Expense/Income Tracking

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.

Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

My April income was great.  Since my tax job ended in April my future monthly income totals are going to be a lot smaller.  I am at least making a decent amount of income from my alternative and  passive income sources.  I didn’t receive any mystery shop income in April because I didn’t do any mystery shops in March and most of the mystery shopping companies pay the following month.  I will have a little mystery shopping income this month. I also received a surprise check from a class actions suit against Chase credit cards that I didn’t even know about.  I really don’t think my Chase credit card ever ripped me off but I’ll still cash the check.

My part-time job is converting to full-time this week.  That will help my income a little bit.  It is a low paying job so it really will be just a small help.  I’m going to need to increase my online income if I’m going to maintain my over 50% savings rate.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for April.

My April expenses were higher than I’d prefer . I missed my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under $1000 for the first time this year. I did at least meet my main goal of keeping my expenses under the minimum wage level of $1274 a month.

I once again spent too much money on food.  The total was lower than in March but still too high.  Food is my biggest weakness right now.  I’m eating way too much fast food and junk food.  I’ve complained about my eating habits a lot but haven’t changed them.  Eating better needs to be a priority this month.

Household expenses were a little higher because my cell phone stopped working and I purchased a new one. There isn’t much room for things to go wrong in a $1000 budget.

My transportation expense was also a little higher than I’d like.  The expense was all for gas. I did have one trip to SW Missouri but I should have spent less on gas.  I need to cut back on the unnecessary driving.

All other expenses should be about the same this month.  If there are no unexpected expenses I should get back under the $1000 mark again.

March was a decent month on my progress towards financial independence. My SWR went down to 54.50% from 62.54% the month before. My goal is to get my SWR down to 4% at which point I’ll consider myself financially independent. I’m seeing big declines in my SWR right now because I’m saving over half of my income and I’m reducing my monthly expenses. 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. The big drops in my SWR will slow down once my trailing 12 months average is closer to my current monthly average.

My goal is to save 50% of my income each month and I met that goal in March. I made $3935.19 and managed to save $2350. That amounted to a 59.71% savings rate. My savings should have been better in March. I actually ended up with more cash on hand than I intended. That surplus will be invested this month. My full-time job ends this month but I get two full paychecks. My goal is to save 75% of my income this month so I can get ahead on my 50% savings for the year goal. That way if I have a couple months with a less than 50% savings rate after the end of my job I’ll still be on track.

The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. I have 22.01 months of living expenses saved now. I should have over two years of living expenses saved by the end of the month. It is nice seeing my SWR go down in big chunks each month and my months of living expenses saved go up each month. That is why I’m working the crazy hours right now, so I can reap the reward in the future.