Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

My December expenses were higher than I prefer, but about what I expected.  My transportation expenses were high because I paid six months of car insurance and the annual property tax on my car.  The commute required for my new job also increased my gasoline spend.

The rest of the cost of my cruise was also paid this month. My travel rewards card did help cut the cost some.

I haven’t done the addition yet, but I’m pretty sure I met my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under $1274 a month.  I’ll share what my final results were when I post about the final results of my 2013 New Year’s resolutions.

I’m thinking I might be able to get my expenses a little lower in 2014.  I’ll no longer have my monthly fitness center membership dues of $56.14 a month and my health insurance will be about $9 cheaper, so that is roughly $65 a month in expenses I won’t have in 2014.  I don’t think any of my other expenses should go up much, but we will see.  I’m pretty happy with how I did on my expenses for the year and I’m hoping I can do even better in 2014.

November was not a good month for savings as I didn’t save any money during November.  Since I thought I was going to have to raid my savings during December, I didn’t bother putting any money in savings during the month.  As it turned out, I did get a job at the beginning of this month and won’t have to raid my savings and could have made at least a token contribution to my savings during November.  I’ll save as much money as I can this month, but it looks like I won’t meet my goal of saving 50% of my income.

My SWR went up to 49.15% from 47.67% the month before. I haven’t been able to make consistent progress on my SWR since my tax job ended in April.  The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. Once I reach that point I will consider myself financially independent. The tax job is starting back up in January and the job I am working now will overlap that job for a couple of weeks so I’ll be making a decent income for the next few months and should start making progress on my SWR again.  I have 24.41 months of expenses saved, compared to 25.17 months the month before.  I went slightly backwards on that measure as well.  I’m looking forward to getting my savings back in gear and making significant progress towards my savings goals again.

Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

November was not a great month for income.  I did have a three day document review job which kept my income from being completely terrible. December will be a much better month for income since I now have a full time job.  I won’t receive two full paychecks this month so January should be even better.

Cash back is a nice extra source of income that mainly comes from Mr. Rebates. The cash back income should go up a little as more people are doing their Christmas shopping.  I’m not worrying too much about my alternative and passive sources of income this month.  I’m focusing on making money from my job since that is currently the easiest way to make money right now.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

My November expenses were not bad considering I paid for $367.40 of my cruise vacation expenses during the month. My expenses would have been under my stretch goal of $1000 if I didn’t have the cruise vacation expenses.  I haven’t done the math, but I’m pretty sure I’m still on target to meet my goal of having my annual expenses be less than a minimum wage income.

The rest of the cost of the cruise will be paid this month. Since my travel rewards card will pay some of that expense for me the remaining cost of the cruise will not be too much.

Food cost was a little high in November, but it was low in October so those balanced out.  The food total should be around $100 this month.

I’ve started a new job that is a thirty minute commute each way so my transportation cost will go up, everything else should be about the same.  It is unlikely I can get my expenses down to the $1000 level this month, but they should be at least a little less than in November.

October was not a great month for saving.  I made $803.19 and saved $100 for 12.4% of my income saved.  This was way below my goal of saving 50% of my income.  It is difficult to save much when my income is that low.   I lowered my SWR to 47.67% from 49.28% the month before.  I’m happy that I made a little progress despite my low savings amount.  Gains on my stock investments and the lower expense level helped me reduce the SWR even with the tiny savings contribution for the month.  It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to continue making progress for November or December though.  My income looks like it will stay small and I have to pay my six month car insurance bill, my car property tax, and the remaining balance of the cruise.

The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. Once I reach that point I will consider myself financially independent.  I have 25.17 months of living expenses saved now. My tax job starts in January, but I’m hoping that I can find a temporary job before then so I can end the year on a good note.