Expense/Income Tracking

It isn’t quite the end of the year but it is close enough that I am going to make this my end of the year net worth update. This is my first net worth update since last year. I’ll probably continue to just update my net worth once a year unless something happens to significantly affect my net worth during the year.

2018 Year End Net Worth

Assets

• Cash – $4017
• Stocks – $2162
• Misc – $174
• Solo 401k – $3778
• Trad IRA- $37,918
• 401k – $10,552
• Roth IRA – $1609
• Property – $1000

Liabilities

• Student Loan – $121,003
• Credit Card – $7200

My total assets of $61,210 minus my liabilities of $128,203 results in a year-end net worth of -$66,993. I managed to improve my net worth by a little over $4000 this year.

That is a poor result considering I added $6500 to my IRA and a little over $12,000 to my 401k accounts. The stock market decline resulted in a large portion of this year’s contributions disappearing.

The student loan continues to be a drag on my net worth. Although I paid several thousand dollars on the student loan this year it wasn’t enough to keep up with the interest. The loan accrues over $500 a month in interest which makes it impossible for me to make progress on paying down the loan. Unless my income at least doubles I am not going to be able to pay off the student loan.

I made another mistake of taking a 0% balance transfer on one of my credit cards. I used the money to top off my IRA contribution for the year and invest in some individual stocks. The market decline erased almost all of the money I contributed from the transfer. Nonetheless, the credit card still needs to be paid off before next November. Lesson learned – do not use debt to invest. Actually, I’m going to take that lesson a bit further and state that I will not take on any new debts at all. The only possible exception would be a mortgage and I don’t foresee that happening in the near future.

This year’s results were rather disappointing. The increase in my net worth did not reflect my high saving rate. Looking at the bright side, I now own more shares of the stocks and funds I invested in this year than I did last year so if the stock market rebounds next year my net worth should get a nice boost.

How did your net worth do this year?

Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

Interest	$5.64
Amazon FBA	$0
Job	$0
Cash Back	$0
Dividends	$3.83
Online Income	$10
Total	$19.47

November’s income was quite pitiful. Before I return to Thailand I need to find a way to earn an income while I’m there. Although my expenses have been quite low the past couple of months I am still going in the hole since my income is almost non-existent.

I thought I would be returning to work the last week of November. However, my start date to return to work has been changed to the end of this month. I wasn’t super pleased about that change, but it wasn’t something I had any control over.

I’m hoping I will be able to work a couple of weeks on a document review project before I return to the tax job at the end of the month. That way I will at least have a little income this month. Otherwise, I won’t get my first paycheck from the tax job until January which would result in another very low-income month.

I might also drive for Uber or find some other way of generating income this month while I’m waiting to resume my tax job. I still have plenty of savings to get me through until the tax job starts, but I am getting tired of seeing my savings dwindle. I would like to start building my savings back up.

I’m hoping that my income will improve quite a bit this month. It can’t get much lower.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

Household	$133.59
Rent	$123.36
Entertainment	$75.37
Transportation	$78.30
Food	$161.94
Travel	$149.66
Phone	$5.17
Health	$11.21
Total	$738.60

My November Expenses were very low due mainly to having very little rent and no other large expenses.

The main household expenses were $52.21 for utilities at my Chiang Mai apartment and $53.17 for five weeks rent on a storage locker in Kansas City.  I was responsible for paying electric and water for my apartment in Chiang Mai. The first month they screwed up my bill and I was only charged about $6 for utilities. As I expected, they rectified their error the following month so the $52.21 bill is really for almost two months of utilities. Considering I ran the aircon all night long and took long, hot showers every day that is a bargain.

Upon my return from Thailand I was going to move in with my ex-girlfriend as a roommate.  That didn’t work out so I needed somewhere to store my stuff while figuring out where I was going to live.  Thus, the $53.17 charge for a storage locker. I have figured out where I’m going to live. More on that in a later post.

The rent was for 9 days in a hotel in Uttaradit, Thailand. When my monthly rental in Chiang Mai ended I moved to Uttaradit for a few days so I could be closer to my girlfriend.  The room was a great deal at a little over $13 a night. I actually could have gotten a monthly rental for almost the same price. Since Uttaradit is a smaller city rent is even cheaper than the already cheap Chiang Mai prices. I’m considering living here when I return to Thailand next year.

Entertainment was mostly for movies and dinners with my girlfriend. This category was down because my girlfriend often didn’t feel like going out and just wanted to stay in the room. That was fine by me since staying in the room was usually more fun for me anyway.

Transportation was for gas for my car. I drove from KC to southern Missouri, back to KC, and then back to southern Missouri again. The cost of all that driving wasn’t too bad due to cheap gas, a discounted gas card, and fuel rewards.

My food expense was slightly lower than the previous month. Since all of my other expenses were so low I didn’t worry about trying to keep my food expense low. I consider this to be a slightly high amount for food for a month, but I think a lot of people would consider it a low amount. My food bill doesn’t get too high even when I’m not trying to keep it low since many of my favorite foods are really cheap. I also spent a few days at my mom’s for the Thanksgiving holiday and had a Thanksgiving feast and lots of leftovers which kept my food expenses minimal during that time.

I’m not going to worry about my food expense this month either. I plan on eating at home a lot more this month so I think my food expense will go down anyway.

Travel was for Uber/Lyft rides, airport parking, taxi, gas money for my GF, a bus ride from Chiang Mai to Uttaradit, and some other small incidentals. I don’t think I’ll have any travel expense this month unless a super bargain airfare to Thailand for next year or something like that comes up.

Phone was for 1 week of phone service in Thailand. I switched my phone back to Google Fi during the month, but I wasn’t billed during the month. The new Fi bill will be due this month so this expense will be higher although it will still be quite low.

Health was for my fitness club membership and some medicine.  That expense will be going up a lot this month.  I had to enroll in new health insurance for next year and my premium has gone up substantially. The cost has gone from $0 a month to $123 a month.  That is after subsidies.  The real cost is a lot more. Since my new plan has a low deductible and a low out-of-pocket max I intend to have a couple of medical procedures done next year that I’ve been putting off due to the cost.

My November expenses were very low and I expect my December expenses will also be very low.  How was your month?

 

 

Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

Interest	$5.93
Amazon FBA	$1.78
Job	$0
Cash Back	$10.33
Dividends	$5.38
Online Income	$150
Total	$173.42

October’s income was better than September’s although still a tiny amount. Since I don’t have a job while I am in Thailand my income does not add up to much. If I want to come back to Thailand next year I need to get a lot better at generating online income or finding another source of income to replace my job income while I’m out of the country.

This month my income will probably about the same. I’ll be returning to the U.S. the week of Thanksgiving. My tax job won’t resume until sometime in December though.  If I’m lucky I will be able to get a temporary document review job to work until my tax job starts. If not I will drive for Uber and see what else I can do to make some money.

Since I won’t be returning to work until at least the last week of November I won’t actually receive a paycheck in November.  Thus, my income earned in November won’t be received until December so it won’t be until next month that my income will get back to a reasonable level.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

Household	$32.59
Rent	$305.03
Entertainment	$113.43
Transportation	$0
Food	$185.78
Travel	$195.72
Phone	$15.19
Health	$74.72
Total	$922.46

My October Expenses were quite low due to the low-cost of living her in Chiang Mai and the absence of any large expenses.

My household expense was for paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent, utilities and similar expenses. I also spent almost $10 on a fan which inflated this expense category a bit. I bought the fan when I was sick and had a fever. Turning the AC down gave me the chills. Directing the fan towards my face allowed my head to cool down without making the rest of my body cold. Even though I will have to leave the fan behind, it was worth the expenditure to feel better when I was so sick. I’m pretty sure they undercharged me for utilities. Assuming they correct that error this month when I check out my household expenses for this month will be quite a bit higher.

Rent was for my apartment in Chiang Mai. The total was a tiny bit smaller than last month due to a slightly better exchange rate when I paid October’s rent.

Entertainment was a little high, but better than last month.  Since I have a lot of time to kill I ended up spending a bit going to the movies. My girlfriend was only able to visit me one weekend in October. If she had been able to visit me more often I would have spent a lot more in this category. We plan to spend quite a bit of time together this month before I have to return to the U.S. so I expect my entertainment expense will be higher this month.

Transportation was $0 for the month. I put local transportation in the travel category and didn’t have any other transportation expenses. This category will be higher this month since I will do a fair amount of driving once I return to the U.S. this month.

Food consisted of $31.98 spent on groceries and $153.80 spent on fast food/restaurants. This was a bit higher than the previous month. After the first couple days of the month I decided to not worry about food cost at all and see how much I ended up spending. I ate out 30 of the 31 days in the month and sometimes ate out twice in a day. The only day I didn’t eat out was when I was sick from possible food poisoning and had no appetite. I think I’ll spend a little less on food this month.

Travel was for local transportation, a visa extension, and two airline tickets to Bangkok. I bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok for myself since that is where I’ll be flying from to return home. I bought a round trip ticket for my girlfriend so she can visit me in Bangkok before I leave. I was able to get 3 free nights at the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel using points. It looks like a pretty nice place. I think my girlfriend and I will have a good time there.

Phone was about $15.19 for local Thai phone service. It was about a $1 cheaper than last month for some reason. This month I will be resuming my Project Fi phone service which will result in a slight increase in this expense.

Health included $22.73 for a doctor visit, $10.85 for my monthly fitness center membership, and the rest was for medicine. I don’t think I will have a doctor visit or need to refill any of my medicine this month so this expense should go down.

This month’s expenses were pretty low and I didn’t really make any special effort to keep them low. That is one advantage to living in Chiang Mai, expenses are naturally low here. I’d have to make a special effort to spend a lot here.

Weight Loss

At the end of August I posted a goal of losing 30 pounds in the next three months. I weighed 224.8 on September 1st. On October 31st I weighed in at 208.8 pounds for a weight loss of 16 pounds in 2 months. This means I am 4 pounds behind where I should be to be on track to meet my goal. I’ll need to step things up a bit to hit my goal.

I’m not too worried about not meeting my goal of losing 30 pounds in 3 months. To lose weight I have been doing intermittent fasting. For me, this means eating all of my food in an 8 hour window. My eating window is usually around 11am-7pm. My last meal of the day is usually finished before 6pm resulting in my 8 hour window being shrunk to a 7 hour window. I don’t worry too much about what I eat. I just keep my eating restricted to the window.  I find it easy to keep my eating restricted to the 8 hour window.

For exercise I do a HIIT workout on the treadmill every morning. The entire workout only takes 15 minutes which makes it incredibly easy to workout every day. I only missed 4 workout last month. I missed 2 workouts due to being sick and another 2 when my girlfriend was visiting and I wanted to spend more time with her.

Since both the intermittent fasting and HIIT workout are so easy to do I should not have any problems continuing to do both when I return to the U.S. Thus, I’m not too worried about whether I hit my weight loss goal since I know I have established habits that will eventually get me to that goal and beyond.

Next month I’ll let you know if I reached the goal.