Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

My expense total for November was very good.  It looks like I will soon be able to get my expenses under $1000 a month. I did not include my vehicle purchase in the expenses.  The money I receive from selling my van should cover my car purchase and associated expenses, any money leftover will be income for December.  If the van sale doesn’t cover the car purchase and associated expenses than I will count the deficit as an expense for December.  Assuming I am able to sell the van this month.

My big expense was once again transportation. I spent well over $500 on gas in November. I’m moving to Kansas City so this expense will go way down this month.  It will be offset by having rent, but my rent will still be less than what I’ve been spending on gas.  My car insurance is due at the end of the month so the transportation category will still be my biggest expense in December.  The category should be way down in January though.

It will be difficult to meet my expense goal of $1000 this month due to moving expenses and my semi-annual car insurance bill.  I should still come close and I think I will be well set up to get my expenses under $1000 in January.

Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

My income was up sharply in October. Since I started a new part-time job as an attorney and continued my other part-time job an increase was to be expected.  My online income was up sharply as well and was more than my two jobs combined.  That isn’t really a fair comparison though because the job totals are after tax and the online biz total is before tax.  It is very hard to predict what my online business income will be.  I made most of October’s money in about a five day span and not much happened the rest of the month.  It is nice to see that even with all the time I’m spending working at my jobs the online income is still going strong.

I only received one paycheck from my law job and it didn’t even include my normal number of days.  Due to the way my paydays fall I will have three paychecks from my law job in November.  My job income should be up quite a bit this month.

My other sources of passive and alternative income aren’t too significant, but they are nice to have.  I got $28.79 from Mr. Rebates which was almost all from my referrals’ purchases. It is nice to have the residual income coming in without any more effort needed on my part.

I hope that I will make at least as much this month as in October.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

My expenses were up a bit in October.  A big chunk of the increase was from paying off my van.  I won’t have a van payment this month which should result in much lower overall expenses.  If I do end up buying a new car then that could change.

My other big expenses was transportation. I spent just over $500 on gas in October, which is about what  I thought I’d spend after I took the law job.  I’m hoping to reduce that expense this month.  If I buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle that will help.  If not the lower gas prices should help a little.

All of my other expenses should be about the same.  My entertainment expense will probably go up a little.  My food expense might go down a little.  It is already pretty low but since I’m staying at my mom’s and have been doing a few fast-food mystery shops it could be even lower.

I’d like to shoot for my expenses being under $1000, not counting any vehicle purchase expenses.  At that level of spending I should be able to save a fair bit of money.

Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

My income sharply declined in September. My online income was great in August and I expected it to go down in September but not by so much.  Online income should be better this month, but it is hard to predict. I didn’t realize I made so little in September.  Since I withdrew $400 from my forgotten savings account, took out $100 from accumulated dividends, received a $150 refund for returning my defective tablet, and started the month with a surplus in my checking from last month’s income it seemed like I had more money.

I did start a part-time job in September but the first payday isn’t until later this month.  I started a full-time job earlier this week and will receive at least one paycheck from it this month so October’s income should show significant improvement.

My other sources of passive and alternative income didn’t add up to too much. The cash back total of $91.86 wasn’t too bad though.  I got $45 from Mr. Rebates which was almost all from my referrals’ purchases. It is turning out to be a nice bit of passive income.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

My expenses were down a bit from August.  I made three extra payments on my van or my expenses would have been way down.  If you take away the van payments, my expenses would have been only $561.90. My goal was to keep my expenses other than the van payments below $1000 so I’m very happy with September’s total expenses.  I’m finally starting to see the savings from living in a van. It was one of those rare months where there were no unexpected expenses and no semi-annual/quarterly expenses.  I’ll be hard pressed to keep my expenses as low this month.

Transportation was where I had the most savings.  I went from spending over $500 in gas in August, to spending $169.73 on gas in September. It would be nice if I could keep my gas expense that low again this month.

I doubt I’ll be able to make 3 extra payments on my van again.  I’m hoping I will be able to make at least one extra. All my other expenses will probably be about the same.