I’ll only have class on Monday afternoons.  That is the only place I’ll really need to go.  I’ll be relying on public transportation to get there and anywhere else I want to go.  Since I’m living with my GF I should be able to combine any trip I need to make with our other trips.  I’ve been reluctant to give up my car because I haven’t wanted to get up early twice a week to take the bus to school.  Now that I will only have to take the bus once a week and not have to get up early to catch it I don’t have much excuse for not getting rid of my car.

I’m not sure whether I’ll sell my car or donate it.  My plan is to try to sell it for a low price and if it doesn’t sell then I’ll go ahead and donate it.  Since I won’t make enough money to itemize I won’t get any benefit from donating the car but I’d still like to see it go to a good cause.

Getting rid of the car won’t save me a lot of money because it has been paid off for a long time and I don’t drive much anyway.  I’ll save $20 a month on car insurance and and another $40 or so in gas and some more from not having to make repairs or pay taxes and registration.  I will have to pay for bus fare and I might have to pay something to be added as a driver to my GF’s insurance although I will rarely be driving her car.  My net savings should be somewhere around $60 a month.

Even if I get nothing for this car my cost per mile based on my purchase price alone is less than two cents per mile. I bought this car cheap and put over 90,000 miles on it. I didn’t keep complete records of my repair, maintenance, gasoline and other costs so I can’t figure my total cost per mile.  I am sure that it was much lower than average though.  Someone buying an average priced new car would still have a higher cost per mile than me even if they put a million miles on their car.  I definitely received good value out of the purchase of this car.

October Investment Income- $41.34

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Last month was not a good month for my retirement savings. I lost about $1000 in my Roth IRA which was a significant amount considering I only had $5500 in there.  I managed to increase my monthly income but only because I added $3000 to my savings last month.  Increasing my monthly investment income from $32.01 to $41.34 was good though.  Unfortunately I won’t be able to add a large amount to my retirement savings until sometime next year.  I’m rethinking my investment strategy for retirement and I’ll share that strategy in a post later today.

Disclaimer:This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings.  What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income.

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October Income- $709.64

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Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

Online Income $475.59
Bonuses $200
Interest $20.95
Surveys/Cashback $13.10
Total $709.64

My income was pretty good considering I didn’t work.  This is all alternative income. I’m going to have a tough time matching this in November.  I count my income when it is paid rather than when it is earned so I know that this month’s Adsense payment will be considerably less.  It is also unlikely that I’ll make anywhere near $200 in bonuses. I hope to make up some of that elsewhere but it will be difficult.  I’m going to have to come up with some new income ideas or put more work into the existing ideas.

October Expenses- $1157.51

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

Household $418.29
Transportation $131.61
Food $73.85
Entertainment $152.87
Debt/

Education

 $115
Utilities $64.97
Health Insurance $200.92
Total $1157.51

My overall expense level was reasonable. I didn’t meet my goal of $1000 a month in expenses. That goal would have been met though if I didn’t have my quarterly health insurance payment of $200. I did spend way too much on food. I ate out almost every day which not only cost me money but caused me to gain weight and wasted a lot of time. I’ll have to do better on that this month. My entertainment expenses were a little high this month but I’m not concerned about that. My other expenses should remain about the same this month. One possible exception is if I do some Christmas shopping this month that will be reflected in my household expenses.

November Income Challenge

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I decided not to work while I’m in school this semester.  The idea was I’d increase my side income to make up some of the loss of job income.  I have managed to increase my side income some but I should be doing much better.  The combination of laziness and procrastination has led me to not dedicate nearly enough of my spare time to making money.

In order to reverse that trend I’ve created a November Income Challenge for myself.  I’m going to do something to make money every day of the month.  Blogging won’t count.  It has to be something that will definitely make money.  Some examples are surveys, mystery shopping, writing for Associated Content, and bank bonuses.

I’ll post a roundup once a week or so of what I’ve done to make money.  For Thanksgiving and other days where I know I’ll be too busy to do any money-making activities I’ll do an extra money maker the day before or after.  I’ve had mixed success with challenging myself recently but I think I can meet this challenge.  If anyone else wants to do their own income challenge let me know and I’ll link to your results.