No TV and Productivity

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Day 90 - Couch Potato
photo credit: DaGoaty
I got rid of my TV before I went on my hike. Now that I have returned I’m going without a TV. You often read posts about all the things you could accomplish if you didn’t spend so much time watching television. So far I have used my extra time to surf the internet and read. And I have been watching DVDs (I watched the first season of “Dexter” last week which I really liked. I’ll have to watch the other seasons now.) on my laptop and TV shows on Hulu.com and other sites. You could say not having a TV has given me more time to watch television. Or should that be not having a television has given me more time to watch TV?

My point is (and I do have one) that if you are not getting things accomplished it probably isn’t just because you are watching too much TV. If I don’t waste time watching TV I waste it another way and I imagine that is true for a lot of people. My lack of productivity isn’t a matter of time it is a matter of motivation or you could call it a matter of laziness but I prefer to call it motivation. I am going to have to find something to get me motivated because there is a limit to how many hours of the day I can read and surf the internet.

Does anyone have any suggestions on getting motivated?

March Income – $1218.21

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Here is a breakdown of my income for March.

Online Income

$602.19

Interest

$34.60

Stock Dividends

$92.79

Job

$378

Bank Bonuses

$110

Cashback

$0.63

Total

$1218.21

It was a decent month for income considering I was hiking and without computer access for half the time. It was less than my expenses though which isn’t good. It will be a challenge to make $1000 this month since I won’t have any job income.  My job starts at the end of the month and I won’t receive a paycheck until sometime in March.  If I can make $500 in alternative income as is my goal then I should make at least $1000 total with my online income, dividends, and interest added to the extra income total.

March Expenses – $1730.96

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March’s expenses got a little out of control. I spent quite a bit more than I had planned. Since I was hiking most of the month I don’t have expenses divided up by category. Even the total of $1730.96 is a rough estimate that I came up with by adding up my debit and credit card charges and my ATM withdrawals.

April should have a much lower level of expenses. Expenses should be under $1000 and I hope to have them well under that amount.

February Income – $1631.23

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Here is a breakdown of my income for January.

Online Income

$734.08

Interest

$29.75

Stock Dividends

$14.85

Job

$800

Survey/Cashback

$7.55

Ebay/Selling stuff

$5

Bank Bonuses

$40

Total

$1631.23

It was a pretty good month for income, especially online income. I neglected to keep my check stubs or write down the amount of my paychecks from my job so I went with a conservative estimate for job income.

February Expenses – $1204.82

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

Household

$423.51

Entertainment

$31.49

Transportation

 $138.72

Food

$120.50
Dental

$96

Phone

$35.03

Debt

 $30.00

Travel

 $328.67

Total

$1203.92

February’s expenses were a little higher than I would prefer but within reason. If I were to deduct my gambling winnings from my travel costs my travel costs would have been lower and I might have made it under my target of $1000 in total expenses for the month.