Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

My income for September should be roughly the same. The medical study has ended so I won’t have that income. My interest income has almost disappeared because I ended my credit card arbitrage.  The other categories shouldn’t change much.

The 60% solution is a budgeting method I’ve seen mentioned on a couple of blogs. The basic concept is to limit your committed expenses to 60% or less of your total income.  Then commit 10% each to retirement savings, long-term savings, short-term savings for irregular expenses, and fun money.  Looking at my budget for last month my committed expenses are quite easily under the 60% limit.  I don’t actually follow the 10% guidelines for what to do with the rest of my money but as the article indicates once you have your committed expenses at 60% it is simple to save money.

Since I have a lot of debt to repay I don’t think the 10% guidelines work too well for me.  Right now I just put as much extra money as I can towards debt.  Since I’m frugal I don’t worry that I’ll waste my money without specific guidelines on where to spend it.  I use Pear Budget to do my budget and it works fine for my simple needs.  I use it more as a way to track my income and expenses than as an actual budget.

Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

Online income was down because I didn’t receive an Adsense payment or sell any links in July. Also I paid for one more year of hosting for this site and two others. Job income will most likely go down in August because I will hopefully be returning to school. Interest income will also go down because I’m ending my credit card arbitrage. My other sources of income will probably be about the same.

Here is the summary of my July expenses.

My transportation expense for the month was very high. This was due to having almost $600 in repairs done to my car and using lots of gas for work. This should be lower in August although my car still needs a repair which I’m not sure how much it will cost. I’m almost done with my dental work. I should only get one filling this month making my dental total much lower. After that I’m  thinking about getting some dental implants which would be very expensive. All other categories should remain roughly the same.

Here is a summary of my income for June.

I’m pleased with the increase in income. My job income should go up in July because I’ll receive a third paycheck for one job due to how the paydays fall. Online income for June includes a Google payout and a text link sale. Since neither of these is likely to happen again in July the online income total will go down. Ebay/Half income will also probably be down. Medical study income will only be $100 this month. The other sources of income will remain roughly the same and won’t make a significant difference in my income.

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