Proof of Low Expenses

by

In one of my recent posts at U.S. News several comments expressed doubt that the budget I posted as an example used my real expenses.  A $1000 a month budget seems difficult for some to believe even though a little internet searching would show this is quite possible. Since I post my expenses every month my regular readers know what my expenses are but for the skeptics I am posting some proof of my low expenses.

First off is my high-speed internet for $15 a month.  I got this through Link City and you can see that is their basic rate.

Next is my phone bill of $35 a month. This is the SERO plan from Sprint which includes 500 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited texts, and unlimited data for $30 a month. You can’t get this deal anymore but I am grandfathered in. There are lots of discussions about SERO, the one at Slick Deals has a lot of information on this cheap phone plan.

My rent of $360 a month seemed to be the item people were most skeptical about. It is cheap rent, even for Kansas City but it isn’t hard to find a place for less than $400 a month. Kansas City apartments for less than $400 a month.

Last I have included a copy of one of my electric bills. It is very cheap because I didn’t have to use much A/C. That just left the fridge, lights, and my laptop which don’t add up to much.
electric bill

June Income- $873.35

by

Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

Online Income

$362.10

Interest

$19.36

Stock Dividends

$95.02

Mystery Shops

$344.96

Bank Bonuses

$20

Cashback

$.68

Job

$31.23

Total

$873.35

It was not a good month for income.  My job ended and I just had one tiny paycheck.   My online income wasn’t as high as I had hoped because I didn’t receive about $300 in affiliate sales and direct link sales that was owed me.  I should receive most of that money but it looks like Mint.com is going to be a deadbeat.  My total income will probably be even worse this month since I won’t have any job income and I am cutting back on mystery shopping.  I plan to get a job in August and get my income back up above my expenses.

June Expenses- $1263.31

by

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

Household

$575.70

Entertainment

$120.41

Transportation

 $292.72

Food

$117.11
Medical/Dental

$57.44

Utilities

$69.93

Debt

 $30.00

Total

$1263.31

June’s expenses were a big improvement from May but not quite down to the $1000 level that is my goal.   If I wouldn’t have spent $170 on a washer and dryer and another $130 on getting my brakes fixed my expenses would have been reasonable and I would have made my goal.

In July I should be able to make my $1000 goal if I don’t include wedding/honeymoon expenses.  The bulk of that has been paid for but there will be approximately another $300-$500 in expenses for the wedding and honeymoon.

I should be able to significantly reduce my transportation expense this month.  It has been too high because I’ve been making too many long drives.  I will be keeping the long drives to a minimum this month and will try to curb my driving around town as well.

The food expense may not look bad but it is.  Only $38 of that total is groceries I bought for the household.  The rest is fast-food I bought for myself.  Making that figure even worse is the fact that I received several free fast-food meals from mystery shops.  It is no surprise that I gained weight in June.  For July I won’t be having any fast food unless it is for a mystery shop.  I may have to make an exception for In-n-Out when I am in Vegas since I don’t get to eat it too often.

Utilities will probably go up since we will receive the first electric bill for our new apartment.  June’s utilities included my electric bill for my apartment in KC, my final internet bill, and my cell phone bill.   The July electric bill will probably be bigger than all those combined.  At least I won’t have to pay for internet any more since it is included in rent.

The other categories will probably be roughly the same.  We will not be sharing all expenses 50/50 so I will note that when I total July’s expenses.

July 2010 Goals

by

As June draws to a close it seems like a good idea to set some goals for July. I have been especially unmotivated lately and perhaps some goals will motivate me. My first goal is to lose weight. I need to lose about 50 pounds. That is more weight than I can lose in a month. I’m going to set a goal of losing eight pounds. I weighed 218 pounds even this morning so that would get me down to 210 which is a nice round figure. In order to achieve this goal I intend to give up soda, exercise at least three times a week, and only eat out for mystery shops or dates with my girlfriend. If I do all of that I will definitely lose some weight.

My second goal is to cut back on my driving. I put about 2400 miles on my car this month. My goal for July is to cut that amount in half. I made several long drives for mystery shops this month that I don’t plan on doing in July. There were some other longer trips that I probably won’t make this month although I might still need to make one trip to KC. With a little planning a lot of the driving I do around town can be eliminated as well.

My third goal is to cut my spending for the month of July. Not eating out and reducing my driving will both help with this goal. I am getting married this month though and there will be some necessary expense associated with that although most of the wedding/honeymoon expense has already been paid. I’m not going to skimp on my wedding just to keep my expenses down so if necessary I won’t count the wedding expenses when considering whether I met my goal.

I think that should give me some things to improve on in the coming month. Now I just need to stop procrastinating and get things done.

The Good and Bad of Mystery Shopping

by

I did some mystery shops over the weekend that highlight some of the good things and bad things about mystery shopping. There were a couple of bad things about this mystery shop. First, I had a receipt rejected because it didn’t include the address of the convenience store. I can’t control whether a store puts their address on the receipt or not. Luckily, I had another receipt with the address printed and I was able to scan the address on to the other receipt.

The other problem was that a report checker invalidated one of my reports because she said I didn’t purchase gas. This wasn’t correct and I had submitted a receipt for the gas so I don’t know why the checker said I hadn’t. I resubmitted the receipt and the checker asked me to send it yet again because the edge of the receipt didn’t scan. This was a little ridiculous since everything on the receipt was still readable and the important information was intact. Since I wanted to get paid though I had to send the scan in yet again. I have heard that you will occasionally run into checkers that are a PITA and I guess this was my first experience with one.

There are some good things about mystery shopping. It is nice to get to get paid to buy gas although there is quite a bit of work besides just buying the gas. It is also nice that most of my mystery shopping income will be tax-free. Since I can legally write off my mileage at $0.50 per mile most of my income is eliminated. For example, one of the fast food shops I did this month was 16 miles round trip from my home giving me an expense of $8. Since my pay was only $7.50 I technically didn’t make any money doing this shop. This would be bad if I thought my true expenses were anywhere close to $0.50 but since I estimate my true expenses to be less than half that these shops are worthwhile.