Expense/Income Tracking

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.

My latest electric bill was only $11.14 for 50kwh of electricity.  My gas bill was $84.72 which was larger than I expected.  I keep my thermostat low but my apartment is poorly insulated and drafted.  My furnace looks to be quite old and is probably not very efficient.  For now I have to have gas since I can’t do without heat.  Sometime in April or May though I will once again cancel my gas service.  Next time I move I’ll make sure the place has electric heat.