Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

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May was a pretty good month for expenses considering I was on vacation for three weeks of the month. My food, travel, and entertainment expenses were all a bit higher than usual due to being on vacation.

I didn’t have any transportation expense for the month. I did have expenses for Uber, trains, and buses while in Europe.  Those are included in the travel expense category rather than transportation for this month.

I’ve decided to list my student loan expense separately since it will throw off my monthly numbers. In May I paid $1549.17 towards my student loan.  That was a pretty good amount for the month since I made very little money in May.  I won’t be able to make a large payment towards my student loan this month, but I might at least make a small payment to slow down the increase in my loan balance.  Next month I should be able to make a large payment towards my loan again.

Considering I was in Europe for three weeks where things are quite a bit more expensive than here in KC I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my expenses reasonably low for the month.  I could have done even better, but the fatigue of travel often led to me making the easiest purchase rather than the most frugal purchase. Overall, I am happy with my level of expenses for the trip.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

May’s income was pretty slim. This was expected since I started my sabbatical from my job in late April and was out of the country for three weeks of May. Without the steady income from the job and with no time to make money from my alternative sources not much money was made in May. Thankfully, my job will resume later this month so I’ll start making decent money again. I may not get my first paycheck until July though which would result in another tiny income month this month. Hopefully, I will at least make more this month then I did in May.

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 05/1/2017 is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $11,103
IRA – $25,998
Roth IRA – $1,591
Solo 401k – $1081
Car/Stuff – $3700

Liabilities
Student Loan – $114,688
Credit Card – $7875

Net Worth = $-79,090

My net worth improved a little over $800  last month. I decreased my liabilities by almost $9000, but a big chunk of that was from withdrawing money from my investments so the reduction in my assets was almost as big as the reduction of my liabilities. There won’t be any paychecks in May which will probably result in my net worth declining for the month.  I’m hoping my investments do well so I can at least make a little progress.

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 April.

April’s income was pretty good. It was down a fair amount from March.  That was expected due to March having three paydays and April only having the normal two.  I didn’t make much money from my alternative sources of income.  I actually managed to lose a bit on Amazon. This was my second month in a row of having no online income or expense. In June I will work on trying to get my online and FBA income back up.

May’s income will be down substantially.  The combination of being on sabbatical from my job and spending three weeks in Europe will result in very little money being earned in May.

If any of you have suggestions on how to make money on the side I’d love to hear them.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for April.

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April was a great month for expenses. My total expenses were well below my target of $1000 for the month. I didn’t have much in unusual expenses this month.

I had to get my car inspected and register it for two more years. I also bought a $100 gas card. Those two expenses made my transportation expense a little high. Since I won’t be paying for gas again for a couple of months and the car is registered for two years I am okay with this expense.

I didn’t have any travel or entertainment expense.  I went to the movies once and used a gift card that was reported in my expenses a few months ago so there was no new expense to report for April. I also made a couple of small travel purchases for this month’s trip to Europe. Those expenses were reimbursed by my Chase Sapphire card so there was no expense to report there.

I’ve decided to list my student loan expense separately since it will throw off my monthly numbers. In April I paid $8416.07 towards my student loan.  I consider that great progress on paying my student loan.  That will be the last month with big payments for a while.  I’ll only be making one small payment in May and I probably won’t be able to pay anything in June. In July, I’ll be able to start making payments again. They just won’t be multiple thousands of dollars like the last two months were.

This month I”m going to be in Europe for three weeks.  I expect that will result in a much higher expense total for May.  Since I’ve already paid for a lot of the trip expenses, I don’t think that the total will be too bad though. I’m not going to worry too much about spending money on this trip. It might be a once in a lifetime trip for me and I want to enjoy it.

How was your month?