Expense/Income Tracking

March Income

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My income was up slightly in March. This was a great result considering there is no Adsense income for this month. The increase was from the sale of a text link and lots of paid posts. (There are no paid posts on this blog.) Here are the totals.

Online Income

$198.15

Ebay

$57.35

Mystery Shopping

$7.50

Survey

$5.00

Total

$268.00

This is all alternative income. Next month my total income will be up but alternative income will most likely be down since I’m now have a job.

February Income

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These are my sources of income and my total income for February.

Online Income

$165.56

Ebay

$22.44

Surveys

$5.00

Mystery Shop

$12.00

Total

$205.00

My net income was negative $634.12. I’m able to do this now because I’m living on my student loans. This is the last semester I plan to use my loans for living expenses.

Expenses have been deducted from the totals. The figures here are net figures. My online income is higher than usual because I received my Adsense money this month. It usually takes me 2 or 3 months to reach the Adsense payout amount but I only post it when I actually receive it not when I earn it. None of the Adsense money was from this blog. I don’t have it here and don’t plan to,I’ll provide more details on that in a later post. A small amount of the Adsense was from my blog BankBonuses but the majority was from my website BankBonuses. I’m not sure why the website makes so much more than my blog when the website provides much less information and looks much uglier as well.

I didn’t make much money from surveys or mystery shops last month. This is not a bad amount of income for extra income but as my only income it isn’t too good. I also received my state and federal tax refund. I’m not sure if I should count them as income. Since I only count my net income the refunds probably should count because they were not included in my income previously. This isn’t much money but when I get a job all of this money can go to debt reduction and will help pay my debt off much faster.

One Month Challenge Results

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I kept track of all money spent in February as part of the One Month Challenge. This wasn’t much of a problem for me because I normally track all my spending. That is one thing I picked up from the book “Your Money or Your Life”. Here is what I spent for the month followed by analysis of the categories.

Rent/Household

$442.89

Transportation

$183.57

Utilities

$81.12

Food

$66.92

Entertainment

$24.62

Debt

$40

Total

$839.12

My expenses were pretty reasonable for this month. The rent and household expense category is lower than normal because I used Christmas gift cards to make some household purchases. The transportation expense included the purchase of two new tires so this expense should be lower in March. Utilities should also go down with the arrival of warmer weather. Food will probably be about the same but I’m trying to shift more of this expense from fast food to grocery. Entertainment will go up in March. I have a friend coming in from out of town and I just started dating someone. I like keeping my expenses low but Tight Fisted Miser doesn’t want to become Lonely Old Hermit so sometimes I got to spend some money. Debt expense will likely be the same.