Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for March.

Household	$15.40
Rent	$320.08
Entertainment	$34.69
Transportation	$258.54
Food	$93.16
Travel	$97.46
Phone	$28.50
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$195.64
Total	$1176.05

My March expenses were up a bit from the previous months, but still pretty low. I didn’t quite manage 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 again because I’m paying my mom’s utility bill as rent while I’m staying with her. This month’s bill was almost the same as the previous month. This amount also includes the water and sewer. They all come on one bill from the city. This month I will be paying half a month rent for here and paying rent in Thailand which will probably result in a higher rent bill.

Transportation was for one tank of gas for my car and for six more months of car insurance. That is why this expense category is quite a bit higher for March. For April, this expense should go down quite a bit. I shouldn’t have to buy gas at all in the U.S. When traveling I will have to pay for some taxis or Grab to get me from airports to hotel and vice versa.

My food expense up a bit. I didn’t worry about trying to keep my food expense low at all. It is artificially low currently since my mom provides me with many meals and keeps the pantry stocked with snacks. This bill will go up a bit this month since I’ll be traveling and probably be buying a few meals for my girlfriend as well.

Travel expense was for one night hotel in Thailand, an airplane ticket from Bangkok to Phitsanulok, Thailand and travel insurance for the 2 1/2 months I will be out of the country. Last year, I didn’t have travel medical insurance when I went to Thailand. If I’d had a serious illness or injury that could have cost me a lot of money. Paying $57 for travel insurance that will cover a serious illness or injury seems like a great bargain. I hope I don’t have to use it.

Phone was for one month of Google Fi phone service and about $4 towards a new phone. I splurged and bought a new phone. My old phone had a dime size spot on the screen and the battery wasn’t lasting nearly as long as it used to last. Google had a Moto G6 on sale for just $99 with 24 months no interest financing. That made it just a little over $4 a month for the new phone. Making it even better they gave me a $50 trade-in for my old phone. After applying the trade-in I will just be paying a little over $2 a month for the new phone. So far the new phone has been working great and the battery lasts much longer. I’m very satisfied with this purchase from Google. If you sign up for Google Fi through my referral link we will each get $20 Fi credit after your account has been active for 30 days.

Health was for my March premium on my health insurance and for a dental visit. I managed to get some popcorn wedged way up under my gums and couldn’t get it back out. This was quite uncomfortable and paying $72 for the dentist to get it out was money well spent.

My entertainment expense was for two trip to the movies and popcorn. I also spent 99 cents for my monthly Hulu subscription. In Thailand I will be spending for me and my girlfriend so this expense will likely go up a bit.

The household expense was mostly for the taxes on my new phone purchase and a new phone case. If I have to buy supplies for a new apartment in Thailand this expense will go up this month.

March was a higher expense month for me and I did go over my monthly target of $1000 in expenses. Nevertheless, I’m satisfied with that level of expense considering what I received for my money. It was still a pretty low expense month by most people’s standards.   How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

Household	$0
Rent	$321.68
Entertainment	$17.38
Transportation	$29.51
Food	$74.81
Travel	$0
Phone	$23.89
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$123.39
Total	$723.24

My February expenses were extremely low. I easily managed to get my expenses under my target of $1000 for the month. This month I tried to be extra frugal and had very little unnecessary spending. Having a shorter month helped too.

Rent was low because I’m paying my mom’s utility bill as rent while I’m staying with her. Since January was pretty cold electric was about $100 higher than the previous month. This amount also includes the water and sewer. They all come on one bill from the city. I expect this month’s bill to be about the same.

Transportation was for one tank of gas for my car. I went to Springfield (which is about an hour away) twice during the month. Without those two drives I wouldn’t have needed to put any gas in my car. Since I’m working at home I don’t drive at all most days. Living in a small town, when I do drive everything is close. I might not need to buy gas at all this month. I’m probably going to pay for six more months of car insurance this month so that will make this expense category quite a bit higher this month.

My food expense went down a lot. I cut way back on my meals out. I also had three free meals due to gift cards. I actually spent more on groceries than on meals out. I think that is the first time I’ve done that since starting this blog. There are no free meals this month so this expense will likely increase a bit.

This was the rare month where I didn’t have any travel expense. I’m probably going to buy some travel medical insurance this month which will cost about $260. I’ll also buy a plane ticket from Bangkok to Chiang Mai or elsewhere in Thailand. The plane ticket should cost less than $30. Those two expenses will result in a significant increase in this expense category for the month. Last year, I didn’t have travel medical insurance when I went to Thailand. If I’d had a serious illness or injury that could have cost me a lot of money. I’m playing it safe this year and purchasing the travel insurance. I hope I don’t need it.

Phone was for one month of Google Fi phone service. This is about as cheap as it gets. If you sign up for Google Fi through my referral link we will each get $20 Fi credit after your account has been active for 30 days.

Health was for my March premium on my health insurance. This month I might have a dentist visit which would boost this expense quite a bit. If I’m unable to see a dentist, then this expense will remain exactly the same.

My entertainment expense was for one trip to the movies. Since it was the end of the month and I hadn’t yet spent anything on entertainment I splurged on a large popcorn to go with my matinee ticket.

February was a super low expense month. March will be a higher expense month and I will likely go over my monthly target of $1000 in expenses. It will probably still be a pretty low expense month by most people’s standards though.   How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my income for January.

Interest	$2.64
Amazon FBA	$2.55
Job	$1784.05
Mystery Shops	$27.84
Cashback	$16.73
Dividends	$8.08
Online Income	$0
Total	$1841.89

January’s income was decent. The bulk of it came from one partial week of document review pay and my first full paycheck from my tax job.

Online income was actually seriously negative for the month since I paid for three years of web hosting. Rather than post a negative number in my income, I am going to keep putting zeroes for online income until my online income is positive for the year.

My dividend income dipped slightly for the month. This isn’t surprising since most of my stocks pay a dividend in December while only a few paid a dividends in January. I bought a little over $1000 of dividend stocks in January which should result in higher dividend income within the next few months.  I’m going to keep investing in dividend stocks to keep increasing my dividend income. My investments will be limited the next few months due to needing to bulk up my cash savings to fund my Spring Thailand trip.

I worked full-time at my tax job for all of January. I’ll get two full paychecks this month which will be enough to make this month’s income total higher than January’s. March will be my best income month of the year since I’ll have three paydays.

I have been doing some sourcing and shipping to Amazon FBA so that income will go up this month. I plan to send in a bunch of stuff before I leave for Thailand.  That way I’ll continue to have some income while I’m in Thailand as my FBA inventory sells through.

Saving Rate

When I remember I will also be adding my saving rate to my income posts. In January I made $1841.89 and I spent $975.67 for a savings rate of 52.9%.  I put about $250 into my work 401k and the rest went into dividend stocks. In future months I plan to base my saving rate on my income and what I actually put into savings. I only count my retirement accounts and my dividend stocks as savings. Money that I accumulate in my checking/savings account isn’t considered savings until it is invested in a retirement account or dividend stock. In January I actually saved about $1500 in my retirement accounts and dividend stocks which would be an even higher saving rate.  Since some of that was accomplished my drawing down the balance in my checking/savings account I felt it was more accurate to just consider the difference between my income and expenses for the month as savings.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for January.

Household	$1.02
Rent	$257.23
Entertainment	$83.16
Transportation	$36.65
Food	$97.78
Travel	$69.59
Phone	$28.27
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$269.39
Total	$975.67

My January expenses were very low. I managed to get my expenses under my target of $1000 for the month.

Rent was low because I’m paying my mom’s utility bill as rent while I’m staying with her. This will probably be about $100 higher this month since it has been much colder since the end of the last billing period.

Transportation was for one tank of gas for my car. I also received a gas gift card for Christmas that got me most of another tank. Living in a small town and working at home I don’t use much gas. In January I drove to KC and back once and to Springfield and back twice. This month I won’t be going to KC so I should use even less gas. I should only have to get gas once this month. Since I won’t have any free gas this month the total expense will remain about the same.

My food expense went down quite a bit. It isn’t as good as it seems since my mom provided me with a lot of meals at home. My food expense was mostly for fast food and junk food snacks. I’m going to eat better this month so this expense will go down significantly.

Travel was for my Thai Visa application fee plus visa photos and postage to send the application to Chicago and to get my passport returned to me. I was going to wait until this month to get the Thai Visa. Since my expenses for January were so low I decided to go ahead and get the visa done. Applying for the visa here allows me to get a 60 day visa rather than the 30 day visa they issue upon arrival.

Phone was for one month of Google Fi phone service. This is about what my phone bill will be for the next few months. If you sign up for Google Fi through my referral link we will each get $20 Fi credit after your account has been active for 30 days.

Health was for the February premium on my health insurance plus an eye exam and a dental visit. I also had a doctor visit and 90 day refills for 2 different medicines which didn’t cost me anything out of pocket. This month my only health expense should be my health insurance premium so this expense will be cut in half.

My entertainment expense should go way down this month. I may go to the movies once to use up a gift card. The gift card should almost cover my admission. If I don’t get popcorn the movie visit will be very cheap. I also pay $1 a month for Hulu which I got super cheap as a Black Friday deal. If I stick to just those expenses I should have an entertainment expense of under $10 this month.

January was a low expense month and I think February will be even cheaper.  How was your month?

My annual expenses in 2018 were almost $4000 higher than my annual expenses of $13,697 in 2017. My annual expenses for the past few years were $16,431 in 2016, $16,999 in 2015 and $15,775 in 2014. That makes 2018 my highest spending year of the past few years. I’m hoping I will be able to reduce my expenses this year a bit. I do have some travel and dental expenses planned that will make it difficult to reduce my expenses much this year.

My total expenses for 2018 do not include the $4105 I paid on my student loan. Since those were voluntary payments that I was not required I consider them to be more in the nature of savings then an expenditure. This year I am required to make $132 monthly payments on my student loan. Those required payments will be included in my expenses for 2019 which will make it tougher to keep my 2019 expenses lower than my 2018 expenses.

My biggest expense for the year was $4655 for rent. That was a fair bit lower than the $5490 I paid for rent in 2017. This year I expect my rent to be even lower. I’m paying a very low rent while staying at my mom’s house. When I’m in Thailand I’ll have a very low rent there as well.

My second biggest expense was $4861 for medical, dental, and medicine. This was way more than I paid in 2017 and is the main reason my total 2018 expenses were quite a bit than my 2017 expenses. I’m hoping to lower this expense in 2019. However, I have a $130 monthly health insurance premium this year compared to a $0 monthly premium for most of 2018. I also need to get my dental bridge redone and probably get a dental implant. With all of that my 2019 expenses probably won’t be much lower than in 2018.

My household expense for 2018 was $477. This category includes things like clothing, utilities, gifts, and anything I buy that doesn’t fit in one of the other categories. I expect this category to be about the same in 2019. I rarely buy clothes, I don’t currently have a utility expense, and I don’t buy much random stuff so this expense doesn’t add up to much.

I spent $317 for the year for phone service. That works out to about $26.41 a month. I expect this expense to stay about the same this year unless I have to buy a new phone. The battery in my current phone seems to be losing power quickly so I might go ahead and replace my phone this year. Even if I get a new phone I don’t expect this expense to go up much.

I spent $2352 on transportation expenses for 2018. That included $770 for maintenance, $831 for gas, and $750 for insurance, registration, a speeding ticket, and other miscellaneous car expenses. Barring a major repair this expense should come down quite a bit this year. Since I’m working from home I’ll be spending very little on gas and when I’m in Thailand I won’t be spending anything on gas.

I spent $2084 on food in 2018 compared to $1957 in 2017. Many people would consider this a low total already, but I think I can reduce this quite a bit. I spent $547 on groceries and $1537 on dining out in 2018. If I can reduce the dining out and eat at home more often this expense will go down. Also, since I’m still about 45 pounds overweight I need to eat less food in general. Less food eaten should equal less money spent.

I spent $1707 on travel last year compared to $1057 in 2017. My travel consisted of a two-week hiking trip and a two and a half month trip to Thailand which included three-day stay in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as well. The trips included numerous hotel nights, a train ride from KC to Massachusetts, a one-way car rental from NY to KC, round trip airfare from Los Angeles to Asia, round trip airfare from KC to LA, a business class ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, travel visas and other miscellaneous travel expenses. For that amount of travel I think this expense was pretty low. Just the round-trip ticket from the U.S. to Asia could have cost $1700 if I didn’t plan ahead and use credit card rewards.

This year I will probably spend about the same on travel. I’ve already purchased a round-trip ticket from the U.S. to Shanghai, China and a round-trip ticket from Shanghai to Bangkok. I’ll be in Thailand for about 2 1/2 months. If it is financially viable I will take a second trip to Thailand later in the year.

Other expenses were $91.36 for fitness, $584 for movies, and $308 for entertainment. The total of those expenses should be about the same this year. I plan to spend less on movies which will probably be offset by spending more on entertainment.

That covers all of my expenses for 2018. If you have any questions about what I spent on certain categories of expenses or are wondering where some expenses are feel free to ask questions in the comments.