Andy Hough

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

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June was a great month for expenses. They were way under my $1000 target. This is probably about as low as my expenses can get.

I didn’t have any transportation expense for the second month in a row. That will change this month since I’ll need to purchase gas. Also, my check engine light is on and I’ll need to fix the problem that is causing that. I’ve researched it a little and I think I’ll be able to do it myself for relatively cheap.

I’ve decided to list my student loan expense separately since it will throw off my monthly numbers. In June I paid $500 towards my student loan.  That was a pretty good amount for the month since I made very little money. I should be able to make a bigger payment this month now that I’m getting paychecks again.

I expect my expenses to stay largely the same this month other than my transportation expense.  I doubt I’ll be able to keep my expenses as low as in June, but I think I should still be able to keep them under $1000.

How was your month?

In order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth a few times a year.

My net worth as of 06/5/2017 is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $9363
IRA – $26,543
Roth IRA – $1632
Solo 401k – $1101
Car/Stuff – $3600

Liabilities
Student Loan – $114,362
Credit Card – $7775

Net Worth = $-79,898

My net worth declined a little over $800  last month. This wasn’t unexpected since I had very little income in May. Most of the month’s decline was from depleting my cash balance to pay bills. Considering I had a three-week European vacation and almost no income in May, my net worth decreasing by only $800 is pretty good. I’ll be returning to work this month. I’m not sure when my payday will be. If I get a paycheck before the end of the month I should increase my net worth this month. If not I will have another decrease in my net worth.

I’ve been using Personal Capital (affiliate link) to help track my net worth. It keeps track of all of my financial accounts and my student loan making it pretty easy to calculate my net worth each month. It is free to sign up. If you would like to sign up I’d appreciate you using my link. All blog income, including affiliate income, goes to paying down my student loan.

Personal Capital

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

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May was a pretty good month for expenses considering I was on vacation for three weeks of the month. My food, travel, and entertainment expenses were all a bit higher than usual due to being on vacation.

I didn’t have any transportation expense for the month. I did have expenses for Uber, trains, and buses while in Europe.  Those are included in the travel expense category rather than transportation for this month.

I’ve decided to list my student loan expense separately since it will throw off my monthly numbers. In May I paid $1549.17 towards my student loan.  That was a pretty good amount for the month since I made very little money in May.  I won’t be able to make a large payment towards my student loan this month, but I might at least make a small payment to slow down the increase in my loan balance.  Next month I should be able to make a large payment towards my loan again.

Considering I was in Europe for three weeks where things are quite a bit more expensive than here in KC I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my expenses reasonably low for the month.  I could have done even better, but the fatigue of travel often led to me making the easiest purchase rather than the most frugal purchase. Overall, I am happy with my level of expenses for the trip.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

May’s income was pretty slim. This was expected since I started my sabbatical from my job in late April and was out of the country for three weeks of May. Without the steady income from the job and with no time to make money from my alternative sources not much money was made in May. Thankfully, my job will resume later this month so I’ll start making decent money again. I may not get my first paycheck until July though which would result in another tiny income month this month. Hopefully, I will at least make more this month then I did in May.