Expense/Income Tracking

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.

Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

I had a nice increase in income for August.  This was mainly due to my online income rebounding nicely.  I don’t expect it will continue this month, but if it is even half of August’s total I’ll be happy with it.  My other sources of passive and alternative income didn’t add up to too much.  The cash back total wasn’t too bad though.  I got $35 from Mr. Rebates which was almost all from my referral’s purchases. It is turning out to be a nice bit of passive income.  My mystery shopping income should be up in September as well since I did several mystery shops in August that I’ll be paid for this month.

Some people have criticized me for not having a job.  My August income is more than I’ve made from most of the jobs I’ve had.  I was making this much every month from the middle of last year to March of this year so I didn’t feel a need to get a job.  If you’re self-employed and making enough to pay your bills, I don’t think it is fair for people to tell you to get a job.

I will be getting a job of some sort this month.  Even with working a full-time job I think I can continue to make about the same amount of money in alternative and passive income.  The combination of job income and other income should allow me to pay off my van quickly and replenish my savings.  I’ll keep you posted on the job search.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for August.

My expenses were up a bit from July and a lot higher than I’d like.   The household expense was higher this month because I paid my mom’s electric and water bill since I’ve been staying at her house quite a bit.  Entertainment expenses were ok, but I’d like to reduce them further until I get the van paid off.   Transportation was the highest expense once again.  I spent over $500 on gas, which is way too much.  I also had to buy a new tire and get the oil changed.  I’ll be making it a priority this month to reduce my driving.  All the money I’m spending on gas is basically offsetting any money I’m saving from not having rent.

My food expense may seem low, but I was at my mom’s half the month and I had quite a few mystery shopping meals so it could have been lower.  I don’t plan to be at my mom’s much this month so the food expense will probably go up a little.   I plan to make at least one extra van payment this month so that expense will go up.  It is good for that expense to go up though.  I did buy a tablet for $150 which was a bit of a splurge.  My rationalization was that I saved a lot more money by not going to FinCon and having the tablet will make it more enjoyable to live in the van.  Phone bill and health expenses will be the same this month.

My goal for September is to have my expenses, other than van payments, be under $1000.  I believe that is an achievable goal.  We’ll find out next month whether I made it or not.

I kept track of all the expenses associated with my 1997 Toyota Camry so that I could calculate the total cost of ownership per mile. I bought the Camry for $3500 in October 2009 and traded it in for $1600 in May 2012. During that time I drove the car a total of 71,802 miles. My total cost of ownership came out to 16.877 cents per mile. Buying a used car saved me a lot of money. I don’t think it would be possible to ever get that low of a cost per mile with a new car.

I spent $1376.91 on repairs. The biggest repair expense was $421.87 for replacing the timing belt. That was also the only repair where the car broke down and caused a transportation problem. All of the other repairs were scheduled ahead of time so that not having the car wasn’t a problem. I think the car was pretty reliable. Even with a new car you might have at least one breakdown when driving 71,000 miles.

The biggest car ownership expense was gasoline. I spent $6504.70 on gasoline for the car. That is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on gas, but it could have been a lot worse. The Camry got about 25mpg around town and about 30mpg on the highway. I wish my van could get anywhere near as good of MPG as that.

The other car expenses were oil changes, tires, parking, property tax, sales tax, registration, licensing, parking, inspection, and car washes. I tried to get every single expense associated with the car. I probably missed something along the line, but I think the final figure is at least 99% accurate.

The final cost per mile of 16.877 cents is pretty good, but the actual cost is even better. I could have deducted the $500 for repairs we got from the insurance company after getting rear ended at a stoplight and I probably should have since some of that money was spent on the car and the accident did reduce the trade-in value of the car. I also was reimbursed for some of my miles driven by a couple of my employers. The non-profit I worked for gave me something like 27 cents per mile for reimbursement. The Census Bureau gave me the IRS rate which I think was 55 cents per mile at that time. I didn’t keep records though of how many miles I received reimbursement for. A very large part of the miles driven was for business purposes and was deducted from our income tax. I could look up that info from our tax returns, but I’m too lazy to do so right now. The reimbursements were more than my actual cost per mile so I actually made money from them. If I were to figure the cost of reimbursements the total cost per mile might get down to about ten cents a mile. For now I’ll stick with the 16.877 cents per mile figure since it is already pretty good.