Reviewing My Income and Expenses

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Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme is having a 30 Day Early Retirement Extreme Makeover.   One of the goals of this makeover is cut your expense level to $10,000 or less a year.  I thought I was close to this goal already since I try to keep my monthly expenses at $1000 a month or less and I knew I was below that level a few months this year.  After reviewing my expenses for the year I realize I’m farther away from the $10,000 goal than I thought.  Although I did have some months below the $1000 level I had more months above the $1000 level.  I’m estimating that my total expenses will be about $15,000 for this year and  my total income at about $12,000.  This is not as good as I thought but that is part of the reason why I track my income and expenses; so I can review them and tell how I’m doing.

Looking at my expenses my budget busters are transportation and entertainment.  The transportation category is somewhat misleading because I drove my car delivering pizza most of the year.  Some of that expense should really be a deduction from income.  Still there is plenty of room for improvement in the transportation category and I will be making some major changes there.  Some of the increase in my entertainment expenditure is from having a GF but most of it was just the result of stupid decisions on my part.  This expenditure can easily be reduced just by choosing more free or low-cost options for entertainment.

Since the new year is almost here I’ll go ahead and set a couple goals now.  The first is to have my expenses under $10,000 next year.  The next is to have my income higher than my expenses.  These are reasonable goals and I will be planning specific measures to achieve them.

Law School is Over for the Semester

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I had a final Monday and another final Wednesday and that was it for the semester. I have to do a little work for my clinic but I am basically done until next semester starts. I wish I could say that I’m confident that I did well enough on my tests to stay in law school. I feel okay about one of them but I’m worried about the other one. I don’t have a high enough GPA to bomb on a final and still maintain the minimum GPA for law school. It has always been very difficult for me to gauge how well or poorly I performed on a law school final. I’m hoping that I did good enough on the final but all I can do now is wait. Unfortunately, I will probably be waiting for a while. Based on my past experience I probably won’t receive my grades until after the next semester starts.

On a positive note, if I do manage to stay in school my next semester will be easy. I only have 9 credits and they are all pass/fail. I will have to do my 30 page R&W and I’ll have to actually appear in court for my clinic. Those are both things I’m dreading so next semester won’t entirely be a cakewalk but compared to my other semesters it will be pretty easy.

Is Frugality Becoming Trendy?

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With the economic downturn tightening budgets I have seen several articles discussing how frugality is now becoming cool. They usually support this claim with a few anecdotes from ordinary citizens. Based on my own observations I doubt that frugality is actually becoming cool or even becoming much more socially acceptable. There are more people becoming frugal from necessity or perhaps because they are worried about the economy. They aren’t becoming frugal because they want to though, they are becoming frugal because they have to or because they feel that they need to be frugal due to the economy. Perhaps people will discover that a frugal lifestyle is a good choice regardless of whether it is necessary. My guess is that once the economy recovers the vast majority of these people will abandon their frugal ways and return to being regular consumers.

November Credit Score

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My credit score for November was 729 up from 722 the month before.  My credit score seems to be staying in the 720 range the past few months which makes sense since I am not doing anything that should have much effect on my credit.  720 or better is considered good credit so this is good enough for me.  I don’t plan on borrowing any money but it can be helpful to have good credit regardless.

I receive my credit score for free from one of my credit card companies.  I never use that particular card anymore.  The only reason I ever sign in to my account is to see my latest credit score.

November Investment Income- $39.17

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November was another bad month for my retirement savings.  My monthly investment income went down from $41.34 last month to $39.17 this month.  I actually made more money in interest and dividends last month than what I’m projecting as my income.  This is because I received a quarterly dividend payment and I earned interest on accounts that I don’t consider part of my retirement savings.

Disclaimer:This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, 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.

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