Stuff I Don’t Spend Much Money On – Clothes

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One of the ways I manage to spend very little is by not spending much on clothes. I had to buy some undershirts for my new job this week which doubled my clothing expenditure for the year. My only previous clothing expense for the year was for underwear. I estimate that I generally spend less than $100 on clothing.

I don’t have to buy clothes very often. Between getting clothes for my birthday and Christmas, getting free t-shirts from events such as 5ks or FINCON, and occasionally receiving other people’s castoffs I have almost all the clothes I need. Since I’ve had an established wardrobe at my current size the only clothes I need in a typical year are new socks and underwear.

I’ve found that my pants and shirts take a long time to wear out. This is despite not spending much on them. My cheap clothes last a long time. I have a couple of pairs of shorts that I bought at a thrift store for $1.15 each that I’ve had for years and they get a lot of wear. I have a pair of jeans that I bought for $5 new that has also lasted for years. I don’t have a bunch of shorts and pants (due to my expanding waist line) so they get worn a lot and they still hold up. I probably have a lifetime supply of shirts. I have donated or thrown away a bunch of my old shirts to reduce my supply of shirts, but I keep getting more free shirts.

Clothes aren’t important to me so I don’t want to spend a lot of money on them. I do try to dress professionally for work. Other than that as long as I don’t look like a vagrant (or at least look like an upscale vagrant) and I’m comfortable then I’m not worried about my clothes. If I could reduce my clothing to one set of clothes for each day of the week I’d be perfectly content with that.

October 2012 Goals Update

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Last month I set a couple of goals for October and stated that I would update my progress weekly. I forgot to include my goal progress in yesterday’s post so I’m sharing my goal progress now.

My two goals for October were to lose 5 pounds and write and publish a non-fiction book. I haven’t made much progress towards either one of those goals. Starting the new job and traveling back and forth to Kansas City contributed to my lack of progress but the goals are still achievable.

On the weight loss front the news isn’t all bad. I lost 2 pounds in September without really trying. I lost half a pound the first week of October despite eating too much junk food. I’m thinking the weight loss might be because I have successfully given up soda for the past three weeks and I no longer crave it. However, I’ve replaced the soda with sweet tea. Sweet tea does seem to be gentler on my stomach and doesn’t have the additives that soda does so I think it is at least a minimal improvement.

I haven’t been tracking my food intake like I planned. If I resume tracking my food and cut back on my sweet tea and junk food intake I should get back on track to lose 5 pounds this month. Getting back on track will be my goal for this week.

I haven’t written anything for my book. I did get a cover for the book made. That was just another way to put off actually writing the book. My new plan is to start my writing as soon as I get home in the evening. If I wait until later I never feel like actually writing.

I’ll let you know Sunday how I do on my goals this week.

September Income – $738.85

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Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

Online Income

 $422.15

Interest

$0.15

Dividends

$50.69

Cash Back

$91.86

Mystery Shopping

$174

Total

$738.85

My income sharply declined in September. My online income was great in August and I expected it to go down in September but not by so much.  Online income should be better this month, but it is hard to predict. I didn’t realize I made so little in September.  Since I withdrew $400 from my forgotten savings account, took out $100 from accumulated dividends, received a $150 refund for returning my defective tablet, and started the month with a surplus in my checking from last month’s income it seemed like I had more money.

I did start a part-time job in September but the first payday isn’t until later this month.  I started a full-time job earlier this week and will receive at least one paycheck from it this month so October’s income should show significant improvement.

My other sources of passive and alternative income didn’t add up to too much. The cash back total of $91.86 wasn’t too bad though.  I got $45 from Mr. Rebates which was almost all from my referrals’ purchases. It is turning out to be a nice bit of passive income.

 

September Expenses – $1561.90

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.

Household

$28.74
Entertainment

$84.19

Transportation

 $169.73

Food

$130.19
Van Payment $1000
Debt $5.00
Phone

$26.81
Health

$117.24

Total

 $1561.90

My expenses were down a bit from August.  I made three extra payments on my van or my expenses would have been way down.  If you take away the van payments, my expenses would have been only $561.90. My goal was to keep my expenses other than the van payments below $1000 so I’m very happy with September’s total expenses.  I’m finally starting to see the savings from living in a van. It was one of those rare months where there were no unexpected expenses and no semi-annual/quarterly expenses.  I’ll be hard pressed to keep my expenses as low this month.

Transportation was where I had the most savings.  I went from spending over $500 in gas in August, to spending $169.73 on gas in September. It would be nice if I could keep my gas expense that low again this month.

I doubt I’ll be able to make 3 extra payments on my van again.  I’m hoping I will be able to make at least one extra. All my other expenses will probably be about the same.

 

My Plan to Get What I Want

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Monday I posted about a couple of things I wanted to accomplish and stated that I would post them as SMART goals today. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, SMART goals are goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.

One of my goals is to write a book. I will have one non-fiction book written and published to Amazon by October 31, 2012. To do this I will simply write one hour a day, five days a week. I have already done a lot of research on the topic I’m writing and have an outline. The book will only be 20-30 pages because that is all it needs to be. I’ve also researched publishing a book on Kindle and have published a book to Amazon for someone else. This goal should be easily attainable if I just put in the time.

My other goal is to lose weight and get in shape. I will lose five pounds by October 31, 2012. To do this I will quit drinking soda, track my calories daily with MyFitnessPal.com, and work out/run at least three times a week. I will also refrain from eating chips, cookies, and candy for the month of October. I’ve tried quitting soda a few times, but this time I think it will actually work because the last few times I’ve had soda it has severely upset my stomach. The pleasure I get from drinking soda is no longer worth the after effects. Since I go to the gym everyday to shower, it won’t be a problem to exercise three times a week. I’m already doing that. I might increase my running outdoors since I actually enjoy that and this is a good time of year to run outdoors.

I also plan to change my eating to mostly low carb/slow carb. Living in the van makes that difficult since I can’t really cook, but I still think it is doable. This part of my plan isn’t too specific yet. Just giving up the junk food and soda should be enough to reach this goal, though.

Next week I promise my post will be less self-absorbed and more helpful to the readers. What do you think of my plan to achieve these goals? Are they SMART? Do I need to change anything?