Andy Hough

March Expenses – $2206.26

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for March.

Household $60.70
Rent $435
Entertainment $16.45
Transportation $317.13
Food $179.61
Travel $553.26
Phone $25.27
Health $112.89
Student Loan $505.95
Total $2206.26

My March expenses were a little high. I did not come close to making my monthly goal of $1000.The high expense total this month was due to making a $500 payment on my student loan and having over $500 of travel expenses. The travel expense includes the annual fee on credit card that will provide me with over $500 of points towards travel, an Amtrak ticket from KC to Massachusetts, airfare from KC to L.A., airfare from Boston to KC, $50 of Uber credit, and a business class airfare from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok. Some of the domestic airfare was paid with a gift card I got as a gift. In addition to the travel I paid for in March, I also booked a free round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur, a free night at a LAX hotel, and two free nights at a Kuala Lumpur hotel. I think I got a lot of value for the money I spent on travel.

My monthly food expense was too high once again.  March’s food expense was a couple of dollars higher than February.  I say this every month, but I still think I can do better.   I have quite a bit of food to eat at home and I’ll get several free meals at work this month so it really shouldn’t be too hard to reduce my food expenses.

My transportation expenses were a little high due to a couple of Uber rides, paying for 6 months of insurance, and buying a gas card. I shouldn’t have any gas expense in April or May.

I’m planning on having a car repair performed this month. Other than that I don’t plan on having any unusual expenses so my expenses should get back down to around the $1000 level. Although my expenses were higher than normal in March, I’m okay with that since I got a lot for what I spent and the money spent this month will reduce what I spend in future months.

March Income – $8206.85

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Here is a breakdown of my income for March.

Interest $4.11
Amazon FBA $427.49
Cash Back $47.65
Online ($15.77)
Job $7743.37
Total $8206.85

 

March was an amazing month for income. Last month I said February was probably the most I’ve ever made in a month in my life. March was definitely the most I ever made in a month. It will be a tough one to top.

I made $7743 from my job. That was the product of working about 20 hours a week overtime and having three paychecks during the month.  I’ve been allocating most of my paycheck to my 401k. This helps boost my income a little by reducing the taxes taken out of the check.

My other sources of income didn’t add up to much. I’m okay with that. Since I’m working so many hours at work there isn’t much time left to spend on other things. For now it makes sense to take the guaranteed return from OT at work and neglect my online and FBA businesses. During my time off later this year I will work on building them back up.

My FBA income wasn’t too bad due to finding one product that made me almost $200 in profit. Online income was actually a loss due to having to pay to renew a domain name and still not making any money this year. I’ll eventually get an Adsense payout so my online business will make at least a little money.

This month will be a good month for income. It will be a lot less than in March though due to only having the normal two paydays this month. April will be my last month for big paychecks with lots of overtime so I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

 

I’m Semi-Retired (kinda) ?!?!

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This year I will be trying out semi-retirement. I have been working seasonally at my tax job the last few years, until last year when I was hired to work year round. Working all year had its pluses. I made more money and I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to do to make money when tax season was over. The downside was that I was working all year. Even with what most would consider a very generous amount of time off – eight weeks- I didn’t feel like I had nearly enough time to do all that I wanted to do. Also, my health continued to decline. I gained more weight, my blood pressure stayed high, and my blood sugar rose to the pre-diabetic level. During my eight weeks off I lost five pounds and my blood pressure dropped to almost normal levels. Once I returned to work, my weight and blood pressure quickly returned to their previous levels. Although I know working 40 hours a week is normal, I find it stressful and draining. After a normal work day, I am tired and just want to relax with my laptop and eat junk food. It was obvious to me that something had to change. I’d probably die before I was able to retire if I continued the way things were going.

Last week, I took some action to change things. I talked to my boss and let him know I wanted more time off. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured they would let me go back to working just the 3 1/2 month tax season even if they weren’t happy about it. I was pleasantly surprised when my boss offered to let me work 5 1/2 months. He wanted me to work about 6 months, but the scheduling didn’t quite work out for that. Working 5 1/2 months is going to be great for me. It will allow me plenty of time to travel and pursue other interests while still easily making enough money to live. I have my expenses low enough that I can easily live off 5 1/2 months of wages. Considering the amount of overtime I work during tax season my hours might be closer to 6 1/2 months of hours. I expect to still be able to save a few thousand dollars a year. I’ve already saved $5000 in my 401k and IRA this year and I plan on adding more to them.

My Plans for This Year

This year I plan on heading to the Appalachian Trail and finally completing the trail. I’ll leave the first weekend in May and it should take me about 6-8 weeks to finish. I’ve already booked a train to the trail and a hotel room for the night I arrive since it will be too late to start hiking that night. Hiking the AT can be a pretty cheap activity so I don’t expect my living costs to be much more than normal while I’m hiking. It should cost me about $1000 a month to hike which is about what I spend at home. I will have to keep paying rent while hiking so my overall monthly expenses might be a little higher than normal.

In September I will leave on a 2 1/2 month trip to SE Asia. I’ll leave on Labor Day and return the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I’m flying from LAX to Kuala Lumpur and returning to LAX from Bangkok. This was a super cheap airfare that I was able to get for just 25,,000 points from one of my credit cards. I’ve already booked 5 hotel nights for super cheap price of about $40 out of pocket by getting free nights using my Starwood points and booking a really cheap hotel on the other nights. I still need to add a couple of regional flights. Since they are nonrefundable and seem to be reliably cheap I’m going to wait a little while before booking them.

My main reason for traveling to SE Asia is to check out Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is known for being host to a lot of digital nomads and having a very low cost of living. It is hard for me to get my cost of living much lower than it already is, but it might be possible in Chiang Mai. If I end up liking Chiang Mai my plan is to return there every year after the tax season. This will allow me to really stretch the dollars I earn during tax season and hopefully save up some money to eventually be fully retired rather than semi-retired.

If things work like I envision it will be no problem to work tax season a few more years while relaxing in Chiang Mai during the rest of the year. Of course, I won’t just be relaxing the entire time I’m not working my tax job. I’ll write on this blog more often and possibly revive a couple of my other blogs that have been mostly sitting idle the past few years. I’ll also be exercising regularly. I’m sure I’ll find another interest or two to keep me busy as well. Since I am lucky enough to be given this time off from my job each year I want to make sure I don’t waste it.

That is the basics of my semi-retirement plan. I’ll update you on the details as my plan solidifies.

What do you think? Will the plan work or …? I’d love to hear any questions or comments you have about my semi-retirement plan.

February Income – $6765.25

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Here is a breakdown of my income for February.

Interest $1.80
Amazon FBA $171.30
Cash Back $55.87
Online $0
Credit Card Other $125
Tax Refund $2421
Job $3990.28
Total $6765.25

 

February was a great income month. It was probably the most I’ve ever made in a month in my life.

I made almost $4000 from my job. That was with one of the paychecks only having a little bit of overtime. Now that tax season is in full swing I’m working about 60 hours a week every week. My last check of February had almost 40 hours of overtime making it more than twice as big as my normal paychecks.

I also got a nice refund of $2400 from my federal and state taxes. I claimed “0” for withholding during the year since I wanted to make sure I had enough withheld to cover the SE tax from blogging and FBA income. I guess I didn’t need to withhold that much. Even with having to repay $750 of the Premium Tax Credit I still got a big refund on my federal refund.  Although I had a big refund my tax liability wasn’t $0 as it has been in many years. The government got to keep about $3000 of the taxes I had withheld from my check. I’m not complaining. I’m going to leave my withholding as it is. Since I wouldn’t earn much interest on the extra income anyway I’d rather play it safe and have taxes withheld at the same rate.

This month is going to be another great month. There won’t be a tax refund but there will be three paydays. And these will all be paydays that I have about 40 hours of overtime. I should make over $6000 again.

I am beginning to burn out from working all these hours. Tax season will end next month so I can make it through. I definitely wouldn’t want to work these kinda hours all year. The big checks give me enough motivation to keep working overtime through tax season though. I should have been working overtime like this in previous tax seasons.

My other sources of income are being neglected during tax season. It doesn’t make much sense to spend time on them when I have unlimited overtime available right now that will pay me a guaranteed rate of return.

I’ll be a little sad in May once my paychecks go back to normal. For now, I’ll enjoy the big checks while they last.

February Expenses – $1136.14

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

Household $57.47
Rent $435
Entertainment $19.55
Transportation $170
Food $176.89
Travel $0
Phone $14.04
Health $263.19
Total $1136.14

 

My February expenses were very high. I came fairly close to making my monthly goal of $1000.

I got a speeding ticket that set me back $143.50. That was the first I got a speeding ticket since the 90’s. I was unpleasantly surprised at how high the fine was. I will be watching my speed a little more carefully now. Without that ticket my transportation expense would have been super low. I only had to get gas once in February. Since I live close to work and am working so much that I rarely go anywhere besides work and home I’m not using much gas. My gas expense will go up a little this month. I’ll also be taking the bus or Uber to and from work for a few days so I don’t have to deal with the traffic caused by the Big 12 tournament. Even with the addition of those expenses, my transportation expenses should be way down this month since I don’t plan on getting another ticket.

I also had a $165 medical bill.  Without that medical bill I would have made it under my $1000 goal. My medical expense should go back to normal this month. There shouldn’t be any expense other than my health insurance.

My monthly food expense was too high once again.  This is getting to be a broken record. I am starting the month with a lot of groceries. If I start eating at home more and eating out less I can cut the food budget down quite a bit. It will be a little healthier for me as well.  This really shouldn’t be too hard to do.

Other than that my expenses this month should be about the same as last month. Barring any unforeseen expenses, March will be the first month this year I hit my $1000 monthly spending target.