Expense/Income Tracking

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.

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.