Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

Household	$107.91
Rent	$37.78
Entertainment	$59.61
Transportation	$0
Food	$230.31
Travel	$161.29
Phone	$39.58
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$1078.51
Total	$1847.57

My June expenses were well over my target of $1000 for the month. That was due to having almost $1000 of dental work done in June. Without the dental bill my monthly expense total would have easily been under $1000.

An electric bill of just under $90 made up most of the household expense. The remaining amount was for laundry, a haircut, gifts, and personal hygiene items.

Rent was extremely low since most of June’s rent was paid in May. The reported rent expense amount was for three hotel nights.

Entertainment was for four movies, a Thai massage, and lunch with my girlfriend. That’s a pretty good amount of entertainment for less than $60.

There was no transportation expense in June. I did use local taxis in Pattaya a few times but I decided to include them in travel expenses. This month I will be returning to the States and driving my car so there will be at least a little bit of transportation expense.

My food expense was higher than I’d prefer. It might be my most expensive food month ever. That was expected since I knew I’d be eating at a lot of Western restaurants during the month. I ate out every day, sometimes twice a day. I also bought imported Cheetos and Pepperidge Farm cookies a couple of times during the month. These cost quite a bit more than the Thai versions. Even though I ate a lot of fast food and junk food I still managed to lose weight. This month I expect my food expense to decrease considerably since I’ll be home the second half of the month.

My biggest travel expense was $60 for a thirty day extension to my visa. The other travel expenses were a round-trip plane ticket, a one-way plane ticket, three regional bus tickets, and a few taxi fares.

My phone bill was higher than normal due to using data more often when I didn’t have access to wifi. I should have signed up for a Thai phone plan while I was here. Pausing my Google plan and using the Thai plan while here would have saved me at least $20 and would have only taken about ten minutes to sign up. My laziness cost me a bit of money here.

I got a dental implant during the month which cost me $931.13. I need to come back in 3-6 months to get a crown which will cost me an additional $250 or so. My remaining medical expense was $132.58 for medical insurance and $23.49 for a blood and urine test confirming I’m disease-free.

Considering I got a dental implant during June my monthly expense total was quite low. In the US just paying for the dental implant would have cost more than double what I spent for the implant plus all my normal monthly expenses. Getting dental work done in Thailand pretty much offsets the cost of traveling there for me.

July’s expenses will be lower since I won’t have a big dental bill. My guess is that my monthly expense total will be well under $1000 this month. How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Interest	$6.35
Amazon FBA	$14.20
Job	$0
Free Stock	$4.55
Cashback	$3.99
Dividends	$17.62
Online	$100
Total	$146.71

May was a terrible month for income. This was to be expected since I am unemployed while in Thailand and my non-job sources of income don’t add up to much.

Amazon FBA income consisted of reimbursement for an item that Amazon lost in their warehouse. I only have two items left in inventory. I’m going to lower my price and try to get them sold this month.  When I get back from Thailand I will restock my FBA inventory and try to build it up to where it can cover my monthly expenses.

My online income consisted of an affiliate commission from HealthyWage.  My links for Bluehost (aff link) and  (aff link) Hostgator for web hosting and Namecheap (aff link) for domain names didn’t result in any commissions. I’d like to increase my affiliate commissions. To do that I need to post more consistently and have longer, more helpful posts. So far I’ve been too lazy to do that.

My dividend income was slightly more than the previous month. I sold some of my stocks and invested the proceeds in a stock that doesn’t pay a dividend which will result in lower dividend income until I start buying more dividend stocks again.

I got one share of free stock worth $4.55 from Robinhood from someone signing up using my referral link. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to the person who signed up using my link. Every little bit helps.

Due to the lack of job income, this month’s income will also be very small. It will probably be even less than May’s income. In July I should start making money again and will work on building my savings back up.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

Household	$122.41
Rent	$298.47
Entertainment	$37.42
Transportation	$0
Food	$180.62
Travel	$132.04
Phone	$14.68
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$175.59
Total	$1093.81

My May expenses were a little bit over my target of $1000 for the month. For the year, I’m still averaging under $1000 a month. If I were able to keep my monthly average for the entire year under $1000 a month that would be great. That won’t be easy to do since I plan on getting over a $1000 of dental work done this year and there are always unplanned expenses sometime during the year. It will be a good goal to work towards.

Rent was low although not quite as low as I thought it would be. I had to pay about $30 in cleaning fees when I moved out of my room in Uttaradit. I added that to my rent total. I also paid for one month’s rent in Pattaya for May 29th through June 29th. After my month is up I will travel back to Uttaradit and then Bangkok staying in hotel rooms. Thus, there won’t be any rent expense for June. Taking that into consideration my rent total for May looks great.

There was no transportation expense in May. I did purchase a bus ticket from Bangkok to Pattaya and took a taxi to my hotel in Pattaya. Those expenses are both included in my travel expenses. There are cheap buses here in Pattaya which can be taken for about 30 to 60 cents. I haven’t used one yet, but I plan to use them some this month. That will result in there being a few dollars of transportation expense this month.

My food expense was higher than I’d prefer. That is to be expected though since I ate out almost every meal and also bought some meals for my girlfriend. This month my food total will probably be even higher. Pattaya has a variety of Western restaurants which I will eat at often and they are expensive by Thai standards. The Thai food in Pattaya is much more expensive than the Thai food in Uttaradit as well.

The household expense was mainly about $90 for electricity for my room. That was pretty expensive considering my rent was only $140. The temperature was over 100 degrees almost every day which led to using the aircon a lot and the resulting high electric bill. I also bought my girlfriend a small present.

Entertainment was for two movies with concessions and a dinner out with my girlfriend. Most of our dinners I just included in food. The one meal I included in entertainment since it was a fair bit more than I would have spent if I was alone. I saw both of the movies after I arrived in Pattaya. The theater near me has all of their movies available in English so I’ll be spending a lot more at the movies this month.

Travel was for a private car from Uttaradit to Phitsanulok, a plane ticket from Phitsanulok to Bangkok, a bus from Bangkok to Pattaya, a taxi from the Pattaya bus station to my hotel, one night hotel in Pattaya, 3 nights hotel in Uttaradit and one night hotel in Shanghai, China. That is quite a bit of travel for my money. When you consider it is possible to pay $130 for one hotel night, getting 5 hotel nights, a plane ticket, a bus ticket, a private car ride, and a taxi for the same amount is a great deal.

My phone bill was low since I still had some trade-in credit to use up. This month it will be higher since I’ve used all the credit and I use more data on my phone here in Thailand. I expect it to still be a reasonable amount of $30 or so.

I paid about $50 for a dental visit. I’ll be getting a dental implant this month which will cost about $1000. That will obviously result in my medical expense being much higher this month.

May was a decent month for expenses. Even though the cost of living is cheap in Thailand my monthly expenses are still about the same as in the States since I keep my expenses so low.

This month’s expenses will be quite a bit higher due to the large dental bill. Excluding the dental bill, I expect this month’s expenses will be a little lower than May’s expenses.

Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

Interest	$6.30
Amazon FBA	$50.78
Job	$4198.82
Class Action	$40
Cashback	$28.65
Dividends	$15.81
Online	$346.56
Total	$4686.92

April was another great month for income. It wasn’t quite as great as March though. That was to be expected since I didn’t have a big boost from tax refunds in April.

My two negative sources of income from last month turned into positive sources of income for April. Amazon FBA income was still weak. I’ve been having way too many returns this year. When I get back to the U.S. I will work on improving my FBA income. I’m also going to sell some stuff on eBay and perhaps locally.

I had a good month for online income. I almost made enough to cover the expenses I’ve already paid this year.  I got a payout from Google Adsense for the month and received payment for some sponsored posts on one of my other blogs.

I also was paid an affiliate commission during April.  Since it wasn’t received until May it will be included in May’s income. My links for Bluehost (aff link) and  (aff link) Hostgator for web hosting and Namecheap (aff link) for domain names didn’t result in any commissions.

My dividend income decreased slightly for the month.  I’m not adding anything to my dividend portfolio the next couple of months so this income will stay roughly the same

I made $40 from a random class action settlement. I don’t remember ever being notified I was part of the suit. Getting the check in the mail was a nice surprise.

April’s income mostly consisted of job income. It was a good amount considering it was only for two and a half weeks. Due to the lack of job income, this month’s income will be down significantly.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for April. Since it is a day ahead here in Thailand I can post my expenses for the month before the month has ended back in the U.S.

Household	$39.08
Rent	$341.50
Entertainment	$35.95
Transportation	$66.61
Food	$175.95
Travel	$73.99
Phone	$0
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$123.39
Total	$989.05

My April expenses were nice and low. I managed to get my expenses under my target of $1000 for the month. For the year, I’m still averaging under $1000 a month. If I were able to keep my monthly average for the entire year under $1000 a month that would be great. That won’t be easy to do since I plan on getting over a $1000 of dental work done this year and there are always unplanned expenses sometime during the year. It will be a good goal to work towards.

Rent was low as usual. I paid $200 to my Mom for rent for the first half of April and paid $141.50 for one month’s rent in Thailand. My rent in Thailand is paid through May 22nd. That should result in an even lower rent total for May unless I rent a more expensive place when I move to Chiang Mai.

Transportation was super cheap. My transportation expenses consisted of two years registration for my car and the safety inspection which was required to renew my registration. I managed to not have any airport taxi or shuttle expenses for the month by planning ahead. My hotels in Shanghai and Bangkok both offered free shuttles to and from the hotel. I had to go from BKK (the international airport in Bangkok) to DMK (the domestic/budget airport in Bangkok) to take my domestic Thailand flight. I managed to do this for free by taking the free shuttle between BKK and DMK. Since I had a morning flight from DMK I arrived the night before to be safe. I stayed at a hotel about 15 minutes walk from DMK saving me from having to pay for a taxi there.

My food expense was high by my standards. I didn’t worry about keeping my food expense low for the month since my food expense is low by most people’s standards even when I’m not especially trying to keep it low. This amount was up a bit this month since I ate out a lot and I bought a few meals for my girlfriend as well. The only food expense I regretted for the month was paying $9.50 for a terrible breakfast buffet at my hotel for my girlfriend and me. I thought the breakfast was included with my room or I never would have had it. Oh well, there are always going to be some money mistakes.

The household expense was for some hangers, shampoo, a toothbrush, and some other small items. I also bought my girlfriend some clothes as a birthday present.

Entertainment was for three movies plus concessions. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to see Avengers Endgame here. The week I arrived all of their movies were dubbed in Thai. Luckily, for Avengers they have one showtime a day that is English with Thai subtitles rather than being dubbed in Thai. My entertainment expense will go up in May if there are more movies with English audio that I can see. If not, I’ll have to wait until I get to Chiang Mai to see more movies which will keep this expense low.

Travel was for a VPN subscription and the annual fee for my Chase IHG card. Since I have to use public wifi when I’m traveling I thought it was smart to get a VPN. I managed to get a super cheap deal. Maybe too cheap, since I’ve had some trouble with the VPN getting disconnected. That wasn’t an issue with the VPN I used last year. Paying the annual fee on my IHG card gives me a free night at an IHG hotel so I’ll get more than $49 of value from that later this year.

There was no phone bill this month since I traded in my old phone and the credit I received completely wiped out the bill for the month. My only health expense was for my monthly health insurance premium. I’m still using my same Google Fi phone service here in Thailand. I mostly use wifi, but occasionally have to use my phone’s data so there will be a phone bill for May. I plan to see a dentist once I’m in Chiang Mai so my health expense will go up as well.

Overall, April was a great month for low expenses and I expect May will be as well, other than a possible big dental bill.