Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

My income wasn’t too great in May. I did start a job in the second half of the month. I only received a paycheck for two days work in May so the job didn’t provide much of an income boost for May.  The job paychecks should make this month a much better income month.

It was nice to have two profitable online months in a row. My online income will probably never return to the level it was a few years ago, but if I can make a thousand dollars or two from blogging I’ll be happy with that.

My FBA income has been pretty pitiful the last couple of months. I’d like to rebuild FBA income back to the $1000 a month level which I know is possible. That will have to wait since I don’t want to put too much time into FBA while I’m working a full-time job. On a positive note, making purchases for FBA has increased my cash back income.

For now I will mainly focus on making money from my job.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

My May expenses were back to a normal level. I would have made my $1000 spending target if it weren’t for paying for a dental scan and the amount of the doctor’s bill for my colonoscopy that my insurance didn’t cover. In order to meet the $1000 target I need to have a month with no irregular expenses which doesn’t happen very often.

My total expenses for this month will probably be about the same. My transportation expense will go up since I’m driving 60 miles round-trip to work and I’m driving to a conference that is about three hours away. My health and travel expenses should go down which will hopefully more than offset my increased transportation expense.  There shouldn’t be a big change in any of the other expense categories.

I’m pretty satisfied with my current level of expenses.  There isn’t much improvement to be made there. Income is where I need a lot of improvement.

In order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth each month. This month’s is a little delayed since I was hiking at the beginning of the month.

My net worth as of today (5/13/2016) is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $4029
IRA – $22,677.65
Roth IRA – $9865.33
Car/Stuff – $5000

Liabilities
Student Loan – $128,165.88

Net Worth = $-86,593.90

***Update*** After I posted this I discovered the net worth total was incorrect. The post has been updated to reflect the correct amount.

My net worth improved about $350 in April. That isn’t much, but at least it was an improvement. (actually after correcting my math my net worth did decrease a little in April) Since I was hiking and didn’t make much I thought I might have a net worth decrease for the month.

Although I didn’t have much income for the month my cash position increased quite a bit. A lot of that was due to selling quite a few low or no profit items on Amazon FBA. Those items didn’t result in much income, but since they were purchased in previous months they increased April’s cash flow.

The big negative continues to be my student loan. The loan accrued another $791.58 in interest since last month’s post. It appears that I’m being charged interest on my entire balance although it is my understanding that I should only be charged interest on the original principal amount. I will have to contact them and see if I can clarify this.

As I’ve stated before this massive student loan makes it difficult for me to get ahead financially. I’d like to get this refinanced, but that will be difficult to do until I have steady employment and consistent income.  I need to do something soon since I’m basically throwing away $700 a month.

I’ve been using Personal Capital (aff 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.

Personal Capital

Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

April was a decent income month considering  that I was hiking three weeks of the month. My online income was a nice surprise. After months of little or no income I actually made a little bit of money from my blogs. I will be getting a payment from Adsense and Commission Junction this month giving me two months in a row of online income. It would be nice if I could get my online income back up to what it was a few years ago.

I’m struggling to get my FBA business making the kind of money I’d like to make. I read online about people who are able to make $1000s in just a few months with FBA and I think I should be able to do that to. I’ve had a couple of months with over $1000 profit and I want to get to where every month is over $1000 profit. I’m struggling to find enough stuff to sell right now. I will need to spend more time sourcing this month to get more products in inventory which should lead to more sales.

I should have an increase in income this month since I’m not hiking. So far I’m on pace to make less than last month though. I notified my document review job that I’m available for work, but they haven’t added me to a project yet. I’m hoping that they will do so soon. In the meantime I will focus on making more money from my other sources of income.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for April.

My April expenses were higher than normal. This was mainly due to the cost of my colonoscopy and medicine. The travel expense of $286.91 also inflated my monthly total. I’m okay with the colonoscopy and travel expense increasing my expenses. My colonoscopy revealed a couple of large polyps that were benign, but may not have still been benign had I waited until I was 50 to get a colonoscopy. Knowing that I don’t have any major problems with my digestive tract was well worth the money spent.

The travel expense was for my three-week hiking trip. It includes my airfare to NJ, train to town near trail, taxi to trail, and four nights in a hotel.  I think I got a lot of value for the money spent. Since the trip went into the first few days of May there will be a little bit of travel expense this month as well.

I spent way too much on food. A lot of that was due to eating at restaurants while hiking. Most of the restaurants near the trail were a little pricier than I would have preferred, but I chose to eat at them rather than not have a restaurant meal at all. I need to cut my food expense way down this month.

One bright spot in my expenses was the transportation category.  I didn’t spend any money on transportation. Since I wasn’t home I didn’t drive my car and didn’t have to buy gas or otherwise spend money on my car. This expense will obviously go up this month. It still shouldn’t be too much though.

My expenses should go down this month although they will still be higher than usual.