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 04/2/2017 is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $9995
IRA – $25,679
Roth IRA – $11,035
Solo 401k – $1078
Car/Stuff – $3800

Liabilities
Student Loan – $122,490
Credit Card – $9000

Net Worth = $-79,903

My net worth improved by almost $1000 last month. I’m okay with that increase. It is nice to see a 7 instead of an 8 at the beginning of my net worth. It makes it seem like I’m at least making progress. At that rate my net worth would get to $0 in 80 months. I hope I can do it faster than that. I decreased my liabilities by almost $3000, but my investments declined a bit leaving me with just a $1000 improvement in net worth for the month.  I hope I’ll do better this month. I’ll continue to aggressively pay down my student loan. If my investments at least hold steady it should be a good month.

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 March.

March’s income was really good. That was mainly (okay, entirely) the result of having three paydays in March. It was a good thing I made a lot at my job because my alternative sources of income produced very little in March.  I didn’t make any online income. My Amazon income was tiny due to not having a lot of stock and selling some of the remaining slow-moving products at a loss.  Although I’d like to see my alternative sources of income do better, I am mainly focused on my job right now. Since it produces a better and guaranteed return on my investment of time it makes sense to concentrate my energy there. Once I start my sabbatical at the end of this month I’ll work on producing more income from my alternative sources of income.  To pay off my student loan as quickly as I’d like I need to make a lot of money from my job and from my alternative sources of income.

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 March.

.

March was an okay month for expenses. I paid for six months of car insurance which raised my transportation expenses. I also had a lot of travel expenses. Some of that was for my upcoming Europe trip, but most of it will be used for a future, not yet planned trip.  I think I’ll get a lot of value for the money spent. Since I’m supposed to be concentrating on my paying my student loans I shouldn’t be spending so much on travel.  The trip to Europe might be a once in a lifetime trip and I’ll be getting a lot of travel for the money spent so I don’t feel too bad about it.

I’ve decided to list my student loan expense separately since it will throw off my monthly numbers. In March I paid $10,077.96 towards my student loan. Of that amount $7000 of that total was from a credit card balance transfer which will have to be paid back over the next year. That leaves $3077.96 that I paid in cash for the month. I consider that great progress on paying my student loan. I won’t be able to keep up that rate for long.

I have to get my car inspected this month and I plan to have some other work done on it while it is in the shop so I’ll probably have a high transportation expense this month.  I don’t think I’ll spend much on travel this month so that category should go down quite a bit. Everything else will probably stay about the same.

How was your month?

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

.

February was a decent month for expenses. Although it was a lot higher than January, that was to be expected since January’s expenses were so low. The main things that made this month’s expenses higher were the student loan payment of $505.95 and the travel expenses of $293.08.  The student loan expense is a necessary expense if I’m ever going to get it paid off. The travel expense was for the annual fee on two credit cards and two six-day museum passes for our Paris vacation. The credit cards are going to get me two free nights in Paris at an $800 a night hotel so I think that is a pretty good deal. One of the credit cards is also allowing me to get a hotel room for $75 a night in Boston where we will be staying the night before taking a plane from Boston to Paris. That room would have cost at least $150 if I didn’t have points from my credit card. I get a lot in return for paying the annual fees on those credit cards. Their will still be lots of miscellaneous expenses, but I’ve got all of the big spending done for our Paris vacation. If it weren’t for the student loan expense and travel expense I would have met my $1000 spending goal for the month.

March’s expenses will be pretty similar to February’s except I’ll have a bigger student loan expense.  I’ll be okay with that.

How was your 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 03/3/2017 is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $11,356
IRA – $25,909
Roth IRA – $10,988
Solo 401k – $1086
Car/Stuff – $3900

Liabilities
Student Loan – $131,908
Credit Card – $2202

Net Worth = $-80,871

My net worth improved by about $5000 last month. I’m quite pleased with that increase. The rising stock market and increased cash savings from my job proved to be a potent combination for increasing my net worth.  Although my assets had a nice increase my liabilities only decreased by about $100. I need to do more work on them. That will be the subject of an upcoming blog post. My net worth not counting my student loan would be $51,037.

This month should also be a good month for my net worth since I will be getting three paychecks from my job. I hope to keep increasing my net worth each month and hopefully one day I’ll get to $0.

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