Expense/Income Tracking

Here is a breakdown of our expenses for November.

Expenses in November were lower than October and below my goal of $2000.  Since we made that goal fairly easily I am going to bring back my old goal of $1750 in expenses for the month.  Other than needing to buy Christmas presents and a slightly higher electric bill all our expenses should be lower in December.

Our food expense was slightly lower than October but still well above the level I’d like.  We have spent over $400 on food each of the past two months which makes me think that my goal of $300 might be a stretch therefore I’m setting a goal of $350 for the month.

The transportation expense is the other area we can save money on.  We have had a car repair every month for the last few months plus insurance and registration the past couple of months.  This month I have to replace the turn signal lens that was broken in our car accident but am hoping there won’t be any other repairs. We also shouldn’t have to travel much and should be able to save on gas.

We will see how things turned out next month.

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

Google Adsense – $288.03

Affiliate Income – $51.50

Brokered Ads – $58.25

Direct Ads- $4153.21

Total – $4550.09

It was a record month for online income. It was helped by adding advertising to another website that I hadn’t been updating. With the money I can make from advertising it is definitely worth spending a little time adding a few posts to the site every month. I would like to start making more money from sources other than ads but that is easier said then done. My affiliate income in October was down quite a bit from the month before. It will be better this month but it isn’t much compared to ad income. I have put additional effort into boosting affiliate sales this month and it seems to be working. It will take some time and continued effort to get affiliate sales up to where I’d like them though. I’m not sure how long I’ll continue to make so much money from advertising but I’m enjoying it while it lasts and trying to prepare for it eventually diminishing or going away.

Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

October was an incredible month for income. My online income was a record high.  I’d never made more than $3000 in a month before and I went way past that.  I’ve already made about $2000 this month making a goal of $4000 not unreasonable.  I would like to diversify my income more.  I am making a little passive income from dividends and investments and I added some alternative income from bank bonuses but they don’t add up to much compared to my online income.

I’m going to concentrate on my online income right now since it is doing so well.  I could always ramp up my income from selling stuff and some other alternative sources of income if I needed to but right now the best return on my time is working on my online income.

This report does not include income from my wife and I’s business.  Our mystery shopping business income will actually increase quite a bit this month and we have a couple more clients we will likely add before the end of the year.  This business eats up most of the time I don’t spend on the online business since it requires quite a bit of travel.  It isn’t making as much as my online income yet but I think it is more sustainable so we are putting a lot of time and effort into it.  If you’re a business owner or know a business owner who could use our mystery shopping services please contact me.  🙂

An online income report breaking down my sources of online income will be posted on Friday.

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.