Expense/Income Tracking

January 12 – I spent $5.37 at McDonald’s for 2 sausage, egg, & cheese McMuffins and a large Dr Pepper. I spent $2.75 to do a load of laundry. Mcd’s is right across from the laundromat and I gave into temptation and had breakfast there while waiting on my wash. I do this almost every time I do laundry. I need to get out of this habit.

I spent $2.36 at Walmart for a dozen eggs and a half gallon of skim milk. I was wanting a smaller size of milk since I just needed a little to finish the cereal in my pantry, but the quarts and pints of milk were sold out. I also spent $10.50 at Sam’s Club for gas.

January 13 – I didn’t spent any money this day.

January 14 – I spent $4.54 on a two bacon cheeseburger combo from Burger King. This was just because I wanted fast food.

January 15 – I spent $3.41 at BK for a double cheeseburger combo. This was due to not bringing enough food with me to work. I greatly underestimated how hungry I would be.

I spent $4.18 at Walmart for cereal and a bag of Taco Doritos. Since I bought a half gallon of milk on Sunday, I now needed more cereal to finish the milk. When the milk runs out I’ll eat the rest of the cereal dry as a snack. The Doritos were an unplanned purchase. When I saw them I wanted them so I bought them and ate them. I need to do better at not giving in to my cravings.

I also spent $3.10 at Savalot for donut sticks, snack cakes, and a Lunchable. The snacks were to have for desserts with my work lunches.

January 16 – I spent $5.46 for at McDonald’s for 2 sausage, egg, & cheese McMuffins and a large Dr Pepper. I need to cut back on the fast food. I also need to switch back to diet soda or just have water with my meals.

January 17 – I spent $3.27 at BK for a double cheeseburger combo. The fast food consumption is still out of control. We were supposed to have a lunch at work. It was postponed to Monday since the roads were icy in the morning and most people didn’t come to work. I should have bought something from the grocery store to make up for the missed lunch rather than defaulting to fast food. I also spent $1.05 at Dollar General for a bag of cheese curls. I’d decided earlier in the week to not have any more chips for the rest of the month. I guess cheese curls aren’t actually chips, but still I shouldn’t have had them.

January 18 – I spent $50 for internet. This is my last internet bill. Now that I’ve finished paying the installation fee my internet will be free for as long as I live in my apartment. I spent $25 on gas. I spent $3.85 on a six-pack of Coke Zero and some snack packs of peanut butter M&Ms for my work lunches. I should now have enough sodas and snacks for the rest of the month.

I spent $99 for the annual fee on a new American Airlines credit card. I should get at least a $1000 worth of flights with the miles I’ll receive for getting the card so this is a good use of my money.

I ate too much junk food and fast food this last week. I’ll do better next week. I will make it through today without eating fast food and I don’t plan on having fast food tomorrow either. It’s a start.

Here is a breakdown of my income for December.

Interest	$3.41
Amazon FBA	$16.27
Bank Bonus	$100
Cashback	$10.38
Dividends	$19.10
Job	$2283.63
Total	$2432.79

My income for December down a bit since I had four paydays compared to five in November. This month I’ll have five paydays again so my income will be higher.

My Amazon FBA side hustle made a small profit for the month. 2019 was my worst FBA year since I started selling with FBA. This year I’ll spend less time on FBA and concentrate on just a few profitable deals.

Dividend income was up a tiny bit. Since I don’t plan on adding to my dividend stock portfolio until after I achieve some other savings goals this income will stay roughly the same. 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.

The job income provided almost all of my income for the month and that will be true again this month. Once tax season starts later this month I should be consistently getting 50 hours or so a week which will increase my job income. I need to work extra hours now since I plan on doing a lot of traveling later this year.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

Household	$286.36
Rent	$450
Entertainment	$48.62
Transportation	$211.64
Food	$245.35
Travel	$100.60
Phone	$33.37
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$61.47
Total	$1569.99

My December expenses were slightly lower than in November, but still a little higher than I prefer.

Entertainment was for movie concessions and my Regal Unlimited monthly membership fee. This expense should be lower this month since I won’t be purchasing popcorn and won’t be able to see many movies this month.

Transportation expense was for gas, an oil change, an air filter, a car wash and a couple of other small expenditures. This expense should be lower this month since I won’t need to spend any money on maintenance.

My travel expense was the annual fee on a my Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. This card allows me to transfer my points to different airline and hotel loyalty programs. It also allows me to redeem my points for 1.25 cents each for travel. These two perks will more than offset the annual fee since I will be traveling quite a bit this year.

My food expense was once again way too high. I’m on track to spend $150 this month on food which would be a significant improvement. I’d like to get that total even lower.

My phone bill was normal. It will usually be in the $28-$35 range and I expect it be in that range this month.

My health expense was for one month’s dues for a fitness center membership, some medicine, and a $43 for a dentist visit. This expense was much lower than the previous month due to not having a health insurance bill. I switched to a cheaper plan that doesn’t cost me anything out of pocket. This expense will be slightly higher this month since I had a more expensive dentist already this month.

Household expenses were quite a bit higher than normal. This was partially due to spending about $140 on a new memory foam mattress. The new mattress is much more comfortable than the air mattress that I was using and I think it was money well spent. Trying to get by the next few months sleeping on an air mattress was being too cheap. It is worth spending more money to get a good night’s sleep. I also had to spend $100 on my annual bar fee. That is for an inactive license. An active license would have cost $410. I don’t like spending $100 a year for nothing, but it keeps my options open in case I want to practice law in the future or obtain a job that requires an active license.

This month I have a good chance of keeping my expenses under $1000. How was your month?

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.