Andy Hough

June 2016 Net Worth Update

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penniesIn 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

May Income – $940.63

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Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Job $283.62
Interest $0.82
Online Income $284.85
Amazon FBA $246.27
Cash Back $125.07
Total $940.63

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.

 

May Expenses $1278.16

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

Household $403.75
Entertainment $80.28
Transportation $93.50
Food $168.53
Student Loan $37.71
Travel $146.38
Phone $36.79
Health $311.22
Total $1278.16

 

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.

Back to Work and Other News

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customerserviceI started at a new document review job this Thursday. I had been waiting for the document review company I worked for previously to contact me. I hadn’t yet heard from them on Tuesday and decided to search a couple of job sites online. I found a couple of document review jobs and submitted my resume for both of the jobs. One of the companies emailed me later that day offering me a job and the other company contacted me on Wednesday offering a job. Since the job for the first company was only scheduled for a week and the job at the second company is predicted to last through the summer I accepted the job with the second company. On Friday the document review company that I’ve worked for in the past contacted me about a new project.  I had to let them know that I’d already started at another company. I found it slightly amusing that I waited two weeks without hearing anything and as soon as I accepted a job I was offered jobs at two more companies.

There are a couple of good things about my new doc review job. One is that they are open 7-7 Monday through Friday, 8-6 on Saturday, and I can work my 40 hours whenever I want to during that time frame. If I wanted to I’m allowed to work up to 60 hours a week. Since there is no overtime and I find 40 hours a week to be enough work for me it is extremely unlikely I’ll ever work 60 hours a week but it is nice to have the option. Another nice thing about this job is they have a casual dress code. As in it is okay to wear shorts and a t-shirt casual. This is the first doc review job I’ve worked that had that casual of a dress code everyday. It is nice to be comfortable while I’m working.

The drawbacks to the job are that it is very boring just like all the other doc review jobs. I can listen to music or podcasts while working which does help alleviate the boredom. The other drawback is that it is thirty miles from my house. That is a longer commute than I’d prefer. The traffic hasn’t been too bad yet so at least the commute isn’t stressful. It is just time-consuming.

Next month I will be attending the Missouri Solo and Small Firm Conference. I’m hoping I will learn enough there to be able to start my own law practice. Or at least learn enough to start the process of opening my own firm. Doc review jobs here pays $22-$23 an hour. Before law school I would have thought that was a great rate of pay. Now that I have six figures of debt that level of pay just doesn’t cut it. If I’m going to be able to pay off my student loan I need to make a lot more money. I’ll let you know how the conference went after it is done.

That is all the news I have for now. I probably won’t be writing much the next few weeks since I generally don’t feel much like writing for the blog when I’m working full-time. If there are any topics you would like me to write about let me know and I’ll eventually write a post on the topic.

 

May 2016 Net Worth Update

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penniesIn 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 (5/13/2016) is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $4029
IRA – $22,677.65
Roth IRA – $9865.33
Car/Stuff – $5000

Liabilities
Student Loan – $128,165.88

Net Worth = $-86,593.90

***Update*** After I posted this I discovered the net worth total was incorrect. The post has been updated to reflect the correct amount.

My net worth improved about $350 in April. That isn’t much, but at least it was an improvement. (actually after correcting my math my net worth did decrease a little in April) Since I was hiking and didn’t make much I thought I might have a net worth decrease for the month.

Although I didn’t have much income for the month my cash position increased quite a bit. A lot of that was due to selling quite a few low or no profit items on Amazon FBA. Those items didn’t result in much income, but since they were purchased in previous months they increased April’s cash flow.

The big negative continues to be my student loan. The loan accrued another $791.58 in interest since last month’s post. It appears that I’m being charged interest on my entire balance although it is my understanding that I should only be charged interest on the original principal amount. I will have to contact them and see if I can clarify this.

As I’ve stated before this massive student loan makes it difficult for me to get ahead financially. I’d like to get this refinanced, but that will be difficult to do until I have steady employment and consistent income.  I need to do something soon since I’m basically throwing away $700 a month.

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