Expense/Income Tracking

July Investment Income – $90.62

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My July investment income rose slightly to $90.62 from $89.47 the month before.  This was due to a slight rise in the value of my stocks.  I did not make any additional investments in July.  Part of the reason for the decline in my investment income from its highs earlier this year is that I am now counting only $1000 cash as part of my investment portfolio.  I was counting $1500 earlier but after skipping a month of calculating my investment income I forgot how much cash I was counting as part of my investment portfolio.  I have decided to keep the figure at $1000 since my amount of cash available has seriously decreased.

Unless the market treats me badly in August I should have an increase in my investment income because I will finally resume adding to my portfolio.  This will probably end again in September though because I have a big expense that month.

Disclaimer: This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income. My goal is to get this amount to $1000 a month. If I have $1000 in monthly passive investment income I will be able to retire early.

Online Income Report – July 2010

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Here is a breakdown of my online income for July. I am reporting the income I received in July not the income earned. Much of the income received in a month was earned in a previous month so the monthly income figure is not always indicative of the current income trend. Anyway, I received money from the following sources in July.

  • Google Adsense – $255.64
  • Kontera – $108.70
  • Text Links – $39.40
  • Direct Ad Sales – $458
  • Affiliate Sales – $285
  • Ehow – $11.86

Total                  $1158.60

It was a great month for online income.  This is the first time I have made it over four figures.  My income was helped by a large amount of direct ad sales and an accumulated affiliate payout.  My income will most likely go down in August but I already have a couple more ad sales lined up and quite a bit in affiliate sales due me giving me a shot at making the four figure mark once again.  If I can keep my income going like this I might become a five figure blogger for the first time ever.  This would be especially great considering 2009’s online income was less than 2008.

July Income – $1519.91

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Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

Online Income

$1067.96

Interest

$12.35

Stock Dividends

$22.79

Mystery Shops

$373.52

Bank Bonuses

$20

Survey/Cashback

$23.29

Total

$1519.91

It was a good month for income.  My online income was my best ever.  Making a $1000 in a month has been a goal of mine for a while but I don’t think I’ve even made it over $800 before.  One of the reasons my online income was higher in July was because I had a couple of months of affiliate income owed to me that finally arrived.  Most of the increase was from the direct sale of links.   There was a large increase in people contacting me wanting to purchase links on one of my sites.   Most of the income was from links paid for a year upfront.  There are also a couple of links that pay monthly and a couple more people I’m still negotiating with so I will still make at least a little from selling links this month.  I doubt I will make a $1000 again this month but I should make at least $600 which I am pretty happy with.

Mystery shopping income will go down because I have a regular job now and won’t have as much time for mystery shopping.  Some of the shops I did last month won’t pay me until this month though so I should make at least $200 from mystery shops this month.

My new job is working for a non-profit and it doesn’t pay much but it should still cause my total income to increase over last month. Although if I could count on making $1500 a month every month without a job I wouldn’t worry about a job and just concentrate on increasing my alternative sources of income.   It would be nice to have all my money come from alternative income and passive income but that might take a while.

July Expenses – $1311.23

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for July.

Household

$340.53

Entertainment

$86.49

Transportation

 $251.92

Food

$125.51
Medical/Dental

$57.44

Utilities

$115.13
Wedding $334.21

Total

$1311.23

My expenses were up slightly from the previous month. This was mainly because I had $334.21 of wedding/honeymoon expenses.  I ended up spending a total of  about $1100 for the wedding and honeymoon.  DW probably spent about $200.  I think that is a pretty good deal.  There won’t be any wedding or honeymoon expenses this month so my total expenses will be down.  We are having a wedding reception this Saturday but the total cost of that is about $200 and my mother is covering that expense.

My transportation expense was much higher than I would prefer but that is mainly due to driving a lot for mystery shops.  Since I am now working a regular job I will be cutting back on the mystery shops and I should be spending a lot less in gas.  I might need to get some tires and other work done on the car though which would keep my transportation expense high again this month.

I spent way too much on food considering DW buys most of the groceries and I had lots of fast food mystery shops.  I need to cut back on the fast food and junk food purchases.

Everything else will probably remain about the same this month.

June Investment Income – $89.47

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My June investment income went down to $89.47  from $96.83 in April, I didn’t  calculate my investment income in May. The decline is because I didn’t add to my investments and the stock market went down  quite a bit.  It wasn’t a good time to own BP.  I should have sold my shares sooner but I didn’t realize just how big of a disaster the oil spill was. I won’t be adding to my investments this month either but my investments have recovered a little so my investment income should go up a little.  This is a little frustrating since I was looking forward to getting over the $100 mark but as soon as I’m able to start adding to my investments I should reach the $100 goal.

Disclaimer: This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income. My goal is to get this amount to $1000 a month. If I have $1000 in monthly passive investment income I will be able to retire early.