Expense/Income Tracking

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.

Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

Interest	$7.30
Amazon FBA	($0.62)
Job	$0
Cash Back	$13.19
Dividends	$7.92
Online Income	$7.53
Total	$35.32

September’s income was terrible. It wasn’t unexpected since I was in SE Asia all month and did not have a job. My non-job sources of income didn’t add up to much. I actually lost a little bit on Amazon FBA due to a couple of refunds.

This month’s income will be higher since I’ve already received more income this month than in September. It will still be a very small amount though. Until I get back to the States and resume my tax job my income will likely remain pretty meager. I am trying to build up my online income, but it will likely be months before I see any results.

I don’t like having such a small income for the month. I did save plenty of money to cover my expenses while I’m here in Thailand so the lack of income will not be a problem.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

Household	$33.29
Rent	$307
Entertainment	$220.04
Transportation	$279.69
Food	$154.85
Travel	$67.41
Phone	$16.8
Health	$1302.88
Student Loan	$1600
Total	$3981.96

My September Expenses were very high due to a couple of large expenditures in the health and student loan categories. Removing those two expenses my expenses were pretty close to my usual $1000 target.

My household expense was for paper towels, toilet paper, a towel and washcloth, soap, detergent and cleaning supplies. This was stuff I needed for my apartment in Chiang Mai. Back home I would have already had this stuff or been able to get it for free. For me, Chiang Mai is more expensive than the U.S. in this category.

Rent was for my apartment in Chiang Mai. This was a fair amount of savings compared to my $435 rent in Kansas City. The difference in rent isn’t all savings since I have to pay for water and electric here in CM whereas it was included in my KC rent. My CM apartment is nicer than my KC apartment and also includes access to a pool and fitness center so this isn’t an apples to apples comparison. I could have saved more on rent if I were renting for a longer term and/or rented a more basic apartment.

Entertainment was quite a bit higher than normal. Almost half of the total was for movies. I went to the movies 7 times during the month and I took my GF with me 6 of those times. The admission fees added up. Since I’ve been using MoviePass or AMC A-List for the past year back in the States, I actually paid more in Chiang Mai for admission than I would have back home. Also, the theater I go to is nice and modern but the seats are uncomfortable. I don’t think they were designed to hold a 220 pound man. I splurged for deluxe seats and a couch seat a couple of times to see if they were more comfortable. They weren’t so going forward I will just be getting the cheap seats.

I also spent quite a bit on concessions. They are cheaper here, but they aren’t cheap. I’ll cut back a little on concessions in October.

The other entertainment expenses included various local outings with my girlfriend. I also put some of our meals together in the entertainment category when we ate somewhere a little more expensive that I probably wouldn’t have eaten at by myself. The big expense in this category was $60 for an NFL Game Pass. This expense was worth it since I can keep up on all of the NFL games and see how my Chiefs are doing. (They are doing great so far, but they started 6-0 last year and that didn’t end well so I’m not getting my hopes up too much yet.)

Transportation was for 6 months of auto insurance.  I put taxi and local transportation expenses in the travel category. I shouldn’t have any transportation expense in October.

Food consisted of $44.82 spent on groceries and $110.03 spent on fast food/restaurants. This was a bit higher than the previous month. It isn’t surprising since there was travel during the month and I’m now living in an apartment where I don’t have the equipment to prepare meals.  If I eat more Thai meals this month and cut back on the Western meals that should reduce this expense a bit. I’ve also found better prices on some items over the course of the month. As I keep finding better deals that should also reduce my food expense.

Travel was for local transportation, an admission fee, and an airport hotel in Bangkok for the night before my return to the U.S.  My flight from Bangkok leaves at 7 a.m. I decided it was wise to cancel my room in the city center and get a hotel closer to the airport in order to get a little more sleep. This expense should go down this month.

Phone was about $16.80 for local Thai phone service. My Google Fi service is supposed to work in Thailand, but I was unable to get the data to work. That was disappointing and unexpected since it did work when I was in Europe last year. It worked out ok since I was able to get a local number cheap and pause my Google Fi service resulting in a slightly lower phone expense for the month. This month should be the same.

Health included $1233.30 for a dental bridge, $15.42 for a prescription refill, and $54.16 for my monthly fitness center fee and the annual fitness center fee. I was hoping the dental bridge would be cheaper. I shopped around online and what I paid was a normal price for a bridge for two missing teeth. The dental school in Kansas City where I usually get my dental work done, quoted me a price of about $1200 for a dental bridge so I paid about the same here in Chiang Mai as I would have in KC. Compared to a normal U.S. dentist price though this was a significant savings. Here in CM I was able to get the entire procedure done over the course of 3 short visits in one week. At the dental school I probably would have had several hours long appointments over months to get the procedure done. Getting it done in CM saved me a lot of time. When you consider that I probably would have had to take off work for at least some of the appointments back in KC I saved a little money as well. I had a little over $1200 saved up in my HSA to cover this expense. My HSA is now wiped out so I don’t plan any dental or medical work this month.

I paid $1600 towards my student loan. Although I have one consolidated student loan I am allowed to direct my over payments to two of the four underlying loans that make up the consolidated loan. I did some experimenting with directing my payments this month and actually managed to pay a little of the principal. Usually all of my payments goes to interest.

This month’s expenses should be a lot lower. I’m hoping I don’t have any unusual large expenses this month so I can get a good idea of what my normal monthly living expenses would be if I lived in Chiang Mai.

Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

Interest	$5.27
Amazon FBA	$22.17
Job	$3153.62
Cash Back	$27.05
Dividends	$0.22
Uber	$2.66
Credit Card Other	$175
Online Income	$0
Mystery Shopping	$0
Selling Stuff	$147.91
Total	$3533.90

August’s income was pretty good. I got 5 paychecks from my document review job since there were 5 Fridays in August. I was also able to work one weekend making time and a half which increased my pay quite a bit.

My other sources of income only added up to about $380.  When you consider my other sources of income were more than enough to pay for my food, transportation, phone, and entertainment expenses for the month it does make the other sources of income sound more substantial.

I won’t be tracking my savings rate this month since I did a lot of moving money around to different accounts making it difficult to determine my real savings rate. I will track my months of expenses saved instead. I only count the money I have saved in my IRAs and 401ks for this purposes. I have about $60,000 saved in those accounts. If I were able to continue to replicate this month’s expenses of $947.19 that would mean I have 63.34 months of expenses saved.

This month’s income will be down significantly since I will be in SE Asia and not working. I hope I will be able to figure out a way to make some money while I’m over there. If not, I will just make a tiny bit of money from my non-job sources of income.