Expense/Income Tracking

January 8 – I spent $2.18 at Dollar Tree for a package of BBQ Kettle chips and a package of nutty bars for snacks. I spent $5.51 at Save-a-Lot for pack of peanut butter & cheese crackers, a bag of cheese curls, a Totino’s frozen pizza, and a Lunchable. I spent too much on junky snacks. I need to start buying healthier snacks.

I spent $42.45 for taxes and fees for a Premium Economy flight on Virgin Atlantic from Hong Kong to London. This also cost 22,500 VA miles which I got from signing up for the VA credit card. I think this is a fantastic value for my miles since this flight would cost about $1500 paying cash. This is about a 13 hour flight. It will be my first time flying a long-haul flight in anything other than economy. The increased comfort flying in PE should be well worth the extra miles spent.

January 9 – I spent 95 cents for on street parking for my dentist appointment and spent $70 for a cleaning at the dentist. I also spent $3.41 for a double cheeseburger combo at Burger King. Although I brought my lunch I still wanted more food and ended up getting fast food.

January 10 – I spent $8.25 for a double steakburger with cheese combo at Freddy’s. This is my favorite fast food place, but it is a bit more expensive. That is why I’ll be eating there less frequently and figuring out how to reduce the cost when I do eat there. This expense was unplanned. I thought my job was providing lunch, but I misread my schedule and it was actually the next Friday they will be providing lunch. I was planning on having Freddy’s on the weekend and moved it up to Friday instead.

I spent $14.13 at Save-a-Lot on 2 cans of vegetable soup, potato chips, French onion dip, break and bake chocolate chip cookies, a package of 40 pizza rolls, and a six pack of microwave popcorn. I really need to stop buying so much junk food and start buying healthier food. I’m not going to buy any more chips this month since they are unhealthy and I tend to binge eat them. The rest of the month I need to buy primarily fruits, vegetables and natural foods.

January 11 – Since I’ve spent too much on junk food and fast food the past few days I won’t be spending any money on food or anything else today.

January 6 – I spent $2.35 at a gas station for a large soda and package of mini donuts. It was predictable that I would want a snack and soda when driving back to KC. I should have purchased something from the grocery store the previous day to save a little bit of money and perhaps have something a little bit healthier.

January 7 – I spent $3.41 at Burger King for a 10 piece chicken nugget and large fry. I had intended to redeem a coupon for a free Whopper I had in the BK app, but it had disappeared from the app when I was ready to redeem it. I made this slightly more expensive purchase instead. My plan for this month was to limit fast food to 3x a week. I had fast food 3x in the first 7 days of this month so I’m on track so far.

I spent $27.72 to fill up my tank with gas at Sam’s Club. The tank was almost empty from the drive back to KC. There won’t be any more long trips this month. I fill up my tank every Sunday to make sure I have enough gas for my weekly commute.

As I stated in my previous post I’m going to share here on the blog everything I spend money on this month. My January 1st expenses were included in the previous post. Below are my January 2-5 expenses.

January 2 – I didn’t spend any money this day.

January 3 – I spent $4.54 on a two bacon cheeseburger combo at Burger King. This purchase was planned ahead of time. The BK restaurant is right at the bottom of the steps to my tax job. Purchasing my lunch at the BK and eating it as I was commuting to my doc review job saved me some time compared to going elsewhere for lunch.

I spent $1 on peanut M&Ms from the vending machine. I was craving some kind of dessert and bought the M&Ms to satisfy that craving. I should probably buy some sort of small dessert to take with me to work to save a little money and a few calories.

I also spent $3.14 for a bag of Taco Doritos (the best flavor of Doritos.) This purchase should have been avoided. I had a three hour drive from KC to southern Missouri and I like to snack while I’m on a long drive. This desire could have been foreseen and a cheaper snack could have been purchased ahead of time. I don’t feel too bad about the purchase though since I did really enjoy the Doritos and I still have half the bag left to enjoy with tomorrow’s lunch.

January 4 – I didn’t spend any money this day.

January 5 – I spent $4.30 on a 4 for $4 meal at Wendy’s. This consisted of a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, 4-piece chicken nuggets, French fries, and a Coke Zero. This purchase was also planned ahead of time. One of my simple pleasure in life is leisurely eating a meal while reading a newspaper or magazine. Since I knew I wouldn’t have time during the upcoming week to have a leisurely meal like this I went ahead and had it today.

I spent $20.01 on gasoline. Since my car was almost empty and I will need gas to return to KC tomorrow I went ahead and purchased gas today. I didn’t fill it all the way up since gas is about twenty cents a gallon more expensive here than in KC.

So far I think I’m doing pretty good with my spending with 2 out of 5 days having no spending. The fast food meals should become less frequent. I’m going to try to post these spending reports daily on days that have spending.

Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

Interest	$3.09
Amazon FBA	($10.71)
Bank Bonus	$50
Cashback	$27.39
Dividends	$18.04
Amazon Merch	$4.42
Job	$3632.52
Total	$3724.75

My income for November was better than usual due to having five paydays during the month.

Amazon FBA income was once again negative for the month. This was due to having two returns during the month. Returns having been killing my FBA income this year. That is part of the reason I’ve spent much less time on FBA this year. Next year I might reevaluate what I’m selling and try to get the FBA income going again.

Dividend income was up a little bit. There were a surprising number of my stocks that paid a dividend in November considering it is not an end of quarter month. Most of my stocks do pay a dividend in December so this total should increase a little more this month. I do my dividend investing with Robinhood. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

There was once again no online income or expense for the month. I’m still considering making a new wager with HealthyWage and blogging about the process which will hopefully lead to some affiliate commissions. I need to lose some weight before I can make another wager though. My links for Bluehost (aff link) web hosting didn’t result in any commissions. I’ll keep trying. I need to do some review posts or something different to create interest. Next year once I’m not working two jobs I will concentrate more on trying to increase affiliate income.

I made $4.42 from shirt sales on Amazon Merch. I seem to consistently have two sales a month. Perhaps that will increase this month with Christmas sales. I have previously promised to write more about my efforts to make money with Amazon Merch and I will eventually. It will probably be sometime next year before I write that post though.

The job income provided almost all of my income for the month and that will be true again this month. I’ve already started my tax job. Adding that to my regular job I will have over 60 hours available to work each week. I won’t be working that many hours, but if I want to make extra money it makes more sense right now to put in more time at one of my jobs where I have guaranteed income than to work on a side hustle that may not pay off at all.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

Household	$117.67
Rent	$450
Entertainment	$47.78
Transportation	$158.20
Food	$214.12
Travel	$140.19
Phone	$28.67
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$323.79
Total	$1623.85

My November expenses were lower than the last couple of months , but still a little higher than I prefer.

Entertainment was for movie concessions and my Regal Unlimited monthly membership fee. This expense should be about the same this month.

Transportation expense was for gas and the annual personal property tax bill on my car. This expense will go up this month since I had to get an oil change and will still be driving a lot.

My travel expense was the annual fee on a new credit card that will earn me lots of airline miles as a signup bonus. There was also a $44 expense for taxes and seat selection on a plane ticket from LAX to Tokyo for next June. I usually don’t pay for seat selection, but paying $40 to snag an exit row bulkhead seat on a transpacific flight is well worth the price for the additional comfort.

My food expense was a little better this month, although still much higher than I think it should be. I still indulged in fast food and junk food way too often. I’m doing slightly better so far this month so I think this expense will be down a little bit.

My phone bill was down quite a bit since I used very little data during the month. It will probably be a little higher this month since I’ll likely use a little more data.

My health expense was for one month of health insurance, one month’s dues for a fitness center membership, some medicine, and a $175 for an emergency dentist visit. I got an infection in my gum surrounding my new implant right before Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to take a chance on it getting worse over the Thanksgiving holiday and being unable to see a dentist so I paid extra for an emergency dentist visit. The infection is all cleared up now. This expense should be down quite a bit this month.

This month’s expenses should be slightly lower. Hopefully, next year I will be able to start having months with less than $1000 of expenses again. How was your month?