Expense/Income Tracking

March Income – $1218.21

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Here is a breakdown of my income for March.

Online Income

$602.19

Interest

$34.60

Stock Dividends

$92.79

Job

$378

Bank Bonuses

$110

Cashback

$0.63

Total

$1218.21

It was a decent month for income considering I was hiking and without computer access for half the time. It was less than my expenses though which isn’t good. It will be a challenge to make $1000 this month since I won’t have any job income.  My job starts at the end of the month and I won’t receive a paycheck until sometime in March.  If I can make $500 in alternative income as is my goal then I should make at least $1000 total with my online income, dividends, and interest added to the extra income total.

March Expenses – $1730.96

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March’s expenses got a little out of control. I spent quite a bit more than I had planned. Since I was hiking most of the month I don’t have expenses divided up by category. Even the total of $1730.96 is a rough estimate that I came up with by adding up my debit and credit card charges and my ATM withdrawals.

April should have a much lower level of expenses. Expenses should be under $1000 and I hope to have them well under that amount.

February Income – $1631.23

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Here is a breakdown of my income for January.

Online Income

$734.08

Interest

$29.75

Stock Dividends

$14.85

Job

$800

Survey/Cashback

$7.55

Ebay/Selling stuff

$5

Bank Bonuses

$40

Total

$1631.23

It was a pretty good month for income, especially online income. I neglected to keep my check stubs or write down the amount of my paychecks from my job so I went with a conservative estimate for job income.

February Expenses – $1204.82

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

Household

$423.51

Entertainment

$31.49

Transportation

 $138.72

Food

$120.50
Dental

$96

Phone

$35.03

Debt

 $30.00

Travel

 $328.67

Total

$1203.92

February’s expenses were a little higher than I would prefer but within reason. If I were to deduct my gambling winnings from my travel costs my travel costs would have been lower and I might have made it under my target of $1000 in total expenses for the month.

January Investment Income – $89.50

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My January investment income dropped slightly to $89.50 from $90.93 the month before. This was a result of the value of my IRA going down and no money being added to my investment portfolio.

It has been suggested that this is perhaps not the best way to measure my investments since it doesn’t completely reflect reality. After taking that into consideration I am going to come up with a new measurement based at least in part on my actual dividend and interest income received. I’ll still be calculating my investment income as I am now as well so that I will have a consistent measure for comparison purposes.

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.