Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

Expenses in September were way higher than I prefer.  The household budget was high because there were $261.72 spent on gifts.  There were several birthdays in September.  We also spent a little money on clothing which we don’t do most months but it is necessary sometimes.  The transportation expense was the other big expense.  We had a $294.86 repair bill for getting our brakes fixed and some gaskets replaced.  There was also a $196.90 bill for getting a new windshield.  The windshield has had a couple of cracks for a few months and last month they started getting even bigger so we decided it was time to get the windshield replaced.  We also spent about $250 in gas, not counting the gas used for business.  All of these expenses should be lower in October although there will still be some gifts bought and car repairs made.

I’d really like to get our food bill under $300.  I think it is a reasonable goal and we can make it if I cut back on eating out.   All the other expenses should be roughly the same in October.  My goal for October is to get our expenses back under $2000 again.

Here is a breakdown of my online income for August 2011.

Google Adsense – $292.83

Affiliate Income – $252.25

Brokered Ads – $55.17

Amazon – $11.31

Direct Ads- $1774.26

Total – $2385.82

August was another great month for income.  I thought the direct ad deals would slow down but they are still going strong.  I have actually canceled a couple of my low paying month-to-month ads to make room for better paying ads.  I’d like to diversify my income more so that direct ads aren’t such a large percentage of my income but my efforts at making affiliate income haven’t produced much results.  I probably need to work smarter and harder on increasing my affiliate income.   I’m not complaining, I’ll take the direct ad money as long as it continues.  I’ve already made about a thousand bucks this month so September will be another good month.

Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

August was another good month for income.  It wasn’t as good as June or July but it was still over $2500.  I’m not sure how long this will last but September is off to a good start and I estimate I should make at least $2000 this month.  Making money from these alternative income and passive income sources has been making me lazy.  I’ve been thinking about getting a job but since I’m making enough money to easily pay my bills I’ve not been too motivated.  A job will be delayed until at least after the Personal Finance Blogger’s Conference. Our offline business is getting close to taking off also. We have received a verbal commitment for business from a company that would provide us with a nice start but it is taking a little while for them to do their part so we can get started.  We are doing ok financially but I’d like to make enough to pay our bills from either a new job or our new business so we could bank all of the alternative income and passive income.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for August.

My goal for August was to get our expenses under $2000 and we met that goal.  My stretch goal was to get our expenses under $1750 and we would have made that if not for a car repair.  Our car has over 200,000 miles so spending money on repairs/maintenance is an expectation rather than a surprise at this point.  My goal for September will again be $2000 since we might do some traveling.  If we end up not traveling then the goal will be $1750.

Our entertainment bill will be higher in September due to a planned birthday and the possible traveling.  The cable and phone bill will be about the same; I’d like to reduce both of those bills but that won’t happen this month.

All other bills should be lower.  We had to buy some miscellaneous household stuff in August and shouldn’t have to this month making the household expense smaller.  Transportation was still higher than I would like with over $200 spent on gas and $179 to replace the spark plugs and spark plug wires.  Transportation expense should be smaller this month unless another repair pops up or we do some traveling.  My goal for our food expense is $300 a month and we went quite a bit over that this month.  Our pantry is well stocked now so we should be able to spend less on food this month.  There shouldn’t be any doctor’s visits this month so the medical expense will go down as well.

Our expenses are fairly low but being a tight-fisted miser I think there is still quite a bit of room for improvement.

I discontinued tracking my investment income earlier this year because I didn’t feel it was accurately portraying my finances. Now I’ll be tracking our net worth on a monthly basis which should more accurately portray the state of our finances.

Stocks: $11,574.09
IRA: $6,997.85
Cash: $4,552.57

Total Assets: $23,124.51

Liabilites: $0

Net Worth: $23,124.51

It has been a long time since I’ve figured out our net worth. It was nice to see that we are not as broke as I thought. We really should have a lot more in retirement savings by this age though. One of my main goals for the rest of they year will be to increase our retirement savings. I also want us to have at least $5,000 in cash though because I don’t feel comfortable having less than that.

On the plus side we don’t have any debt payments right now. We do have some medical bills from the accident in June but the insurance company should pay those eventually. I also have a lot of law school debt but it is on income-based repayment and with my current low income I don’t have to make any payments. I do expect that my income will increase enough in the next year that I have to start making payments. There is also a good chance that a large part of my loans will eventually be forgiven. Since I can’t be sure how much I’ll have to pay I’m just leaving the law school loan out of my net worth calculations. This should allow me to make a fair comparison of our net worth from month to month.