Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

July’s income was pretty good. I got 4 paychecks from the job I started at the end of June. I plan to continue to work that job until one week before I leave for Asia.

I had a total of 10 different sources of income in July. I think that might be the most sources of income I’ve ever had in a month.  The 9 sources other than the job weren’t much compared to my job income. The roughly $600 of non-job income is approximately 60% of my targeted monthly expenses of $1000. I think I’d be able to get my monthly expenses down to $600 if I relocated to Chiang Mai. That makes the $600 of non-job income seem more substantial.

This month won’t have as many sources of income so the total will likely be down a bit. I expect my income will be at least double my expenses so it will be a good month.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for July.

My July expenses were a little high. This was due to paying $839 towards my student loan. Without that expense my monthly total would be just a little over my target of $1000.

Starting with this post I am going to provide more detail on what expenses were incurred in each category. I just started using the everydollar budget app which should help me keep track of what exactly I spent my money on. Although my expenses are already pretty low I think the budget will help me tighten them up a bit.

My household expense consisted of roughly $2 for a can opener and $34 that I have no clue what it was for. I don’t buy most of the things that are common household expenses so my household expense is often used as a miscellaneous category for items that don’t fit in any other category. I think the $34 was probably for a miscellaneous expense but I can’t remember what it was.

Rent is self-explanatory. Utilities are included with my apartment rent. I don’t have to pay for them separately.

Entertainment was almost completely for movies and for food at the movies. I also bought a couple of newspapers. I need to stop getting food at the movies since it is a terrible value.

Transportation was entirely for gasoline. My current job is about a 30 minute commute each way which results in a larger than normal gas bill.

Food consisted of $63.40 spent on groceries and $143.65 spent on fast food. I need to shift the fast food expense over to healthier groceries since the fast food is terrible for my health.

Phone was about $26 for my usual Google Fi phone bill and a little less than $40 for a cheap prepaid phone with airtime. My Nexus 5x died on me. Although it was out of warranty, it died from a known issue (bootloop) so it was repaired free of charge. A little web searching saved me a lot of money since otherwise I would have just bought a new phone. It did take a little over a week for the phone to be repaired. Not wanting to go without a phone for a week I bought a prepaid phone to use for the week. That was a bit of a frivolous expense.

Health included $43 for a dental bill, $34.55 for three prescription refills, and $15.50 for about a month and a half fees to a fitness center.

The student loan expense was for a voluntary payment on my student loan. I’ve now paid the $2500 amount of student loan interest that is tax-deductible for a year. I’m not sure if I will make further payment this year.

This month’s expenses should be a bit lower since I won’t make a student loan payment. I’ll probably spend some on travel preparing for my trip to Asia. The other categories should be roughly the same.

Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

June’s income was pretty good considering I did not have any job income.

The bulk of the month’s income came from unemployment which I will not receive this month since I’m working again. My job income this month will likely be a little less than my unemployment income in June.

I cashed out over $150 in credit card cash back last month. The $124 amount is my profit after expenses. Since both my Chase Freedom and Discover card were paying 5% back on grocery purchases I bought some gift cards to max out my cash back for the category. After paying the gift card fees and money order fees to cash out the cards I still made a decent profit.

My FBA income was pretty small this month. Since I had a loss last month even a small profit is an improvement.  I also made a slight amount of blog income. I’ll be getting an Adsense payout this month so I’ll have a little blog income this month as well.

I also made a little money from selling stuff in person rather than on Amazon and drove a little for Uber. I should make a little from both of those sources again this month.

Overall, I expect July’s income will be slightly less than what I made in June.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

My June expenses were very high. This was due to a combination of having a couple of car repair bills and paying a lot on my student loan. Without those two expenses my monthly expenses would have been under the $1000 mark. Of course, there are almost always some kind of unusual expenses like these so it isn’t realistic to subtract them from the budget.

My monthly food expense was too high again. For the first time ever it went over the $200 mark. That is way too much for one person to be spending on food. I’d be okay with that total if it was for healthy food. Since it is mostly for junk food and fast food I can’t justify my food expense being this high. This month I am going to limit myself to eating out once a week. That will result in a much lower food expense and whatever I eat at home is likely to be healthier than fast food.

My transportation expense was high due to needing two car repairs and getting a parking ticket. I paid a repair shop to install the struts I bought online since I didn’t have full confidence in my ability to do so.  They also replaced my sway bar link which I wouldn’t have realized needing replacing and the entire cost was $140 so I feel like paying for the installation was a good deal. I still saved a lot compared to what the original repair shop wanted to charge me for struts and installation.

Unfortunately, about a week after my struts were installed my brakes started squealing. It turned out I needed new brake pads and new rotors since my rotors were warped. The last time I had my brakes repaired I was warned the rotors were warped and would need to be replaced soon so this repair wasn’t a total surprise.

My gas expense was also quite high due to traveling to southern Missouri and back, driving for Uber, and the commute to my job. I will continue to drive for Uber this month and will be commuting another week or two so this month’s gas expense will also be high. Hopefully, there won’t be any repair or ticket expense so the transportation expense should be much lower this month even with the higher gasoline bill.

The student loan expense was high because I was using my unemployment proceeds to pay on my student loan. Now that I’m working the unemployment checks will stop which will result in much less being paid on my student loan. I do also earmark all blog earnings for student loan payments and I will get paid by Adsense this month so there will be at least a little paid on my student loan.

I don’t anticipate any big expenses this month. I think I have a good chance at having less than $1000 in expenses this month.

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

May’s income was decent considering I only had one week of pay during the month and it wasn’t even a full 40 hour week.

I cashed out $500 of credit card rewards to cover some of my hike expenses. I also received a $200 bank bonus during the month. Since I came back from my hike early I was able to get unemployment for the last two weeks of the month. I’ll probably only collect another week or two of unemployment before I start making some money from self-employment or find a temporary job.

My FBA income was negative this month and I didn’t have any online income or expenses. This month I should make a profit from FBA and I might make some online income as well.

I’m pretty happy that I made more money than I spent for the first month of my six month mini-retirement. I’ll have a large dental bill this month so I’m unlikely to repeat that feat this month. My income will likely be down this month as well since there won’t be any paycheck at all and I won’t have a large credit card bonus like I did in May. I will be trying to make money during the month so maybe I’ll make more than I think.  If I can come close to covering my expenses for the month I will be happy.