Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of our expenses for October.

Expenses in October were lower than September but still higher than I prefer. The household budget was high because we bought renter’s insurance and had a few other unusual expenses. The transportation expense was the next biggest expense.  I paid for six month’s of car insurance and the car needed a minor repair.  There won’t be a car insurance bill this month and I’m hoping there won’t be a car repair bill this month. I do have to renew the car license but it shouldn’t be too expensive.  We will be taking several out of state car trips but they are for business and that extra expense will be deducted from our business income.

I’m not sure how we spent so much on food last month.  We ate out almost every day so it was no surprise that our dining out expense increased but somehow our grocery expense increased too.  We will be hosting a couple of Thanksgiving dinners which will make it tough to decrease our food expense this month but I think we can do it.  We are fairly well stocked at home now.

I’m going to once again set a goal of getting our monthly expenses down to $2000.  I think it is a reasonable goal and we should be able to meet it almost every month.

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

Google Adsense – $260.87

Affiliate Income – $503.50

Brokered Ads – $58.25

Direct Ads- $2650.25

Total – $3472.89

September was a record month for income.  The direct ad deals kept coming in September and they haven’t shown any signs of letting up so far this month.  I was happy that I made over $500 in affiliate income for the month as well.  I’d like to get that up to $1000 a month in order to not be so dependent on direct ad deals.  That isn’t easy to do and I don’t have a strategy for doing that yet.  I have added VigLinks to a couple of my sites and that has produced some modest returns.  I’m going to add VigLinks to a couple more sites and allow link insertion and see if that ramps up my earnings there.  I’ll keep VigLinks even if the income remains modest since it extra money without any work once it is installed.  I’m also adding another site to my direct advertising inventory.  My goal for October is to make $3500 in online income since I made almost that much last month it should be an achievable goal.

Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

September was yet another good month for income.  My online income was well over $2000 again. I keep thinking this can’t last but I’m off to a good start this month.  It looks like my streak of $2000 months will likely extend another month.  Online income is by far my biggest source of income but I am somewhat diversified. I am making a little passive income from dividends and investments and I added some alternative income from bank bonuses.

This month we also received our first check for our offline business.  My wife has been working hard on this business and I think it is going to grow to be a major source of income for us.  I don’t plan on including the offline business in my income reports and I don’t include my wife’s income in the monthly income reports either.  I include our total expenses but only my income because that is how I prefer to do it but that does mean our total income is larger than what I report here.

I’ll be happy if I can come close to matching September’s income. And for those wondering what my sources of online income are I’ll have my monthly online income report posted in the next few days.

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.