Expense/Income Tracking

Ehow Earnings Update

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Dell Studio 17
photo credit: CLF

I had a guest post at Smart Passive Income yesterday which explained how to increase eHow income with referral links.  I know there are a lot of people interested in using eHow as a passive income stream and  I thought I would update my eHow earnings so far.

Since I wrote that post my earnings for February came to a total of $1.47.  This isn’t much but I haven’t written anything since early December and I wasn’t active on the eHow site during February so this is actually decent for only having 5 articles.  I also received another $25 referral bonus this Monday which makes a total of $75 in bonuses since writing the article. That makes my time spent writing for eHow worthwhile.

I need to write more articles for eHow but I don’t have much time right now.  I’ve read that some people can write an article in twenty minutes but it takes me about an hour.  I also want to do some more research before I write any more articles to increase their potential for earnings.  There are several ebooks by eHow authors on how to make money with eHow but I’m not sure which one to buy if any.  The books may contain good advice but if I don’t get around to writing any articles the advice won’t be of any help.

What ebook on eHow would you recommend?

February Expenses- $919.01

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

Household $423.62
Transportation $43.53
Food $29.56
Entertainment $102.49
Debt/Education $83.00
Phone $33.99
Medical/Dental $61.66
Income Tax $141.16
Total $919.01

My expenses were up a little from the previous month mainly because I had to pay self-employment tax when I filed my federal tax return. My transportation bill should go down this month since last month’s total includes gas I bought for an out of town trip and we don’t have any long trips planned this month. I plan on buying my plane tickets this month which will cause my entertainment and overall expenses to spike this month. My other expenses should be about the same. Note that the food amount is only for lunches and snacks that I purchased away from home. I’m on track for my goal of only having $10,000 in expenses this year considering that my expenses will be drastically reduced when I am hiking.

January Investment Income- $53.58

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My investment income for January rose to $53.58 from $42.85 the month before. Although my investments went down I added enough new money to my portfolio to cause a nice increase in my investment income. Since I started tracking my investment income last April it has risen from $27.50 a month to the current figure of $53.58 a month. If I could continue to grow my income at that rate I wouldn’t have any trouble retiring in 10 years and living on my investment income. It isn’t likely that I’ll be able to continue that rate of increase but I will try to keep it increasing as much as I can. I’ll be adding more money to my investments this month but after that I probably won’t be able to add more money until the end of the year. Maybe my income will increase without my contributing more money.

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.

January Income $788.36

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Here is a breakdown of my income for January.

Online Income

$433.85

Interest

$25.66

Bank/Other Bonuses

$60

Survey/Half

$37.03

Stock Dividends

$45.73

Cash Back

$1.09

Medical Study

$125

Total

$788.36

This is an ok amount considering I’m not working at a job.  I came up about $20 short of making enough to cover my expenses for the month. My goal is to make enough alternative income to cover my living expenses.  I’ve come close or made that goal three out of the last five months but there is plenty of room for improvement.  This month my income will probably be down slightly.  My online income is going to be down because my Adsense and affilliate sales are shrinking.  My dividend income will also be down because only a couple of my stocks pay dividends this month.  I don’t see any other source of income making up the difference but I will look for ways to increase my income.

January Expenses $806.66

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for January.

Household $406.98
Transportation $10.95
Food $37.23
Entertainment $74.46
Debt/Education $173.06
Phone $34.27
Medical/Dental $69.71
Total $806.66

I’m happy with this total. It puts me on track to have my expenses below $10,000 for the year. This month’s total should be about the same. I’ll probably spend a little more in the household and entertainment categories and less in the education category.