Taxes

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I spent this weekend at my mom’s house doing her and my brother’s income taxes. My brother’s was easy because he just had income from two jobs allowing me to use the 1040-EZ. It took less than ten minutes to finish his return. My mom’s taxes were a little more complicated. She no longer pays enough mortgage interest to itemize her deductions or her taxes would have been even more complicated. Since she works and draws Social Security I had to figure how much- if any – of her SS was taxable. I also had to fill forms for the Saver’s credit and the Making Work Pay credit. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t figure out from the instructions but it was time-consuming. The Missouri state income tax is perhaps more complicated than the federal return. It would seem to be easy since you are mostly transferring information from your federal return to your state return. Missouri makes you do some extra forms though to keep things from being too easy.

I was going to do my own taxes as well this weekend but I was taxed out by the time it came to do my taxes. With my self employment income my tax return will be the most complicated of all. I may not have even made enough to have to pay federal taxes but I will have to pay the self-employment taxes no matter what. I’m hoping that I will have some federal income tax credit that I can apply towards my self-employment taxes.

January Investment Income – $89.50

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My January investment income dropped slightly to $89.50 from $90.93 the month before. This was a result of the value of my IRA going down and no money being added to my investment portfolio.

It has been suggested that this is perhaps not the best way to measure my investments since it doesn’t completely reflect reality. After taking that into consideration I am going to come up with a new measurement based at least in part on my actual dividend and interest income received. I’ll still be calculating my investment income as I am now as well so that I will have a consistent measure for comparison purposes.

Disclaimer: This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, 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. My goal is to get this amount to $1000 a month. If I have $1000 in monthly passive investment income I will be able to retire early.

January Income – $1805.92

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Here is a breakdown of my income for January.

Online Income

$407.62

Interest

$51.83

Stock Dividends

$20.33

Job

$971.33

Survey/Cashback

$6.67

Ebay/Selling stuff

$108.14

Bank Bonuses

$240

Total

$1805.92

January was a pretty good month for income. It was nice to see that I made almost as much from my alternative income sources as I did from my job. It will be difficult to match my alternative income total this month although I already know my online income will be up. As long as my income is a few hundred dollars more than my expenses I will be content.

January Expenses – $1148.74

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for January.

Household

$403.79

Entertainment

$67.32

Transportation

 $138.76

Food

$115.09

Health

$67.66

Phone

$34.63

Debt

 $29.00

Laptop/printer

 $333.15

Total

$1189.40

My expenses were reasonable in January. If it weren’t for the purchase of a new laptop and printer they would have been under my goal of $1000 and I still didn’t miss that target by much.  There won’t be any large purchases in February and I expect my normal expenses to remain about the same so I should easily be under $1000 for expenses this month.

What a $360 Apartment Looks Like

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Here are a few pictures of my apartment for those who are wondering what you get for $360. The pictures were taken from my cell phone and I’m not much of a photographer but I think you will get the general idea. My apartment is two rooms if you can’t tell from the pictures. There is also a bathroom which is not pictured. Since the pictures were taken I have upgraded from a sleeping bag to a mattress. I don’t have furniture but that is by choice. This is a cheap, frugal apartment and it is all I need. If you have any questions about the apartment feel free to ask.