Andy Hough

October Expenses – $2098.26

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

Household$82.20
Rent$450
Entertainment$87.88
Transportation$67.06
Food$250.33
Travel$254.07
Phone$40.83
Student Loan$132.58
Health$733.31
Total$2098.26

My October expenses were once again crazy high. This was due to almost $600 in dental expenses and over $250 of travel expenses.

Entertainment was for movie concessions, one month of Hulu and some dinners with my girlfriend. This expense should go down this month.

Transportation expense was just for gas. My gas spending was lower than normal since I was out of the country for half of the month. This expense will go up some this month since I will be driving more.

My food expense continues to be ridiculously high. It was a little bit higher than last month’s which was also way too high. I’ve got to stop buying fast food and junk food so much. It is bad for my pocketbook and my health.

My travel expense was mainly for two intra-Thailand flights that I had to rebook and four nights hotel that I paid out of pocket since the particular hotel I wanted to stay at wasn’t bookable with credit card points. The remainder of my hotel nights were free using credit card rewards. This expense will be much lower this month although there will be a little bit of spending to set up next year’s trip.

My phone bill went up a little since I made an international call and used more data than usual. This expense should go down slightly this month.

My health expense was for one month of health insurance, one month’s dues for a fitness center membership, some medicine, and a new crown for my dental implant. This expense will go down significantly this month.

This month’s expenses should be much closer to $1000 than $2000 barring any unexpected expenses. It will be nice to have a month with a reasonable level of expenses again. How was your month?

September Income – $3166.29

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Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

Interest$2.76
Amazon FBA$55.11
Investment Bonus$51.41
Ebay/Other Selling$0
Cashback$0
Dividends$18.44
Class Action$2.38
Mystery Shop$26
Amazon Merch$2.21
Job$3007.98
Total$3166.29

My income for September was great. That was almost entirely due to working at my document review job for the entire month. I worked 40 hours or more every week. Having four paychecks in a month helps.

Amazon FBA income was mostly from the sale of a printer that I bought on clearance. I had to discount the price more than I originally expected, but I still made a decent profit. There won’t be any FBA income this month since I don’t currently have any inventory at Amazon. I plan to send some soon.

There was no online income or expense for the month. I’m still considering making a new wager with HealthyWage and blogging about the process which will hopefully lead to some affiliate commissions. I need to lose some weight before I can make another wager though. My links for Bluehost (aff link) and  (aff link) Hostgator for web hosting didn’t result in any commissions. I’ll keep trying. I need to do some review posts or something different to create interest.

Dividend income was up some since many of my stocks paid dividends in September. I do my dividend investing with Robinhood. 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 $2.21 from shirt sales on Amazon Merch. I will write more about my efforts to make money with Amazon Merch in the next couple of weeks. .

Although I had several sources of income, none of them add up to very much. The job is what provides me with a decent amount of income. October’s income will be down quite a bit since I didn’t work the first two weeks of the month.

How was your month?

One Week of Travel Spending

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This is what I spent during one week of travel. My travel didn’t go exactly as planned . Two days before I was set to travel to Thailand to get some dental work done and visit my Thai girlfriend, the dentist contacted me and stated that my scheduled appointment dates would no longer work. They offered two new times for appointments and stated no other times would be available during the time of my Thailand trip. This led me to have to change my travel plans and cost me money in the form of two new airfares that had to be purchased. Also the new dates required me to make two trips to Pattaya while in Thailand when I previously could have gotten all the dental work done during one trip to Pattaya. This did not make me pleased with the dentist. I will be asking for a discount on the remaining dental work, but I doubt I will receive any compensation for my inconvenience and additional expense.

To make things worse one day before I was set to travel my girlfriend told me that she would not be able to visit me in Pattaya as planned. This didn’t cost me any additional money, but it did mean that the two air fares I had purchased for her would go unused and be a waste of money. This wasn’t a great start to the trip.

Sunday 9/29: The day started with a $1.50 bus ride to the airport to catch my Southwest flight from Kansas City to Chicago. This required taking two buses and quite a bit of time. While I was waiting to transfer to the second bus I realized I had forgotten my water bottle. I had time to walk over to Walmart and purchase a bottle of water for 50 cents. The second bus ended up being a half hour late. I had plenty of cushion built in to my arrival time at the airport. Still, I was about ready to call an Uber when the bus finally showed up.

Once I was in Chicago I needed to take the train to my hotel. This was a bit of journey because I landed at Midway airport and my hotel was near O’Hare since that was where I would be flying out of the next day to Bangkok. This required taking two trains. The total travel time was about an hour and a half. One ticket was good for both trains and cost $3.00. The train ride went smoothly. I did make a mistake in not using the bathroom while at the airport. I assumed there would be one at the train station and there was not. I really had to pee by the time I switched trains. After arriving at the second train stop I needed to take a city bus for $2.25 to travel the last mile to the hotel.

Before checking in to the hotel I bought a $3.33 McChicken meal from the McDonald’s across the street from the hotel. After a couple of hours of watching football I was hungry again. The snacks in the hotel snack bar were predictably overpriced so I ended up having another $3.33 meal from McDonald’s. I had a McDouble the second time to switch things up a little bit.

Total spent for the day: $12.41. That is a pretty low amount for transportation to and from the airport and two meals.

Monday 9/30: I try to eat light or not at all on days that I’m flying. My flight was at 12:55pm so I wanted to eat something before the flight. I bought a pack of mini-donuts for $1.50. That and water from my refilled water bottle was all I needed for the morning and kept me from spending any money on food or drink at the airport. I took a free shuttle from the hotel to the airport. The rest of the day was spent on the plane so I didn’t have an opportunity to spend more money.

Total spent for the day: $1.50

Tuesday 10/1: I was on a plane for most of the day which made it easy to not spend money. Arrived in Bangkok about 9:30pm and took a free shuttle to my hotel. Went to 7/11 to buy a cold bottle of water for twenty cents, then returned to the hotel and slept.

Total spent for the day: $0.20

Wednesday 10/2: This was a very lazy day. I woke up after just a few hours of sleep and was tired all day. Spent $2.02 for some snacks from 7/11 and some grilled meat from a street food vendor for breakfast. Spent $4.66 for more food from 7/11 for lunch and dinner. Spent $39.34 on airfare from Bangkok to Phitsanulok to see my girlfriend the following week.

Total spent for the day: $46.02

Thursday 10/3: Had a free breakfast at the hotel. Checked out at 11am and took the free hotel shuttle to the airport. Bought a bus ticket from the airport to Pattaya for $4.25. Once I arrived in Pattaya I took a mototaxi from the bus station to my hotel for $3.93. Had lunch at the McDonald’s in the mall across the street from my hotel for $4.55. I wasn’t very hungry in the evening. I bought 2 donuts for 65 cents from the Mr. Donut shop in the mall and called that dinner.

Total spent for the day: $13.38

Friday 10/4: I took a baht bus from near my hotel to the Terminal 21 mall. The Terminal 21 mall is an airport themed mall that is interesting to explore. I had a meal a Thai macaroni dish and a soda at the food court there for $1.80. After that I went to the movies and spent $13.12 for the ticket, a large popcorn (it would be a small popcorn at a U.S. Movie theater) , and a bottle of water. That is about what I would pay for a movie and a popcorn in the U.S., so it wasn’t that great of a bargain for me. After the movie I took the baht bus back to my hotel. The baht bus cost 66 cents round trip. During the afternoon I bought a plane ticket for $43.83 from Phitsanulok to Bangkok for the return portion of my trip to visit my girlfriend. In the evening I bought some snacks for $1.15 from 7-11.

Total spent for the day: $60.56

Saturday 10/5: Spent $4.57 for breakfast at Burger King. Spent $6.56 at Carl’s Jr. for lunch. I should really stop eating fast food all the time since it cost more than Thai food and is bad for me. I spent $7.32 at the grocery store in the mall for snacks. This wasn’t a frugal expenditure as approximately $5 of that total was for a bag of cheese curls. I crave my fast food and junk food too much. I broke my reading glasses and bought a replacement pair from the Daiso store in the mall for $1.97. I usually get my reading glasses from the dollar store. Although these glasses are still very cheap they seem to be better quality than the dollar store glasses. I bought a big pork pao for 92 cents from 7-11 for dinner.

Total spent for the day: $21.34

I ended up spending $155.41 for the week. The two plane tickets made up most of that total. I also paid $450 for my October rent and $19.89 for my Regal Unlimited monthly membership fee. I didn’t include those in the total since they had nothing to do with my travel. Spending almost all of one day on an airplane and crossing the international date line helped keep my expenses low. My hotel stays had already been paid using credit card points so there was no hotel expense.

If my girlfriend had joined me in Pattaya I would have spent more money since we probably would have visited some local attractions. My entertainment was mostly limited to free activities such as walking around the mall, walking along the beach, and swimming in the hotel pool. Since I’ve been to Pattaya before I didn’t feel a need to visit any attractions on this trip. The primary purpose for this trip is to finish my dental work and visit my girlfriend. If this trip were for entertainment I would have spent more, although probably not a lot more.

September Expenses – $2073.68

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

Household$339.25
Rent$450
Entertainment$25.52
Transportation$486.41
Food$241.49
Travel$188.02
Phone$31.69
Student Loan$132.58
Health$178.72
Total$2073.68

My September expenses were crazy high. During the month I purchased a new laptop, paid a speeding ticket, and paid for six months of auto insurance. That trifecta plus travel expenses for my current Thailand trip added up to make my monthly expenses double what I’d like them to be. It might be a while before I’m able to get my monthly expenses back to the $1000 level again.

Buying a new laptop made up most of the household expense. My old one died only a little over two years after I purchased it. It was out of warranty and my diagnosis after consulting YouTube and Google was that I had a fried motherboard which would not be cost effective to fix. My other big household expense was internet. I have to pay $50 a month for three more months and after that my internet will be free as long as I stay in my apartment. This expense should go way down this month.

Entertainment was for movies concessions and one month of Hulu. This expense will probably go up this month since I am traveling for two weeks.

A speeding ticket of almost $120 and $279 for six months of liability insurance combined to make a very expensive month for transportation expenses. The insurance was unavoidable and expected – although it did go up about $50 due to my move to KC – so I don’t feel bad about that. The speeding ticket was avoidable and was just a stupid expense since I had no reason to be speeding. This expense category should go way down this month.

My food expense continues to be ridiculously high. It was about $40 less than the prior month so there was a little improvement at least. I’m eating out way too much and buying too much expensive junk food. Even though I’m traveling the first two weeks of this month and will thus be eating out almost every meal I think I can reduce this expense quite a bit. Food is a lot cheaper in Thailand. Combining that savings with making smarter choices and eating less should result in a lower food bill this month.

My travel expense was mainly for three intra-Thailand flights and travel insurance. My dentist in Thailand changed my appointment dates at the last minute which is going to cause me to not be able to use the flights. They are non-refundable fares on a low-cost carrier and the change fee is more than the cost of the fare so the flights will end up being wasted money. I’m not too happy about that. This expense will probably be about the same this month.

My phone bill returned to a normal level. My data use will likely go up this month and I already made an international call so this expense will go up at least a little.

My health expense was for one month of health insurance, one month’s dues for a fitness center membership and the $40 annual fee for my fitness center membership. The fitness center membership wasn’t a good value in September since I only worked out once the entire month. This expense will go down this month.

Even though I’m traveling in Thailand the first two weeks of this month I expect my overall expenses to be much lower this month. Most of my trip expenses were paid before this month so the travel won’t inflate my total expenses much. Having much lower household and transportation expenses this month should result in a more reasonable level of expenses this month. How was your month?

My Depression History

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The last couple of months I have been battling with depression. I’m happy to report that I appear to be over this bout of depression. The last few days I’ve been in a pretty good mood. Sunday, I even felt energetic enough to give my apartment a good cleaning. Although I like having things nice and neat I dislike actual cleaning tasks such as sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing. Those things don’t get done when I’m depressed. Thus, the fact that is swept and mopped my entire apartment, and scrubbed the sink, shower, and toilet is an indicator that I’m no longer depressed.

This bout of depression set in a few days after I returned from Thailand. After returning from Thailand I moved back to KC to the basement studio apartment I lived in last year. The apartment was worse than I remembered. I had planned to start working at my document review job after returning to KC. It soon became clear that it was going to be a while before they had a position for me. I think the combination of those two things contributed to the onset of this bout of depression.

I’ve been depressed before. I’m not referring to “the blues” or being a little sad. I’m referring to clinical depression. I’ve battled with depression since I was a teenager. It wasn’t until I was in my 30’s that I was first diagnosed with depression. I was lucky at that time to be able to participate in a psychological study to help with my depression. The study involved using cognitive behavioral therapy to treat the depression. I was skeptical that it would be effective, but I do believe it helped a little. That bout of depression did eventually go away even though I quit the study.

When I was in law school I became depressed again. The plus to becoming depressed in law school is that it isn’t that uncommon and they have resources available to deal with it. At my 1L law school the doctor put me on Lexapro and I had a couple of therapy sessions. It was the last month of the school year when I went to the doctor and got diagnosed with depression. That prevented me from being able to continue with the therapy. The Lexapro didn’t seem to have any effect on me. As far as I was concerned I might as well have been taking a sugar pill. Shortly, after my IL year ended I quit taking the Lexapro. That turned out to be a big mistake since my depression got even worse.

I transferred to a new law school for my 2L year. I didn’t seek out any treatment for my depression at the new school. It didn’t seem like the treatment did any good and I was embarrassed to admit I couldn’t fix my depression. After almost failing out of law school my 2L year I admitted to my academic adviser that I was depressed and I was referred to the school’s clinic. They psychiatrist there put me on another medication. I don’t remember the name of that medication, but it also had no effect on me.

After a dosage increase in the first medication still didn’t produce any results the doc put me on Wellbutrin. That medicine did have an effect on me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good effect. It made me feel drugged and fuzzy all the time. I didn’t take that medicine very long and refused to try any other medications.

I continued going to therapy for about a year more. I didn’t feel like it helped much. I eventually quit going as the depression went away.

I’m not sure why my depression went away this time. I think the chemicals in my brain get back in balance after a while. Getting them back in balance is largely out of my control. Things like exercise, eating healthy, and being productive help with the depression. Of course, those are all things I find very hard to do when I’m depressed. Now that I’m over this bout of depression I will try to exercise, eat healthy, and keep busy to hopefully lessen my chances of suffering another bout of depression.

To tie this in to personal finance I will add that depression has cost me a lot of money. It has kept from working long term at a job and building a career. I should have made a lot more money in my life at this point than I have. It was a factor in me switching law schools from a top 25 law school to a tier 3 law school and barely graduating from the tier 3 school. I think it was also a factor in the gambling addiction I had in my 20’s which resulted in bankruptcy. I lost thousands of dollars more even after the bankruptcy. Those are just a few of the ways depression has cost me money.

There is nothing I can do about how depression has affected me in the past. I just need to be sure that if I ever have another bout of depression that I don’t delay treating it.