Andy Hough

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Yikes! My income for May was terrible.  A check I was supposed to receive from an advertiser didn’t arrive so I my online income was actually negative in May. To keep things simple I’m just going to subtract the loss from June’s income.  The check has been promised to arrive in June so I should have at least a little bit of positive online income this month.

Since I sold most of my dividend stocks and invested them in an index fund in my IRA my dividend income is way down.  None of the individual stocks I own paid a dividend in May resulting in $0 dividend income for the month.  I do have at least one stock paying a dividend this month. It won’t be much, but it is better than $0.

My income from Mr. Rebates was one of my largest sources of income this month. That income would have to be a lot bigger for that to be a good thing.  If you haven’t joined Mr. Rebates yet you can get a $5 bonus for signing up through my referral link and I’ll make a little money for referring you as well.

I started a new experiment trying to make money with Amazon FBA.  As you can see, I didn’t do too well. If I hadn’t made the mistake of paying $40 for a professional seller account I would have done ok for the month.  I’m going to continue to try to make money with Amazon FBA, but I will keep the expenses down. I’ll try to make a little more from Ebay and Craigslist too.

My June income should be much better.  Of course, it won’t be hard to improve on May’s meager income. I worked 43.5 hours at a job in May and that paycheck will be received this month. I did some mystery shopping in May that I’ll get paid for this month. Also, I had an MRI for a medical study that I will get paid for this month.  If I make the study I should make about $1000 from it this month. Even if I don’t make the study I’ll still get paid for the MRI I took in May.  Although I didn’t make much money in May I did participate in endeavors in May that will pay me this month.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

My May expenses were pretty low, but I didn’t quite make my goal of keeping my expenses under $1000 a month.  The main budget killer this month was my entertainment expense.  The main reason for it being high was that I included the purchase of my bike and bike accessories as entertainment.  My bike only cost $15.  Buying a helmet, car carrier, bike tools, and a spare tube added quite a bit more to the total cost though.  If I follow through and ride my bike regularly this will be money well spent.

The health cost was a little higher than usual because I had a dentist appointment. I might have another dentist appointment this month which would keep this expense category high.  I plan on having a lot of dental work done so this will be an expensive category in the coming months.

My transportation cost was unusually low. My only transportation expense for the month was gasoline. The gas expense was kept down by using cash back from my credit card. This month I have to buy six months of insurance and renew my car registration so this category will go way up.

My expenses this month will probably be up slightly since I have an over $200 car insurance bill to pay. I’m also taking a three day vacation in Las Vegas. Most of that vacation has already been paid.  If I don’t do well at the poker tables though, the vacation could get a lot more expensive.

I didn’t put any money into savings in April and I did not take any money out of savings in April leaving me with a 0% savings rate for April. I could have made a token contribution to savings in April, but since my future income is uncertain I decided not to add to my long-term savings. It makes more sense to keep the money in my checking account now and I can transfer it over once I have a steady source of income again. I don’t want to transfer money to savings and then have to take it right back out again.

My SWR rate for April was basically unchanged at 39.23% compared to 39.05% the month before. My goal is to get the SWR down to 4% so the lower my SWR is the better. That goal is probably many years from being met. The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. Once I reach that point I will consider myself financially independent.

I have 30.59 months of living expenses saved which is basically unchanged from the 30.72 months of living expenses I had saved last month. I calculate my safe withdrawal rate by dividing the average of my trailing twelve months of expenses by my total money saved. When I don’t add any money to my savings the only changes to my SWR and months of living expenses saved are from my investment performance and the average of my trailing twelve month’s of expenses going up or down. My investments stayed about the same in April, but my monthly expenses were a little higher than usual causing the average of my trailing twelve month’s of expenses to go up. That average going up caused my numbers to be slightly worse than the month before.

I won’t be adding any money to my savings in May either because I still don’t have a stable source of income. I’m hoping that my investments perform well and I can keep my monthly expenses fairly low so I can improve my numbers even though I’m not adding to my savings. To make significant improvements though I’ll need a steady stream of income so I can put more in my savings. I’m hoping I will get another job this month or early next month.