Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

Interest	$2.56
Amazon FBA	($6.59)
Ebay/Other Selling	$125
Cashback	$5.43
Dividends	$10.37
Amazon Merch	$4.42
Job	$638.63
Total	$779.82

My income for September was pretty low. This was due to being off work for three weeks for my trip to Thailand.

Amazon FBA income was negative for the month. I didn’t have any sales and spent a little shipping in inventory at the end fo the month.

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) and  (aff link) Hostgator for 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.

Dividend income wasdown a little bit. 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.

I made $4.42 from shirt sales on Amazon Merch. I will write more about my efforts to make money with Amazon Merch in the next couple of weeks. .

Although I had several sources of income, none of them add up to very much. The job is what provides me with a decent amount of income. This month will be much better since I will have five paydays.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

Household	$82.20
Rent	$450
Entertainment	$87.88
Transportation	$67.06
Food	$250.33
Travel	$254.07
Phone	$40.83
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$733.31
Total	$2098.26

My October expenses were once again crazy high. This was due to almost $600 in dental expenses and over $250 of travel expenses.

Entertainment was for movie concessions, one month of Hulu and some dinners with my girlfriend. This expense should go down this month.

Transportation expense was just for gas. My gas spending was lower than normal since I was out of the country for half of the month. This expense will go up some this month since I will be driving more.

My food expense continues to be ridiculously high. It was a little bit higher than last month’s which was also way too high. I’ve got to stop buying fast food and junk food so much. It is bad for my pocketbook and my health.

My travel expense was mainly for two intra-Thailand flights that I had to rebook and four nights hotel that I paid out of pocket since the particular hotel I wanted to stay at wasn’t bookable with credit card points. The remainder of my hotel nights were free using credit card rewards. This expense will be much lower this month although there will be a little bit of spending to set up next year’s trip.

My phone bill went up a little since I made an international call and used more data than usual. This expense should go down slightly this month.

My health expense was for one month of health insurance, one month’s dues for a fitness center membership, some medicine, and a new crown for my dental implant. This expense will go down significantly this month.

This month’s expenses should be much closer to $1000 than $2000 barring any unexpected expenses. It will be nice to have a month with a reasonable level of expenses again. How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

Interest	$2.76
Amazon FBA	$55.11
Investment Bonus	$51.41
Ebay/Other Selling	$0
Cashback	$0
Dividends	$18.44
Class Action	$2.38
Mystery Shop	$26
Amazon Merch	$2.21
Job	$3007.98
Total	$3166.29

My income for September was great. That was almost entirely due to working at my document review job for the entire month. I worked 40 hours or more every week. Having four paychecks in a month helps.

Amazon FBA income was mostly from the sale of a printer that I bought on clearance. I had to discount the price more than I originally expected, but I still made a decent profit. There won’t be any FBA income this month since I don’t currently have any inventory at Amazon. I plan to send some soon.

There was 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) and  (aff link) Hostgator for 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.

Dividend income was up some since many of my stocks paid dividends in September. 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.

I made $2.21 from shirt sales on Amazon Merch. I will write more about my efforts to make money with Amazon Merch in the next couple of weeks. .

Although I had several sources of income, none of them add up to very much. The job is what provides me with a decent amount of income. October’s income will be down quite a bit since I didn’t work the first two weeks of the month.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

Household	$339.25
Rent	$450
Entertainment	$25.52
Transportation	$486.41
Food	$241.49
Travel	$188.02
Phone	$31.69
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$178.72
Total	$2073.68

My September expenses were crazy high. During the month I purchased a new laptop, paid a speeding ticket, and paid for six months of auto insurance. That trifecta plus travel expenses for my current Thailand trip added up to make my monthly expenses double what I’d like them to be. It might be a while before I’m able to get my monthly expenses back to the $1000 level again.

Buying a new laptop made up most of the household expense. My old one died only a little over two years after I purchased it. It was out of warranty and my diagnosis after consulting YouTube and Google was that I had a fried motherboard which would not be cost effective to fix. My other big household expense was internet. I have to pay $50 a month for three more months and after that my internet will be free as long as I stay in my apartment. This expense should go way down this month.

Entertainment was for movies concessions and one month of Hulu. This expense will probably go up this month since I am traveling for two weeks.

A speeding ticket of almost $120 and $279 for six months of liability insurance combined to make a very expensive month for transportation expenses. The insurance was unavoidable and expected – although it did go up about $50 due to my move to KC – so I don’t feel bad about that. The speeding ticket was avoidable and was just a stupid expense since I had no reason to be speeding. This expense category should go way down this month.

My food expense continues to be ridiculously high. It was about $40 less than the prior month so there was a little improvement at least. I’m eating out way too much and buying too much expensive junk food. Even though I’m traveling the first two weeks of this month and will thus be eating out almost every meal I think I can reduce this expense quite a bit. Food is a lot cheaper in Thailand. Combining that savings with making smarter choices and eating less should result in a lower food bill this month.

My travel expense was mainly for three intra-Thailand flights and travel insurance. My dentist in Thailand changed my appointment dates at the last minute which is going to cause me to not be able to use the flights. They are non-refundable fares on a low-cost carrier and the change fee is more than the cost of the fare so the flights will end up being wasted money. I’m not too happy about that. This expense will probably be about the same this month.

My phone bill returned to a normal level. My data use will likely go up this month and I already made an international call so this expense will go up at least a little.

My health expense was for one month of health insurance, one month’s dues for a fitness center membership and the $40 annual fee for my fitness center membership. The fitness center membership wasn’t a good value in September since I only worked out once the entire month. This expense will go down this month.

Even though I’m traveling in Thailand the first two weeks of this month I expect my overall expenses to be much lower this month. Most of my trip expenses were paid before this month so the travel won’t inflate my total expenses much. Having much lower household and transportation expenses this month should result in a more reasonable level of expenses this month. How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

Interest	$3.29
Amazon FBA	(4.59)
Uber	$208.02
Ebay/Other Selling	$25.31
Cashback	$56.07
Dividends	$13.29
Focus Group	$100
Unemployment	$640
Mystery Shop	$19
Amazon Merch	$2.21
Job	$433.49
Total	$1496.09

My income improved in August after a few poor months. I collected a couple weeks of unemployment and then started a new job the last week of the month which helped increase my income quite a bit.

Amazon FBA income was negative for the month. I sold one item and it was returned before the month was over. Whenever an item is returned I have to eat some fees which is what caused the loss this month. I have had terrible luck with items getting returned this year. I haven’t been selling much on FBA and with my results so far this year I don’t plan to sell much more there.

I’m going to do more selling on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. I had a couple of small sales on those platforms giving me a profit of $25.31 for the month.

My online income was negative. I had to pay to renew a domain name and I did not have any income during the month. That isn’t too surprising since I haven’t been posting or doing much else online. 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) and  (aff link) Hostgator for 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.

Dividend income was up some since more of my stocks pay quarterly dividends in August. 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.

I made $100 from participating in a focus group. They send me emails about focus groups every month but I usually don’t qualify. For this focus group they invited more participants than they needed. They ended up not choosing me for this group after I showed up but I still got paid the same $100 I would have received for participating. That was a pretty good deal.

I made a tiny bit from shirt sales on Amazon Merch. I paid $30 last year to have a couple of designs made and I haven’t recouped that money yet. I think I’ll get it back eventually. I need to research how to promote my designs. I might write more about my efforts to make money with Amazon Merch later this year.

I drove some for Uber to make some extra money. Now that I have a job I won’t be driving for Uber any more.

The big change to my income was getting rehired to the document review job. That will give me the opportunity to significantly increase my income over what it has been the past few months. I’m allowed to work 60 hours per week at the doc review job. There is no overtime pay for hours over 40 though. I plant to work over 40 hours every week to get my savings back to the level they were earlier this year. Since I can work more hours at my job and make a guaranteed return it doesn’t make much sense to invest a lot of time in alternative ways to make income. There will be fewer sources of income this month.

Although I had several sources of income, none of them add up to very much. The job is what provides me with a decent amount of income. I already have a two-week vacation scheduled for October, but after that I plan to work straight through next summer and work two jobs during tax season in order to build up a significant cushion of savings.

How was your month?