December Income – $1668.65

Here is a breakdown of my income for December.

Online Income

$707.96

Interest

$0.09

Dividends

$55.89

Cash Back

$97.57

Mystery Shopping

$37.50

Jobs

$769.64

Total

$1668.65

My income was down quite a bit in December.  This wasn’t surprising since I no longer had income from my attorney job and my new job didn’t start until this month.  My income was at least slightly larger than my expenses.  My income should increase this month since I have started my new, better-paying job.  I’m not sure how the paydays will fall for the new job, but I think I will only get one check and that it will be for less than a full pay period.  February will be the first month that I will have two paychecks from new job reflected in monthly income statement.  That will allow me to start the year with a growing income trend at least.

I was hoping to start working another new job at a CPA firm this month.  Unfortunately, since the job I just started and the other job I was going to start are both in the tax preparation field I will not be allowed to take the CPA firm job.  I will still be working 65 1/4 hours a week between the two jobs I do have.  Perhaps, the third job would have been too much.

My sources of passive and alternative income didn’t add up to much, but every little bit helps.  I  managed to get a total of $97.57 in cash back this month.  Most of that was from buying my new car with my credit card.  I did get a little bit from Mr. Rebates as well.  I’ll be getting more from Mr. Rebates next month since my referrals did more shopping than usual in December.  I’m hoping to max my cash back this year.  If you sign up for Mr. Rebates it can help max your cash back also.

December Expenses – $1580.99

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

Household

$332.35

Entertainment

$104

Transportation

$826.79

Food

$168.79

Debt $5.00
Phone

$26.81

Health

$117.25

Total

$1580.99

My December expenses were quite a bit higher than my November expenses. Ideally, I would keep my monthly expenses below $1000. I came close to that level in November with expenses coming in at $1113.82. My December expenses came in at $1580.99. The high amount was mostly from my transportation expenses. I paid sales tax and licensing on my new car and six months insurance for both my van and car in December. Some of the insurance money will eventually be refunded once I’m able to sell the van. My gas expense for the month was $208.96 compared to $571.96 in November. That is a significant improvement, but I would like to do better. I had three trips from KC to SW Missouri in December and shouldn’t have any this month. That alone should result in a significant drop in my gasoline expense.

My food expense was also higher than I would prefer. One reason it was high was from eating fast food too often. The other reason was that I bought a lot of groceries when I moved into my apartment. I’ve barely made a dent in my groceries so I should have a much lower food bill this month.

The household bill will be a little larger since I will be paying a full month’s rent. I will also have to pay my first electric bill. I expect it will be about $25-$30 since I haven’t been using much electricity.

In order to meet my goal of living on minimum wage, I will need to keep my expenses below $1274 a month. I shouldn’t have any large expenses this month so I should easily keep my expenses below that level and perhaps I might get them below $1000 for the month.

 

Setting Financial Goals for 2013 – $100 Giveaway

I have already set my financial goals for 2013. My current financial goals for 2013 are to save 50% of my income and live on minimum wage. I will likely set a couple more financial goals later in the year. If you haven’t set any financial goals for 2013 you should. Studies have shown that making a specific resolution is ten times more likely to be successful compared to just generally wanting to do something. For example, if you set a goal to save $100 a week you are much more likely to be successful than if you just want to save more money, but don’t set a goal.

In order to keep on track with your goals it helps to review them from time to time. You can decide to review your goals on a weekly, monthly, quarterly basis or whatever works for you. This is an area I definitely need to improve on. It can also help to remind yourself of your motivation for your financial goal. One of my goals is to save 50% of my income so I can become financially independent. Reading Your Money or Your Life every year reminds me of why I want to be frugal and save money.

Keeping your goals is also easier if your goals are complementary. Living on minimum wage will keep my expense level low and make it easier for me to save 50% of my income. If you are going to set multiple financial goals you should determine how each goal affects the other and adjust your goals if necessary.

You can enter to win $100 by clicking on the Rafflecopter widget below. Perhaps the $100 could be a jump start for your savings. If you would like to be part of the next giveaway, you can read more about them at the snowflake giveaway page.

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2012 Recap

Since this is the last day of the year it is a good time to look back on how I did in 2012. This year definitely had some ups and downs. I will start with the negatives and then the positives so this post can end on a high note, just like 2012.

I set three goals for this year and didn’t meet any of them. My first and biggest goal was to lose 50 pounds. At one point I did manage to get to about ten pounds lost, but I am going to end the year only about 6 or 7 pounds lighter than I started. Although I’m glad I lost a little weight, I could have done much better. Since I’m still eating lots of junk food and rarely exercising, it is not surprising that I lost so little weight. I need to improve this in 2013.

My second goal was to increase my online income. That goal was seriously derailed by the Google updates in the spring. They seem to have hit my sites harder than most people were affected. I not only lost my Page Rank, I also lost a serious chunk of traffic. I have slowly rebuilt my traffic, but the income is still nowhere near what it used to be. Considering the relatively small amount of work I did put into my sites this year, I am grateful for the money I did make. My blogs did still bring in about $15k. That will likely be less in 2013 unless I put a lot of time and work into making more money online. That isn’t in my plans for now since I’ll be concentrating on making money offline for at least the first few months of 2013.

My third goal was to write a book. This goal should have been easily achieved. For some reason, I have a lot of resistance to actually sitting down and writing a book. I always find something else to do other than write the book. I need to overcome this resistance and get the book written. I’m not making writing a book a goal at this time, but I probably will make it a goal sometime in 2013.

The biggest negative of the year and probably the biggest failure of my life was my divorce. I’ve already shared all I am going to share on that topic.

Positives in 2012

The biggest positive would probably be that I was able to acquire a law related job. The new job that I’m starting on Wednesday pays almost double any of the jobs I’ve had in the last few years. I was able to pay off my van and save a little money in the last few months of the year. I should be able to save much more money in 2013.

I also got to experience living in a van for a couple of months and was able to do some hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Although I didn’t do either one of those activities for as long as I would have like, I’m happy that I did get those experiences. I plan to do more hiking in 2013. I don’t plan on living in a van in 2013, but I could change my mind.

Getting to work as an extra on the movie, Devil’s Knot, and meeting Reese Witherspoon, was a cool experience. I’m looking forward to the release of the movie in 2013 and seeing myself on the big screen. I might try to work as an extra again in 2013 just for fun.

At Tight Fisted Miser I was able to improve my Alexa ranking and make it into the Wisebread Top 200 Personal Finance Blogs. Perhaps those two things will help me earn more money online in 2013.

Although 2012 wasn’t a great year, I think I ended it better off than when I started. 2013 has the possibility of being a great year. It will be up to me to ensure that it is a great year.

2013 Goals: Save 50% of Income and Live on Minimum Wage

The end of the  year is coming up soon and many people are setting goals for the new year.  I will be setting a couple of goals for 2013 as well.    My intention is to set a couple of year long goals now and make some smaller goals during the year.  That was what I intended to do this year but I didn’t follow through.  I’ll have a post on my 2012 goals before the end of the year.

As you can probably guess from the title my goals for 2013 are to save 50% of my income and live on minimum wage.  These are both financial goals and are goals that I am capable of attaining.  These goals are mostly in my control, so as long as I don’t get lazy or lose focus it should not be too difficult to achieve these goals.

The goals of saving 50% of my income will be the most difficult.  I had a negative savings rate this year.  My circumstances have improved though and I will be making more money in 2013 which will allow me to save a lot more money.  I’m currently working a part-time job and will start a full-time job next week.  The full-time job pays over twice the hourly rate of my part-time job so that will be a nice boost to my income.  I have another part-time job scheduled to start in late January.  That job has full-time hours available so I will work as many hours as I can.  Once I’m working all the jobs my monthly income should be double or triple or possibly more than my average monthly income in 2012.

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