Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

My June expenses were much higher than I’d prefer. I missed my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under the minimum wage level of $1274 a month for the first time this year.

My food bill was under my $100 goal. Even though it was pretty low it could have been a lot better.  The total includes over 20 fast food meals.  The only reason the bill was lower than normal was because I ate a lot of the food I had previously purchased.

My transportation expense were the budget buster. I spent a little over $500 in repairs. I went ahead and replaced my catalytic converter which was a little over $500.  That was a lot less than the $1000 I was quoted at the first repair shop but still a lot more than I liked spending.  I also had my six month auto insurance bill which was about $200.  I’m looking forward to having transportation expenses of well under $100 in July.

I’m making a stretch goal of keeping my total expenses under $500 in July.  That will be pretty hard to do but it isn’t impossible.  My expenses should definitely be a lot less than they have been the last couple of months.

May was not a very good month on my progress towards financial independence.  I was hoping that I could still decrease my safe withdrawal rate slightly every month even without my tax job income, but my SWR actually got worse, it went up to 55.15% from 49.50% the month before.  The high expenses for May sent my average monthly expenses quite a bit higher and thus made my SWR worse.  The small amount of savings I managed for the month wasn’t nearly enough to offset the increase in my average monthly expenses.  I’m determining my SWR by tracking my trailing 12 months of expenses divided by the amount of my investments.  Since I don’t think the preceding 12 months accurately reflect my expenses going forward I am using my monthly expenses starting in November 2012 to set the average so having a high expense month makes a big change in the average right now.  Unfortunately, June will also increase my average monthly expenses.  Starting in July I should start knocking the expenses back down again.

My goal is to save 50% of my income each month and I didn’t come close to meeting that goal in May. I made $1462.34 and managed to save $200. That amounted to a 13.67% savings rate.  My May expenses were actually higher than my May income so managing to save any money was good. The only reason I was able to save a little was because I had extra money from the month before that had not yet been allocated to savings. Unless I get an unexpected windfall I won’t be saving any money this month since I had another large car repair and will only make a small income.

The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. I have 21.75 months of living expenses saved now. It was a little over 24 months of expenses the month before.   I don’t like going backwards on this goal but I will most likely go backwards on this goal again in June.  I should start making a little forward progress in July.  I won’t be able to make substantial progress though, until I return from my hike and find a new job.

Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

My May income was not good. Since my tax job ended in April I knew my income would be going down but I was hoping it would be a little better than this.  My income was actually less than my expenses which is not sustainable for long.  The job income was about what I figured it would be.  Even though I got full time hours at my part time job for a couple weeks the job pays so little that the additional hours didn’t help much.  That job is ending this month.  I do like that job but since it pays so little it shouldn’t be hard to find another job that pays more when I get back from hiking.

My online income was a little better than it appears.  The total was reduced quite a bit to pay for moving Bank Bonuses to the BankBonuses.com site.  I’m hoping that move will make me money in the long run but it is costing me money right now.  Overall, my sources of passive and/or alternative income didn’t amount to much.

My income prospects for this month are not very good. I need to sell a lot of stuff before I move out of my apartment.  That should result in me making quite a bit more in the selling stuff category.  Unfortunately, the job income will be down and the other categories will be about the same.  When I get back from hiking increasing my income will be my first priority.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

My May expenses were much higher than I’d prefer. I missed my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under the minimum wage level of $1274 a month  for the first time this year.

My food bill was almost down to my $100 goal. Since I’m moving at the end of this month I plan to eat all of the food in my apartment. I’m also planning on doing quite a few restaurant mystery shops so my food total should be below $100 for this month.

My transportation expense were the budget buster. I spent a little over $600 in repairs.  The bad news is that my catalytic converter is going out so I will have another big repair bill soon. My usual repair shop quoted just over $1000 to replace the catalytic converter. I’m going to shop around to see if I can’t get a better price.  The replacement of the catalytic converter probably won’t be done until after I’m back from my hike. The good news is that my gas bill was under $100 even with a trip to SW Missouri. I’ve done pretty well on cutting back on the unnecessary driving.

I also spent $159 on a plane ticket to Harrisburg, PA to start my hike. Even with that expense I would have been close to my $1000 goal if I hadn’t had all the car repairs.  All other expenses should be about the same this month. If I don’t go ahead an replace the catalytic converter I should get back under the $1000 mark again.

April was another good month on my progress towards financial independence. My SWR went down to 49.50% from 54.50% the month before. My goal is to get my SWR down to 4% at which point I’ll consider myself financially independent. The safe withdrawal rate isn’t decreasing quite as fast as it was.  Now that I will be making much less money the decreases will be even smaller but I’m hoping I can still decrease the SWR every month.

My goal is to save 50% of my income each month and I met that goal in April. I made $3815.80 and managed to save $2000. That amounted to a 52.41% savings rate.  I didn’t put quite as much money in savings in April as I could have because I wanted to leave myself a little bit of a cash cushion with the tax job ending and my part-time job not being quite enough to cover my bills.  My part-time job has turned into a full-time job so I will be able to decrease my cash a little and move that cash to savings.

The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. I have 24.24 months of living expenses saved now. It is nice to have two years of living expenses in savings.  Most of the money is in retirement accounts so it isn’t easily accessible, but it is still nice to know it is there.

The way I am determining my SWR is by tracking my trailing 12 months expenses divided by the amount of my investments. Since I don’t think the preceding 12 months accurately reflect my expenses going forward I am using my monthly expenses starting in November 2012 to set the average so every low month of expenses makes a big change in the average right now.