Andy Hough

August Expenses – $1188.95

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for August.

Household $406.39
Entertainment $0.80
Transportation $169.55
Food $92.81
Student Loan $183.86
Travel $0
Phone $36.79
Health $259.85
Total $1188.95

 

My August expenses were reasonable. They were much lower than in July when I had to pay for my dental implant surgery.  They still weren’t under $1000 like I’d prefer due to medical expenses. Since I’ll have medical expenses and my trip expenses this month my expenses won’t be under $1000 this month either.

One good thing about the high expenses the previous month was that they generated a lot of credit card cash back rewards. I used the rewards to eliminate my travel spending for the month and to almost eliminate my entertainment expense for the month. Both of those categories will be higher this month and the travel category will be a lot higher.

My food expense was unusually low in August. I somehow managed to cut way back on my usual fast-food spending. I’ve already spent more on fast-food this month then in all of August so my food expense will be higher as well.

I’ll be lucky if I can keep my expenses below $1500 this month since I spent about $300 on my trip. If I have to pay my biopsy bill this month as well then my expenses will be way over $1500. If it weren’t for medical expenses I’d be very pleased with my level of spending this year. Since the medical expenses are somewhat unavoidable I don’t feel too bad about them. I will just do my best to contain the expenses that are under my control.

A Fun and Profitable Vacation

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View from Cape Horn
View from Cape Horn
Last week my GF and I spent four days on vacation in the Portland, Oregon area. We were visiting friends of my GF that live there. We spent one day doing a tour of the waterfalls in the area and enjoying the scenery. There is spectacular scenery in this area. We ate that evening at the Portland Grill which features a fantastic view of the city. The next day we went to the famous Powell’s Books and went out for a great lunch at Killer Burger. We also spent a lot of time hanging out at our friend’s house and catching up with them. It was a short and fun vacation.

Multnomah Falls
Multnomah Falls

Making the vacation even better for a tight-fisted miser like me was the fact that the vacation was almost free. Our round-trip airfare on Southwest was free using Rapid Reward points. We only had to use points to purchase my airfare since we have a companion pass allowing my GF to fly free with me. The only cost for the airfare was the $5.60 security fee. We didn’t have any hotel cost since we stayed with our friends. They will be visiting us in September so we can return the favor. They were also nice enough to lend us a car so we didn’t have to spend any money on a rental car. Other than leaving $20 for gas in the car the use of the car was free. Our biggest expense was for restaurants. We went to happy hour at the Portland City Grill which kept the cost of the meal reasonable. Killer Burger is a fast casual restaurant so it was a reasonable cost as well. Our only other cost was for airport parking. I used a coupon giving us a free day of parking which made the total cost of parking $21. Our total out-of-pocket cost was just a little over $100. I think that is a great deal.

Bridge of the Gods
Bridge of the Gods

The trip became an even better deal on the way home. When we arrived for our flight home Southwest was asking for volunteers to be bumped from our flight. Since I was traveling on a ticket bought with points and my GF was flying free on the companion pass I wasn’t sure they would offer us much for being bumped. Before volunteering I asked the agent how much we would get for being bumped. When she told me we’d be compensated $500 for my ticket and $400 for my GF’s ticket I decided to take the offer and be bumped to the later flight. The later flight was only a couple of hours later but since it was a connecting flight rather than a non-stop flight like our original flight we ended up arriving in KC about 5 hours later than we originally would have. We didn’t have anything planned for that day so the delay wasn’t a big deal. I felt like receiving $900 in travel credit for a few hours delay was a great deal.

Overall, we spent a little over $100 on our vacation and made $900 in travel credit on the vacation. This vacation will pay for our next vacation. It was a fun and profitable vacation.

Savings Saturday – Two Ways to Save 30% on Movie Tickets

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vcheckout  If you have been reading this blog for a while you probably know that I love to go to the movies. My GF and I go to the movies most weekends which adds up to about thirty movie outings a year. Since this is a frequent expense I have found several ways to keep the cost of going to the movies relatively low.

One way I save on movie tickets is by attending the first showing of the day. The movie theater we usually attend only charges $5. 20 for a movie ticket for the first showtime of the day. A later matinée would cost $8.67 and an evening show would cost $10.29. Going to an evening showing rather than the first show of the day costs almost double the price of attending the first showing of the day. Attending the first show of the day is generally a more pleasant viewing experience since the theaters are less crowded giving you plenty of space and making it less likely that a fellow patron will distract you from the movie.

Another way to save on movie tickets is to buy discount gift cards. I was able to buy a $25 AMC gift card for 30% off this weekend at Raise.com.  That is a better discount than the usual 15-20% off, but better deals are such as the 30% gift card are sometimes available. At the time of this writing I still see a few vouchers left at 29.9% off. If they sell out  buying a card at the regular discount of 15-20% off is still a good deal. If you are not yet a member of Raise.com please consider joining using my referral link.  You will get $5 for joining and making a purchase and I’ll get $5 as well.

Visa Checkout is having a temporary promotion with Fandango offering $10 off when you buy three or more movie tickets through Visa Checkout on Fandango on the weekends. This deal lasts until September 6, 2015 while supplies last. Get full details on the promo at the Fandango/Visa Checkout web page.  I used this promo a couple of weeks ago to get three movie tickets for a total of $5.60. Even though we didn’t have a third person to give the extra ticket to with this promo it was cheaper to buy three tickets than two. Unfortunately, this is a one time use promo or I’d be taking advantage of this deal again this weekend.

Going to the movies can be pricy but by taking advantage of good deals and special promotions a movie outing can be cheap entertainment.

August 2015 Goals and Plans

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It has been a while since I’ve done a post reviewing my monthly and yearly goals. I made some goals for June and never got around to reviewing how I did on those goals. The fact that I pretty much forgot what those goals were gives you a pretty idea how I did.  I didn’t even bother making any goals for July since I knew I wouldn’t meet them. When I’m working full-time I don’t accomplish anything outside of the job. There has been a lack of progress on my yearly goals as well.

My yearly goals are are to keep my expenses under $1k a month, run a 5k in under 23:59, and be able to do one pull-up. If you don’t count medical expenses I’ve been doing pretty well at keeping my expenses under $1k a month. I’m doing okay on that goal.

I’m doing terrible on my other two goals. If I had to run a 5k today I would probably be slower than I would have been at the beginning of the year. I need to get into a routine or running regularly. It has been too hot to run outside. That isn’t much of an excuse though since we do have a treadmill in the basement. I do find running on the treadmill boring, but I need to do it anyway if I’m going to make any progress on my 5k goal. Although I doubt it is possible for me to make this goal by the end of the year I’d still consider this goal a partial success if I could considerably improve my 5k time. A new goal of running a 5k under 30 minutes is probably more realistic.

My arms might be slightly stronger, but I’m a long way from being able to do a pull-up.  I did buy some dumbbells back in June and have been using them semi-regularly. I need to buy some new weights since I’ve maxed out on the weights that came with the dumbbell set. I seriously doubt I’ll be able to do a pull-up by the end of the year. I’m not sure what I could set as a new goal in place of this goal.

I’m only setting one goal for this month since it is a big goal for me. This month I intend to give up drinking soda. I already tried to do this a couple of times last month, but gave up when the caffeine withdrawal headaches and other symptoms hit. I just started a new attempt at quitting soda this weekend and woke up with a terrible headache and body aches this morning. I drank some tea to get some caffeine which has lessened my aches although it hasn’t cured them. My plan for quitting this time is rather than quitting cold turkey I’ll cut down to one 12 oz soda a day for a week or two in order to hopefully reduce the withdrawal symptoms when I quit the soda completely. I’ve been having sleep, fatigue, and digestive problems which I’m thinking are probably caused at least in part from my large intake of soda.

I have a tentative plan to start a roughly one-month hike on the Appalachian Trail on August 25th. If my health and finances permit me to hike than I will hike. The hike should allow me to lose weight which will be helpful in making progress towards my 5k and pull-up goals. Being in the woods without regular access to convenience stores and fast-food should also make it easier to give up soda.

If you have any tips on how I could make better progress on my goals I’d love to hear them.

July Income – $2311.68

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Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

Online Income $71.80
Interest $1.13
Cash Back $11.10
Amazon FBA $156.53
Uber $0
Mystery Shop $13
Job $2058.12
Total $2311.68

July was a good income month. This was due to my document review job that I worked the end of June and the first two and half weeks of July.  I had to take some time off of that job for my dental implant surgery. This job is project based and I may return to it after my Portland trip and hiking trip if they have another project for me to work on.

I would prefer to make the majority of my income from my alternative income sources, but I haven’t been very successful at doing that yet. I didn’t have any Uber income last month since it didn’t make since to make low pay at Uber when I could work more hours at my document review job which pays roughly double what I make from Uber.

My Amazon FBA income is starting to pick up.  Although my profit wasn’t that high this was actually my highest income month from FBA. My profit was low because I bought a label printer, labels, a barcode scanner, and upgraded to a profession account. Although these expenses brought my profit down for July I believe they will result in higher profits in the coming months. I sold at least one item every day last week and I have a lot more inventory for sale than I’ve ever had before. This should result in August being a new high FBA income month. I have a long ways to go before this replaces my job income, but I do believe it is possible.