Expense/Income Tracking

October Investment Income- $41.34

by

Last month was not a good month for my retirement savings. I lost about $1000 in my Roth IRA which was a significant amount considering I only had $5500 in there.  I managed to increase my monthly income but only because I added $3000 to my savings last month.  Increasing my monthly investment income from $32.01 to $41.34 was good though.  Unfortunately I won’t be able to add a large amount to my retirement savings until sometime next year.  I’m rethinking my investment strategy for retirement and I’ll share that strategy in a post later today.

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.

***
Get Cash Back from Top Stores with Big Crumbs!

October Income- $709.64

by

Here is a breakdown of my income for October.

Online Income $475.59
Bonuses $200
Interest $20.95
Surveys/Cashback $13.10
Total $709.64

My income was pretty good considering I didn’t work.  This is all alternative income. I’m going to have a tough time matching this in November.  I count my income when it is paid rather than when it is earned so I know that this month’s Adsense payment will be considerably less.  It is also unlikely that I’ll make anywhere near $200 in bonuses. I hope to make up some of that elsewhere but it will be difficult.  I’m going to have to come up with some new income ideas or put more work into the existing ideas.

October Expenses- $1157.51

by

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

Household $418.29
Transportation $131.61
Food $73.85
Entertainment $152.87
Debt/

Education

 $115
Utilities $64.97
Health Insurance $200.92
Total $1157.51

My overall expense level was reasonable. I didn’t meet my goal of $1000 a month in expenses. That goal would have been met though if I didn’t have my quarterly health insurance payment of $200. I did spend way too much on food. I ate out almost every day which not only cost me money but caused me to gain weight and wasted a lot of time. I’ll have to do better on that this month. My entertainment expenses were a little high this month but I’m not concerned about that. My other expenses should remain about the same this month. One possible exception is if I do some Christmas shopping this month that will be reflected in my household expenses.

September Investment Income- $32.01

by

My September investment income dropped to $32.01 from $34.87 the month before due to decline in the stock market at the end of the month.  This is the first time my investment income has dropped since I began tracking it and I hope it is the last. That makes my potential early retirement a little farther away.

I’ll be almost maxing out my Roth IRA this month.  That combined with my mutual fund hopefully at least partially rebounding should bring my monthly investment income back up to where it used to be.  I’m not going to be able to fund my Roth IRA for the $5,000 allowable amount because I haven’t had $5,000 in employment income this year.  I’ve only had a little less than $3,000 in income.  I waiting to fund my Roth with the full amount of my employment income though because I’m thinking my former job might force me to cash out my 401k.

I suppose I could set up a Solo 401k or SEP IRA to put some of my business income in retirement savings.  I don’t plan on doing that because I don’t have much more money to put in retirement savings this year.  I’ll probably do a post sometime weighing the pros and cons of opening a Solo 401k or SEP IRA or neither sometime soon.

September Expenses- $756.50

by

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

Household

$382.98

Utilities

$89.40

Transportation

$80.70

Food

$28.69

Entertainment

$72.12

Student Loan Debt/Education

$102.61

Total

$756.50

I was quite happy with how low my expenses were last month.  I was lucky in that none of my irregular expenses were due and no unusual expenses popped up.  I won’t be able to repeat such a low amount this month because my $200 quarterly health insurance payment is due.  Most other expenses should remain roughly the same.  This is the first month I won’t be paying rent on my own apartment but rather contributing a similar amount to my GF as my contribution towards our household expenses.  This shouldn’t make much difference in my finances but we’ll see what happens.