Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

April was a good month for income. It should have been a little better. I was expecting to receive two full paychecks in April. Unfortunately, I missed three days plus a couple of hours due to being hit by a car. Getting hit by a car is not good for your finances. I should get paid for that time eventually, but it will probably be a while.

My Amazon FBA income was my best yet. It is still a long ways away from being a full-time income though. I’m trying to ramp that income up and hopefully I will be successful.

My other sources didn’t contribute much and that probably won’t change this month. This month will likely have a big drop in income since I no longer have my full-time job. There is a possibility that I’ll be starting a temporary job tomorrow. Since I haven’t heard from the employer yet I’m thinking that job probably isn’t going to happen. If I don’t get the job I plan on driving for Uber to make up some of the job income. In order to keep paying down my student loans I can’t have any poor income months. I plan on working full-time hours at my various endeavors and I’m hoping that results in a full-time income.

My March FIRE (financial independence retire early) numbers improved slightly. I have 34.71 months of expenses saved which is slightly more than the 33.e months of expenses I had saved in February. My goal is to have 300 months of expenses saved.

Although my ultimate goal is to save 300 months of expenses I am setting that goal aside for a while. My months of expenses saved will be going down over the next few months and will likely plateau for a few years. This is because I have decided that I need to pay off my student loans before saving for retirement. I’ll eventually write more about my plan to pay off my student loans. That post may have to wait until I get back from my hike though.

Here is a breakdown of my income for March.

March was a great month for income.  The tax refund of over $2000 was the biggest boost to income. My job income was pretty good too since I had two full paychecks. I also received a $100 referral bonus from Motif which was a nice bonus. If you want to sign up for Motif to get a $100 bonus of your own I have a referral link at the top of the left sidebar.  You read my Motif bonus post if you want some more information before you sign up.

Online income was pretty low, but at least I made a profit. It is hard to predict when I’m going to have a good or bad month for online income. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the effort I put into this and my other blogs and the income I receive at the end of the month. Since I haven’t been doing much on my blogs while working my tax job I am happy with any online income that still comes in.

My Amazon FBA income of $12.43 was disappointing. I sold about $2000 of stuff on Amazon in March. Most of it was sold for about what I paid or a loss though. The $12.43 profit isn’t much of a return on the time and money I invested in FBA. I spent about five hours (I’m guessing since I didn’t track this at all) on FBA so my FBA hourly wage was crappy in March. It isn’t quite as bad as it seems since I did also earn credit card cashback and/or airline miles and/or Staples rewards on my purchases. This summer I’d like to make FBA my main source of income so I’ve got to get a lot better at FBA if that is going to happen.

I usually have a referral link to Mr. Rebates in this post to get some more referrals. And this post does too! This month I also have a Top Cashback referral link since you currently can get a $10 bonus for signing up and I’ll get a $10 bonus for referring you as well. They usually only offer a $10 bonus to the member who makes the referral so this deal is obviously a better deal for you.

April income will be a lot less than March since I won’t have a $2000 tax refund. I will still have two full paychecks in April so it should still be a solid month for income.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for March.

My streak of below $1000 monthly expenses came to an end in March. The total was just barely above $1000 so I’m still happy with my level of spending. The $1000 level of spending doesn’t allow me much leeway in my expenses. Our trip to Las Vegas at the end of the month increased my travel and entertainment expense and put me over the $1000 target. The total cost of the Vegas trip was just a bit over $100 which was a great bargain. I actually won enough gambling to cover most of that cost. My credit card allows me to erase past travel purchases so the cost of the vacation could get even lower. I might break down the cost of the trip in a later post if I’m not too lazy this month.

Meeting the $1000 target will be tough to do this month. We have a vacation to Niagara Falls planned. Airfare and hotel will be free, but there will still be a rental car and other expenses. My student loan payment has also gone up to $183 a month. This increases my fixed expenses and doesn’t leave me with much for discretionary expenses. I’m not complaining though. I get a lot of value for the money I spend.  Even if I don’t meet the $1000 target I think I’m doing pretty well at keeping my expenses under control.

My February FIRE (financial independence retire early) numbers were down slightly from the month before. This was disappointing since this is the time of year I am supposed to make the best progress on my numbers. Part of the reason for the poor performance was that I didn’t get some money moved from checking to savings. That money will get moved this month which will make this month look better.

My safe withdrawal rate declined slightly from 35.89% in January to 36.13% in February. Either way it is a long way to my goal of 4%.

I have 33.20 months of expenses saved which is slightly less than the 33.43 months of expenses I had saved in January. My goal is to have 300 months of expenses saved.

March should be a much better month financially and I expect to see significant improvement in both of these numbers.