Andy Hough

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

My June expenses were overall very reasonable. If it weren’t for some extra spending in the entertainment and food categories I would have made my $1000 monthly expense target.  Of course, there is almost always some expense category that is larger than normal causing me to miss the $1000 target. If I can ever have a month with completely normal expenses I’ll easily make the $1000 goal. I’m going to do some traveling this month which will cause the travel expense category to be larger than normal.

The entertainment  category was unusually high in June. That was because I spent $120 on a $150 movie gift card. Although I accounted for the entire expense in June we will be using the card for months. That should result in very low entertainment expense for the next few months.

Food was high because I went out to eat almost every work day. Now that I’m no longer working and trying to lose weight I will cut way back on eating out and should reduce this expense considerably. However, I do plan on traveling quite a bit this month which will make it challenging to stay out of restaurants and keep my food expenditure at a reasonable level.

I expect my other expense categories to be about the same in July as in June.  I’ll be pretty happy if I’m able to keep July’s expenses at roughly the same level as June.

In order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth each month. This month’s is a little delayed since I was hiking at the beginning of the month.

My net worth as of today (6/5/2016) is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $4111.14 (+$82.14)
IRA – $23,038.72 (+$361.07)
Roth IRA – $10,047.80 (+$182.47)
Car/Stuff – $4900 (-$100)

Liabilities
Student Loan – $128,617.26 ($451.38)

Net Worth = $-86,519.60

My net worth improved by $74.30 since the last update. That isn’t much but it is better than the decrease I had the previous month.

As I’ve stated before this massive student loan makes it difficult for me to get ahead financially. I applied to refinance my loans earlier this month and was declined. That isn’t too surprising considering the amount of my debt compared to my income level. At my current income level it is almost impossible to make any progress on my loans. I’m hoping I’ll be able to increase my income considerably by the end of the year and do have an idea of how to accomplish that.

I’ve been using Personal Capital (aff 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.

Personal Capital

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

My income wasn’t too great in May. I did start a job in the second half of the month. I only received a paycheck for two days work in May so the job didn’t provide much of an income boost for May.  The job paychecks should make this month a much better income month.

It was nice to have two profitable online months in a row. My online income will probably never return to the level it was a few years ago, but if I can make a thousand dollars or two from blogging I’ll be happy with that.

My FBA income has been pretty pitiful the last couple of months. I’d like to rebuild FBA income back to the $1000 a month level which I know is possible. That will have to wait since I don’t want to put too much time into FBA while I’m working a full-time job. On a positive note, making purchases for FBA has increased my cash back income.

For now I will mainly focus on making money from my job.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

My May expenses were back to a normal level. I would have made my $1000 spending target if it weren’t for paying for a dental scan and the amount of the doctor’s bill for my colonoscopy that my insurance didn’t cover. In order to meet the $1000 target I need to have a month with no irregular expenses which doesn’t happen very often.

My total expenses for this month will probably be about the same. My transportation expense will go up since I’m driving 60 miles round-trip to work and I’m driving to a conference that is about three hours away. My health and travel expenses should go down which will hopefully more than offset my increased transportation expense.  There shouldn’t be a big change in any of the other expense categories.

I’m pretty satisfied with my current level of expenses.  There isn’t much improvement to be made there. Income is where I need a lot of improvement.