Andy Hough

November Expenses – $1089.94

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

Household$12.55
Mortgage$355
Entertainment$92.56
Transportation$129.15
Food$138.02
Phone$29.44
Health$56.96
Travel$276.26
Total$1089.94

My November expenses were at a reasonable level.

Entertainment expense was for three months of Amazon Prime, an action camera, and a barbecue meal with a friend. .

The mortgage payment is self-explanatory.

Transportation was for gas and personal property tax on my car. One benefit of having an old and cheap car is that the taxes are quite low.

My food expense was at a normal level. It will probably be higher this month since I’m in Cancun and will be eating mostly restaurant meals.

My phone bill was normal. It will usually be within a couple dollars of this total.

Household expense was for toothpaste, floss, and a small gift.

Health expense was for my January 2021 health insurance premium, some vitamins, and acid reflux medicine.

Travel expense was for a room for one month in Cancun and some travel insurance. I need to write a post about my Cancun trip. Ideally, I’ll do that in the next few days.

This month will be a little higher than last month since I’m away from home and I will have some small vacation splurges.

How was your month?

Dosh Review and Referral Bonus

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Dosh is a card linked app that allows you to earn cash back automatically at many different merchants. The great thing about it being card linked is that it allows you to stack the Dosh cash back with portal cash back. For some merchants the purchase can be made in store or online. Once you link your card you will automatically earn cash back when you use your linked card at a participating merchant. I’ve linked my Chase Ink card to earn 2% cash back from Dosh when I shop at Office Depot in addition to the 5% I get back from Chase plus whatever cash back I can get from a shopping portal if I’m making an online purchase.

Once you earn a $25 minimum Dosh Wallet balance in your account, you can transfer your funds to your PayPal, bank accounts, or donate it to charity. I’ve already cashed out once from Dosh and it was an easy and quick process.

Download the Dosh app and add at least 1 credit or debit card to earn a signup bonus when using my referral code or referral link. My referral code is DAVIDH541. Enter that as the promo code when signing up. Or use this referral link and the code should automatically be applied.

Let me know if you have any questions about the Dosh app.

Rakuten/Ebates $40 Referral Bonus

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Rakuten $40 referral bonus link

The Rakuten shopping portal (you might know it by its former name of Ebates) is offering a $40 referral bonus. If you sign up as a new member to Rakuten and spend $40 you will receive a $40 bonus and I’ll get a $40 bonus too. It is a win-win.

This is the best referral bonus I’ve seen them offer. Usually the best bonus offer is $30. Thanks to whomever used my referral link back in September. This blog doesn’t make much ad income any more so little bonuses like these are helpful.

Rakuten is a decent cash back shopping portal. Their rates usually aren’t the highest but they have occasional special deals where they offer the best rates. Over the years I have received over $500 cash back from them. It has definitely been worth my time signing up and using their portal.

Sign up using this Rakuten $40 referral bonus link to get your $40 bonus after you qualify.

2020 Goal Review and November Goals

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Since the year is most of the way over it is a good time to see how I’m doing on my goals for the year. I’ve only set two goals for this year. The first goal was to save $10,000 in the first four months of 2020. I did achieve that goal with most of the savings going to my retirement accounts. I also added some to my cash savings accounts which turned out to be a good thing since my employment has been sporadic since my work office closed in the Spring due to the coronavirus.

My next goal was to lose weight. To help accomplish that goal I joined two Dietbet games. For the first game I needed to lose 4% of my bodyweight (about 9 pounds) in 1 month. I was able to do that fairly easily. I cut back on my junk food intake a little and started walking about 10k steps a day and the weight quickly came off.

The second game required me to lose 10% of my bodyweight (a little over 22 pounds) in 6 months. This goal has been much harder to achieve. My weight loss has been stalled out since late July and I still have almost 5 pounds to lose by 11/18. To do that I’m going to have to be more consistent getting my daily steps in and probably add some other type of exercise on top of that too. More importantly I’ll have to cut way back on my daily calories for the next week.

If I make the 10% goal I will weigh 204 pounds or less. That isn’t far from 200 pounds so I’m making that my stretch goal for the month. If I don’t make it under 200 pounds this month then I’ll make that a goal for December.

For this month, I’m setting a goal to write at least 8 blog posts. I’ve been very lazy about writing blog posts here for the last couple of years and I need to get back in the habit of writing

I’ve not gotten off to a good start on writing posts. This post was supposed to be published on the first of the month and I’m just now getting around to finishing it and posting it. . Most of the posts for the rest of the month will probably be shorter deal type posts. These should be fairly easy to write and since some/most of them will also have the potential to make me money that will provide a little more motivation to write.

I’ll let you know how I did on these goals when I publish a goals post for December.

October Income – $1521.05

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Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

Interest$8.05
Amazon FBA($15.57)
Unemployment$288
Bank/Stock Bonus$29.95
Cashback$88.69
Job$625.10
Amazon Merch$4.48
Dividends$18.03
Ebay/Other Selling$458.75
Total$1521.05

October’s income was okay considering my job only lasted for one week of the month. It was still about double my expenses which is good.

My Amazon FBA side hustle had a small loss for the month. I had a big return and mostly sold on other platforms so I didn’t have much income to offset the loss from the return expenses.

Dividend income came in at $18.03. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

I made $288 from unemployment. I’m trying to make more from self-employment and I’ll be out of the country for most of December so I’ve decided not to file for unemployment again this year. I’m hoping next year I’ll have more stable employment and won’t need to file.

I made $458.75 selling stuff on eBay and elsewhere. I’ve got one item that I’m able to quickly flip that’s making most of my profit. I’m hoping the demand will hold up for a couple more months.

I received $625.10 from one week of work at a new job. Unfortunately, they haven’t had more work for me since then.

I also received $88.68 in cash back. This is the amount that I cashed out from my credit cards, not the amount I earned. Since there isn’t much travel now, my Chase Sapphire card is allowing me to cash out my points to reimburse myself for grocery and restaurant purchases which is why cashback is higher than usual.

Lastly, I received $29.95 from a credit card promo and a stock app promo and $4.48 from Amazon Merch.

How was your month?