My June expenses were high which was expected since I was in Thailand for most of the month.
Entertainment expense was for a New York Times digital subscription, one month of Hulu at 99 cents, and a couple of movie visits with concessions. That was a lot of entertainment for the price.
The mortgage payment was my regular mortgage payment. I also had a month’s rent for the apartment I’m staying in with my wife here in Thailand.
Transportation was for taxis in Thailand and one tank of gas in the U.S. The high gas prices didn’t affect me much in Thailand since I didn’t drive anywhere. They still shouldn’t have much of a direct effect on me since I work at home and don’t drive much.
My food expense was very reasonable since I was often paying for two people. This expense was reduced a lot by eating more local food and just watching what I spent more carefully.
My phone bill was $28.94. It will probably be a little higher this month.
The household expense was for laundry, miscellaneous household items, and a couple items for my Thai wedding.
Health expense was for one month’s health insurance premium, some over the counter meds, and refills of my prescription meds.
Travel expense includes three nights hotel in Thailand, a long-distance shuttle in Thailand from the local airport to my wife’s village and back, a couple of short taxi rides in Thailand, and a tip for my hotel shuttle driver back in the U.S.
The big expense was spending $770.20 on gifts and charity. Most of this was for sin sod which is the Thai version of a dowry.
This month’s expenses should be lower since I plan on working at home and not going anywhere all month.
I made $146.14 from the GM ignition switch class action settlement. This was unexpected. Apparently, I had two qualify vehicles for this settlement.
My Amazon FBA side hustle made a profit of $0.67. I only sold one item for a tiny profit during the month. I’ve mostly abandoned Amazon for eBay and other selling platforms.
Dividend income came in at $36.59. I’m adding a little every month to my stocks and slowly increasing the dividend total. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.
I made $1547.08 selling stuff on eBay and elsewhere. I was once again pretty lucky at flipping some hard to find items.
I received $114.51 in cash back income. If you sign up for Rakuten using my referral link you can start earning cash back too and I’ll get a small bonus for referring you. These little bits of referral income help me keep the blog going.
I received $3.08 in interest.
I received $1374.23 for working a doc review job during the month. There was only one week that they had a full 40 hours of work for me, but I earned a little during a couple of other weeks.
I’m now in Thailand and will be staying here for December and January. That will keep me from earning much in those months. How was your month?
September’s income was very low, but it wasn’t quite as bad as it looks.
I made $8.96 from Amazon Merch.
My Amazon FBA side hustle had a loss of two cents. I didn’t have any sales during the month and had a two cent storage fee.
Dividend income came in at $39.71. I’m adding a little every month to my stocks and slowly increasing the dividend total. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.
I made $197.32 selling stuff on eBay and elsewhere. I spent some time buying stuff from garage sales and flipping it online. I enjoy doing this and I’d like to eventually turn it into a full-time income.
I received $50 in cash back income. If you sign up for Rakuten using my referral link you can start earning cash back too and I’ll get a small bonus for referring you. These little bits of referral income help me keep the blog going.
I received $12.08 in interest.
September’s income was down since I was hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain most of the month. Although my income was low, my actual cash flow was decent. I sold an item that I paid for in April for a $1450 loss in September. That sale for a loss reduced my net income for the month quite a bit but it added about $800 cash to my bank account. Even though my expenses were quite a bit more than my income in September I actually ended the month with about the same amount of money.
There won’t be any big losses this month and I’m hoping I will have some job income as well. This month should easily be better than September. How was your month?
My annual expenses for 2020 were about $3000 less than the $16,826.37 I spent in 2019. I spent $17,433 in 2018. It is good to have a downward trend in spending. My annual expenses for the past few years were $13,697 in 2017, $16,431 in 2016, $16,999 in 2015 and $15,775 in 2014. My annual spending seems to stay in the area of $15k a year. I expect my spending in 2021 will be a little higher than in 2020 since the pandemic kept me from spending as much on travel and some other stuff as I usually would.
Rent/Mortgage
$4397.17
Utilities
$198.99
Miscellaneous
$1257.02
Laundry
$38.5
Gas
$815.36
Car Maintenance
$1451.93
Rideshare/Public Transportation
$4.64
Car Insurance
$454
Groceries
$542.90
Restaurants
$1063.56
Clothing
$0
Phone
$374.72
Travel
$1163.09
Movies
$145
Other Entertainment
$233.31
Gym
$21.7
Meds/Vitamins
$67.71
Doctor Visits
$533
Health Insurance
$46.27
Student Loan
$345
Gifts/Charity
$372.82
Total
$13,526.69
The above table provides my annual expenses broken down into 21 different categories. For 2021 I will tweak the categories so that Miscellaneous isn’t such a big category. Other than the too big Misc. category, I think the table provides a good detail of my annual expenses. Further explanation for each category is included below.
Rent and mortgage was what I paid for rent before I bought the house with my mom. Mortgage, is of course the mortgage I paid after buying the house. This will stay about the same unless I am able to travel to Thailand and rent an apartment there for a few months. Any extra mortgage payments I make I count as savings and won’t be included in my annual expenses since I don’t consider saving to be an expense.
Utilities was low because I mostly didn’t pay utilities. I won’t pay any utilities at all this year unless I rent an apartment in Thailand and pay utilities there.
The bulk of the Misc. category was for my annual bar fee and paying for siding on my mom’s former home. This year I hope to have some relevant business income to use the bar fee as a biz expense against. Business income and expenses aren’t included in my annual expenses. This category will be much smaller this year.
Laundry was for the laundromat when I lived in an apartment and for the month I stayed in Cancun. The amount I spend on this category this year depends on whether I’m able to travel.
There were some months I spent hardly anything on gasoline. I expect this category to go up this year. I’m hoping car maintenance will go down. I’m considering buying a new car this year which would create a new category and would of course result in quite an increase in my annual spending.
Rideshare and public transportation were low since I didn’t travel much.
Car insurance will probably stay about the same level.
This year I intend to increase the grocery spending and decrease the restaurant spending. My overall spending on food is pretty low, but I need to start eating healthier food.
I included the clothing category of $0 just for fun. I did buy a pair of shoes last year that I included in the miscellaneous category. Perhaps, I should have included them in clothing. I’ll probably spend something on clothing this year.
My phone is with Google Fi and it should cost me about the same this year.
Travel was actually kind of high considering I didn’t travel much. I spent a week hiking in Shenandoah and a month in Cancun. Although I suppose some people would spend more than $1163 just on a one month trip to Cancun. I have two international flights booked for this year that have already been paid for, but there is a good chance I won’t be able to use them. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get vaccinated and travel later this year, but I’ll have to wait and see what happens. If I’m able to travel this expense will go up.
Movies and other entertainment were not too expensive since I mostly stopped going to the movies after the pandemic started. This expense will probably be about the same.
I paid for 2 months gym membership at the beginning of the year. This expense will be much higher this year since I now have a new, more expensive gym membership. I really want to get in much better shape this year.
Doctor visits and health insurance will be much higher this year. My ACA subsidy doesn’t completely cover the cost of my insurance like it did last year. Also, I have a low deductible this year so I’m going to try to get several health issues addressed.
I wasn’t required to make any student loan payments last year. The amount I did pay was because I use any money made by this blog to pay the student loan.
I should probably be more generous with my giving. I’ll make it a goal to increase spending in this category this year.
That is how I spent $13,526.69 to live in 2020. I think I had a pretty good quality of life for the year and received great value for the money spent. If you have any questions about any of my spending, let me know. How was your year?
December’s income was pretty good since I was working at my doc review job most of the month.
I made $2183.89 from my doc review job. Although there were three weeks with reduced hours, the fact that the month had 5 paydays helped make up for that.
My Amazon FBA side hustle lost a little money since I didn’t do any selling during the month, but still had some expenses.
I made $50 from a bank bonus and $97 from other bonuses.
Dividend income came in at $6.29. Not many of the companies I own payout dividends in December. There will be a lot more dividends this month. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.
I made $0 selling stuff online and eBay since I couldn’t sell stuff while in Cancun.
I also received $236.58 in cash back. This relatively large amount is mainly from buying stuff online to resell.
Lastly, I received $22.81 in interest and $68.77 from a Swagbucks deal. I’m a little peeved that the bank I opened an account with three months ago cut their interest rate from 3% to 2%. I only opened the account with them due to the higher interest. I’ll have to reevaluate whether it is worth jumping through the necessary hoops to earn the reduced interest rate.
