Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my income for January.

My income was down quite a bit because I only worked half a month due to returning to law school.  I did manage to increase my online income a bit.  Since I don’t count any money made as income until I actually receive it there will be quite a bit more money that was earned in January that will be reflected on February’s income.  In fact I’ve already made more this month than in January.  With no job income I need to keep increasing my other methods of income.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for January.

I’m happy that the total was under $1000 but I do have some areas in need of improvement.  My goal for food is $100 a month and I’ve been going over that.  The main reason I’ve been going over is that I’ve been buying too much junk food and fast food.  That makes going over doubly bad.  It will be the main area I concentrate on for February.  My utilities were too high with my gas bill being over $100.  I’ve already taken steps that should cut that down significantly.  I won’t have a book expense this month unless I decide to buy some study aids.

The category of transportation was down quite a bit since I only worked half the month.  Also I didn’t need to do any repairs or maintenance.  That will change this month since I plan to have some work done on my car.  Household and entertainment expenses should be roughly the same.

Most small PF bloggers such as myself don’t make much money from blogging.  I would guess that last year I didn’t make minimum wage for the hours I put into blogging.  I’m not sure since I didn’t keep track of how much time I spent on blogging.  Making a return on my time invested isn’t much of a priority since I do this for fun more than for profit.  I make most of my money from my blog Bank Bonuses.  This blog is barely monetized but it still makes a profit since it costs me very little to run.  This month has probably been my best money making month for blogging yet.

I’ve decided that for February I’m going to keep track of my hours spent blogging so I can calculate my hourly blogging wage.  Then I’m going to see what I can do to increase my blogging income.  Since I won’t be working the next few months any increase in blogging income will be helpful.  I like having the home page of this blog ad-free though so I’m going to try to keep it that way or at least keep any ads as non-intrusive as possible. I’m open to any suggestions and I’d be interested in seeing if there are any other PF bloggers that share their income.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

Expenses were up mainly because of paying off my private student loan.  My expenses will be down this month since I’m returning to school and quitting my jobs.

Here is a breakdown of my income for December.

My income was up mainly because I worked more hours for the month.  My income will be down severely in January since I’m returning to school.  I hope to significantly increase the amount of my other income to help offset the loss of job income.