Expense/Income Tracking

August Income – $688.22

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Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

Online Income

$324.55

Interest

$96.70

Bonuses

 $150

Stock Dividends

$7.97

Medical Study

$100

Survey

$9

Total

$688.22

Income for August was pretty good considering only $100 of it was from a medical study. Some of the figures might be slightly off since I don’t have access to all my records here in Guatemala. My interest was almost enough to pay my rent for September. My goal for September is to make more in alternative income than expenses this should be possible even without a job because my expenses are so low here. Check back next month and we’ll see how I did.

August Expenses – $1057.14

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Here are my expenses for August.

Household

$304.02

Entertainment

$34.98

Transportation

 $95.48

Food

$94.13

Medical/Dental

$61.66

Phone

$36.51

Travel

 $241.36

Debt

 $189.00

Total

$1057.14

My expenses were reasonable this month. I would have been under $1000 but Chase raised the minimum payment on my debt from 2% to 5%. I might just go ahead and pay that off.  September expenses should be much lower.  I will be able to rent a room for $85 a month in Xela.  The cost of the plane tickets has been accounted for in earlier months so my only travel costs will be the bus to Xela and the taxi to the bus station and perhaps one night in a hotel.  My next post should be from Guatemala.

July Investment Income – $82.37

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My July investment income rose to $82.37 from $76.49 the month before. Part of this rise was due to adding more money to my portfolio but most of the rise was from stock market gains. I won’t be adding any money to my portfolio this month so any rise will have to come from further stock market gains. I’m happy with the way my investment income is rising. It still has a long way to go to reach my goal of covering expenses of $1000 a month. If I could lower my expenses and start adding more to my portfolio though this process could be greatly accelerated. That is something I am working on.

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.

July Income – $3452.50

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Here is a breakdown of my income for July.

Online Income

$152.79

Interest

$81.62

Bonuses

 $100

Stock Dividends

$32.32

Mystery Shop

$4.54

Medical Study

$3075

Survey/Cash Back

$6.23

Total

$3452.50

July was a great month for income. This was mostly due to making a lot of money from the medical study. Without that money my income will be way down this month. Online income was not as bad as the total suggests since I paid for one year hosting and renewed my domain name for three years out of that total.  Everything else will probably remain about the same this month.  I need to come up with some ideas to increase my alternative income – and actually implement them.

July Expenses – $1383.86

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Here are my expenses for July.

Household

$406.92

Entertainment

$70.75

Transportation

 $148.56

Food

$63.70

Medical/Dental

$112.55

Phone

$34.59

Travel

 $466.79

Debt

 $80.00

Total

$1383.86

These expenses were a little higher than I would like. This is mainly because of the travel expenses. Travel is now a separate category from entertainment to give a more accurate picture of where I am spending my money. I was hoping that my expenses for August would be very low but since I’ve returned early from my hike my expenses will probably not be too low. They should be lower than July though.