My savings/debt repayment percentage for January was only 3.7%. That is quite a drop from the previous months percentage of 55%. The drop was because I didn’t make any debt payment and made only the minimum $50 contribution to my IRA. Until I receive my student loan money I’m not going to make any debt payments or extra contributions to my IRA. This is to make sure I have plenty of money on hand for living expenses and any unexpected expenses. Once I have my student loan money I plan on paying down my private student loan and maxing out my 2007 IRA contribution.
January Income
Here is a breakdown of my income for January.
|
Job Income |
$1104.36 |
|
Online Income |
$191.62 |
|
Surveys |
$5 |
|
Interest |
$14.92 |
|
Total |
$1315.90 |
My income was down quite a bit because I only worked half a month due to returning to law school. I did manage to increase my online income a bit. Since I don’t count any money made as income until I actually receive it there will be quite a bit more money that was earned in January that will be reflected on February’s income. In fact I’ve already made more this month than in January. With no job income I need to keep increasing my other methods of income.
January Expenses
Here is a breakdown of my expenses for January.
|
Household |
$390.49 |
|
Utilities |
$150.99 |
|
Transportation |
$112.23 |
|
Food |
$119.73 |
|
Entertainment |
$61.83 |
|
Books |
$129.42 |
|
Total |
$964.69 |
I’m happy that the total was under $1000 but I do have some areas in need of improvement. My goal for food is $100 a month and I’ve been going over that. The main reason I’ve been going over is that I’ve been buying too much junk food and fast food. That makes going over doubly bad. It will be the main area I concentrate on for February. My utilities were too high with my gas bill being over $100. I’ve already taken steps that should cut that down significantly. I won’t have a book expense this month unless I decide to buy some study aids.
The category of transportation was down quite a bit since I only worked half the month. Also I didn’t need to do any repairs or maintenance. That will change this month since I plan to have some work done on my car. Household and entertainment expenses should be roughly the same.
Blogging Hourly Wage
Most small PF bloggers such as myself don’t make much money from blogging. I would guess that last year I didn’t make minimum wage for the hours I put into blogging. I’m not sure since I didn’t keep track of how much time I spent on blogging. Making a return on my time invested isn’t much of a priority since I do this for fun more than for profit. I make most of my money from my blog Bank Bonuses. This blog is barely monetized but it still makes a profit since it costs me very little to run. This month has probably been my best money making month for blogging yet.
I’ve decided that for February I’m going to keep track of my hours spent blogging so I can calculate my hourly blogging wage. Then I’m going to see what I can do to increase my blogging income. Since I won’t be working the next few months any increase in blogging income will be helpful. I like having the home page of this blog ad-free though so I’m going to try to keep it that way or at least keep any ads as non-intrusive as possible. I’m open to any suggestions and I’d be interested in seeing if there are any other PF bloggers that share their income.
Reducing Heating Costs Experiment
My latest gas bill was for $103. This is much more than I paid last year. My highest heating bill last year was $61. The gas customer charge is $15 higher than last year but most of the increase in my bill is from using more gas. I know the apartment I’m in now is poorly insulated but so was the apartment I was living in last year. The furnace in my current apartment must be extremely inefficient.
Being a tight-fisted miser I don’t like paying this much for heat so I’ve decided to try an experiment to reduce my heating bill. I’m turning down my thermostat to 55 degrees and am going to use an electric space heater to take off the chill in the evenings. I won’t need it when I’m sleeping because I use my down sleeping bag as a blanket and it can keep me comfortable at temperatures much lower than 55 degrees. Also I’m going to try to take my showers at the fitness center. I still haven’t gotten into the habit of working out this year but this will give me one more incentive to get to the fitness center.
I have no doubt this will work to cut my gas bill. I’m just not sure I’ll save enough on my gas to make up for the extra electric cost. I receive my electric bill a couple weeks ahead of my gas bill which will give me an idea if this will pay off.