Expense/Income Tracking

In order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth a few times a year.

My net worth as of 09/3/2017 is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $3897
IRA – $27,177
Roth IRA – $1665
Solo 401k – $2825
Car/Stuff – $3300

Liabilities
Student Loan – $115,268
Credit Card – $0

Net Worth = $- 76,404

My net worth improved almost $2000  last month.   This was mainly due to receiving two paychecks from my full-time job. My student loan balance increased over $600 despite making a $450 payment during the month. That doesn’t seem correct, but every time I check their calculations for the year they’ve been correct.  The student loan is my only liability. With the way it accrues interest, it might be a liability forever. I’d like to get it refinanced, but I can’t get it done since my debt is so much bigger than my income.

I’ve been using Personal Capital (affiliate link) to help track my net worth. It keeps track of all of my financial accounts and my student loan making it pretty easy to calculate my net worth each month. It is free to sign up. If you would like to sign up I’d appreciate you using my link. All blog income, including affiliate income, goes to paying down my student loan.

Personal Capital

Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

August’s income was pretty good. Most of the income was from my full-time job.  I made about $450 from my non-job sources of income. That isn’t too bad, but it is much less than I’d like it to be. I’m going to work on getting those numbers higher. September is a three paycheck month for me so the overall income total for this month will be up quite a bit.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for August.

.

August was not a great month for expenses. My expenses were way higher than normal and way over my $1000 target. The high expenses were due to my moving into a new apartment. Rent was high this month since there was some overlapping of rent for my new apartment and shared expenses I paid at my GF’s house. There was also about $300 spent on furniture and other stuff for the apartment.  For that $300 I got a futon, twin innerspring mattress , shelves, wi-fi router, pot and pan set, toaster oven, hot plate, plastic storage containers. cleaning supplies, paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent, hamper, dish towels, towel rack, toilet paper holder, shower massage, shelf liner, fabric storage drawers, and probably a few more items I can’t think of right now. I think I got pretty good value for my money.

I also spent $300 to have internet installed. This will allow me to have free internet for as long as I live in this apartment. That is a great deal. Electric and water are included in my apartment rent, so $435 a month will pay my rent and all utilities including internet.

Food was another bad expense category in August.  I ate out all but three days during the month. Some days I ate out more than once so I had about 30 restaurant meals for the month. That is bad for my budget and terrible for my health. I’ll be cutting way back on that this month.

This month food and household expense will be a lot lower. Health will be a bit higher since I have a dentist appointment and I’m getting new health insurance from work. Getting health insurance from work is supposed to be a benefit, but it is a detriment for me this year. The cost will be more than my marketplace insurance  and the deductible is considerably higher. Plus, I’d already met my deductible for my marketplace insurance and now have to start over meeting the deductible for my employer insurance. That will cost me some money. How much it costs me depends on how much health care I need the rest of the year.

I expect my other expense categories to remain roughly the same. I should at least get close to meeting my $1000 target this month.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

July’s income was pretty good which was expected due to receiving two paychecks after returning to my full-time job.  I made about $500 from my non-job sources of income. That isn’t too shabby.

If I am ever going to manage to pay off my student loan though, I need to be making about as much money from my alternative sources of income as I make from my job. If I have the energy and the motivation I will put more work into making that happen this month.

In order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth a few times a year.

My net worth as of 08/2/2017 is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $2435
IRA – $26,603
Roth IRA – $1660
Solo 401k – $2115
Car/Stuff – $3400

Liabilities
Student Loan – $114,608
Credit Card – $0

Net Worth = $- 78,395

My net worth improved about $1600  last month.   This was mainly due to receiving two paychecks from my full-time job. My student loan balance increased slightly despite making a $450 payment during the month. Unfortunately, my loan accrues more than $500 interest every month so a $450 payment isn’t enough to keep the balance from increasing.  On the plus side I went ahead and paid off my 0% balance transfer credit card. It would have been a wiser financial move to wait until just before the 0% rate ends in January to pay off the credit card. I didn’t like having another debt so I went ahead and paid it off.  The student loan is once again my only liability. It is a pretty big liability so I don’t really need any others.

I’ve been using Personal Capital (affiliate link) to help track my net worth. It keeps track of all of my financial accounts and my student loan making it pretty easy to calculate my net worth each month. It is free to sign up. If you would like to sign up I’d appreciate you using my link. All blog income, including affiliate income, goes to paying down my student loan.

Personal Capital