My expenses in 2017 were almost $3000 less than in 2016. My expenses for 2017 were $13,697.14 compared to $16,431.20 in 2016.  My total expenses in 2015 were $16,999.41 and in 2014 they were $15,775.65. That makes 2017 my lowest spending year of the last few years even though 2017 was my highest earning year. My income the previous years was roughly 33% to 50% less than it was in 2017.

My total expenses for 2017 only includes $505 that I paid towards my student loan although I paid about $15,000 total towards my student loan during the year. Paying so much towards my student loan helped reduce my spending since it left me with less money to spend elsewhere.  Since I wasn’t required to make any of these extra student loan payments I’ve decided to leave out the extra payments since they distort what my spending looks like.

My biggest expense for the year was $5490 for rent. This amount will be even less this year as I’m only paying $435 a month for rent now. That is about as good of a deal as you can get in Kansas City.

My second biggest expense for the year was $1957.56 for food.  $1322 of that was for dining out, which I consider to be way too high. The dining out total was slightly inflated due to eating on vacation, but even considering that I think the food spending was way too high. I plan to significantly reduce food spending this year.

Two other big expenses were medical expenses of $1527.06 and household expenses of $1090.57. The medical expenses will be way up this year as I have an over $2000 medical bill due. Plus my health insurance premiums are higher. That will be slightly offset by lower household expenses this year. The 2017 total included $300 for lifetime internet and larger than normal expenses due to buying some furniture and other stuff when I moved into my new apartment. I don’t anticipate any big household expenses this year so this expense should be a few hundred dollars less this year.

My car expense was $1254.40 which is probably about what it will be again this year. The total included $570.45 for gas with the rest of the expense being for repairs, insurance, license, registration, and tax.

The rest of my expenses were $314.13 for my cell phone, $500.65 for movies and entertainment, and $1057.22 for travel. The cell phone expense should be about the same this year.  The movies and entertainment might be slightly lower now that I have Moviepass to save money on movie tickets.

The 2017 travel total included round trip airfare for two from Kansas City to Paris. It also included over two weeks of hotel, hostel, or Airbnb nights in Europe. That included the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris which would have been about $800 a night if we had been paying cash. I also had a short four night trip to Vegas. The use of credit card points, discounted gift cards, coupons, and travel deals allowed me to get an excellent amount of value for the amount of money I spent on travel. I’m not sure how much I’ll spend on travel this year. It will depend on where I decide to go and what kind of deals I can find.

My guess is that my expenses will go up this year. Last year was a pretty lucky year that mostly didn’t have any expensive surprises. I’m sure there will be some surprises this year, but hopefully they won’t be too expensive and I can keep my spending in the same range it has been the last few years.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

December was a another good month for expenses. I would have made my monthly goal of $1000 if it were not for medical expenses. That is getting to be a recurring theme.  I have a very large medical bill that I need to pay over the next couple of months so the theme of medical bills making me miss my target expense level will continue for a while. There is nothing I can do about the medical bills I’ve already incurred, but I’m going to be much smarter about medical expenses this year.  I need to stop incurring these medical expenses which never seem to improve my health.

My monthly food expense was too high again. The total was a little lower at least.  This month I’m setting a budget of $50 for eating out. I have a fair amount of food in my apartment so it will be easy to keep my food expense low if I don’t spend more than my allotted amount going out to eat.

The entertainment expense was a little high due to buying a discounted Hulu gift card to prepay for a few months of Hulu. There was also a dinner expense that I put in the entertainment category.  Other than that my expenses this month should be about the same as last month.

2017 Year End Net Worth

Assets

• Cash – $3139
• IRA  – $35441
• Roth – $1743
• Solo 401k – $3306
• Stuff – $2000
• HSA – $1100

Liabilities

Student loan – $117,743

My total assets of $46,729 minus my liabilities of $117,742 results in a net worth of $-71,013.  I managed to increase my net worth by about $15,000 this year.  With the stock market contributing 20% returns the result should have been better, but the roughly $7200 a year interest on my student loan makes it difficult to make progress.  A $15,000 increase on about $40k income isn’t too bad I guess.  I plan to do better this year.

Here is a breakdown of my income for December.

December’s income was pretty good. I managed to make over $800 from my non-job sources of income. My job income was down a little due to taking advantage of the ability to have extra unpaid time off at Thanksgiving.

This month is the start of the tax season which means that I will have overtime hours available the second half of the month. That paycheck won’t be received until February so the increased job income won’t show up until then. I doubt I’ll be able to make as much from my non-job sources of income this month.  This year I intend to increase the money I make from credit card and bank bonuses, and to increase my FBA income as well. This month will likely be a decrease from December, but it should still be a decent month.

Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

November’s income was okay. This is roughly what my income will be in a two paycheck month where I don’t make any money from my side hustles. Although I did make a little money from my blog and cashback that was negated by a loss from Amazon FBA. I had a return of an over $300 item. I usually avoid buying these more expensive items due to the risk of a costly return, but I took a chance on this one since I got such a great deal. I should still be able to sell the item as used this month and make up the loss.

It should be a good month for FBA with all of the holiday shopping. I just need to get some inventory sent in. Other than that I don’t expect much change in my income this month.