Expense/Income Tracking

March Investment Income- $58.12

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My March investment income had a nice rise to $58.12 from $51.69 the month before.  This was due to my stock portfolio rebounding nicely and allocating a little more of my savings to my emergency fund.  The total would have been even better if the mutual fund in my Roth IRA would have participated in the March market rebound.  Somehow this mutual fund managed to barely go up in value despite the rise in the stock market.  I guess I should be happy it didn’t lose money like it has mostly been doing the past few months.

Disclaimer:This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, 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

March Income- $549.11

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Here is a breakdown of my income for March.

Online Income

$416.24

Interest

$46.89

Bank/Other Bonuses

$25

Survey

 $6

Stock Dividends

$45.14

Cash Back/Ebay

$9.84

Total

$549.11

My income for March was down as expected because I didn’t have any medical study income in March.  My online income did go up a little but I expect it to fall this month.  My interest income is overstated because I’m including the principal I was paid back from my Lending Club loans.  Dividends were higher than normal because so many of my stocks pay dividends in February. Overall I expect my income to go down slightly this month.

March Expenses- $989.20

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for March.

Household $491.15
Transportation $16.50
Food $46.43
Entertainment $222.95
Debt/Education $116.00
Phone $34.51
Medical/Dental $61.66
Total $989.20

My expenses were up a little from the previous month due to purchasing a plane ticket to Atlanta to start my hike next month and school expenses. My food expense was too high last month and I’m going to cut that back down this month.  My entertainment expense was also a little high even without my plane ticket so I’ll look at those expenses a little more closely this month.  My school expenses should go down this month since I don’t have any graduation expenses or books to buy this month.  Everything else should be about the same.

I barely met my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under $1000.  To meet my goal of having my yearly expenses under $10,000 I need to cut my monthly budget even more.  That should happen once I start hiking.

February Investment Income- $51.69

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My investment income for February went down to $51.69 from $53.58 the month before.  With the market continuing to slide my portfolio balances are getting smaller and I expect to have another decline in investment income this month.  I’m not putting any money into my retirement savings now because I prefer to keep my money liquid until I start making more money.  It is unlikely I’ll add any more money to my retirement savings until I return from my hike which will probably be sometime in October.  Until then the only way I’ll see any increase in my investment income is if my portfolio actually regains some value.

Disclaimer:This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, 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.

February Income- $721.47

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Here is a breakdown of my income for February.

Online Income

$367.68

Interest

$25.04

Bank/Other Bonuses

$87.60

Survey/Half

 $2.39

Stock Dividends

$4.11

Cash Back/Mystery Shop

$4.65

Medical Study

$230

Total

$721.47

My income for February was down slightly from the month before.  I had a big dropoff in online income but much of that was from increased expenses since I renewed a couple of domain names for three years.  My online income for this month will probably be about the same.

Only one of my stocks had a dividend payable in February.  My dividend income will go up this month since I have several stocks that will be paying dividends.

I won’t have any medical study income this month which will probably result in a lower income total this month.  Hopefully, I can replace at least some of that income.  Overall, I am pleased with this amount of income since it is all alternative income.  Now if I could make this much in passive income every month I would be really pleased.