December Income – $2587.59

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Here is a breakdown of my income for December.

Qapital $5
Interest $1.79
Online Income $105.85
Amazon FBA $2453.72
Cash Back $21.23
Total $2587.59

 
My December income was pretty good. Amazon sales go crazy from the last half of November through Christmas and I was able to send in quite a bit of inventory to benefit from those sales. December was my most profitable month on Amazon FBA so far. I hope I’m able to send in more inventory and do even better next holiday season. If I was able to make this much every month from FBA I wouldn’t need any other sources of income. If I was able to make this kind of money from FBA and  earn a full-time job income I’d be doing really great.

FBA income will be way down this month now that the holiday sales are over. Also, I won’t be sending in much inventory this month since my time will be taken up by my job. On the plus side, I will be working full-time this month and will make a decent amount of money. I’ll only get one paycheck  this month so my income will actually be lower this month. It should be a nice amount higher the next three months though. I plan to build up a nice cushion of savings in order to be able to travel and/or do whatever the rest of the year without being overly worried about money.

December Expenses – $1523.68

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

Household $444.82
Entertainment $0
Transportation $40
Food $56.36
Student Loan $500
Travel $0
Phone $298.88
Health $183.62
Total $1523.68

December was a low expense month. A big reason for the low expenses was the use of gift cards purchased in November that were reflected in November’s expenses. The use of a previously purchased movie gift card allowed us to go to the movies a couple of times and still have a $0 entertainment expense for the month. The use of restaurant gift cards allowed me to only have a food expense of $56.36. Most of that total was made up of the $50 a month I contribute towards groceries each month.

 

The big bills were $500 to my student loan and almost $300 of phone expense.  If you take away those two expenses I would be under my monthly target of $1000 in expenses. The student loan payment was made to reach the max  $2500 student loan interest tax deduction.

The phone expense reflects over $250 spent to purchase a Nexus 5x in order to switch to Google Fi phone service. My Virgin Mobile phone died on me and I decided to try out Google’s phone service. I didn’t want to spend so much on a phone, but the 5x was the cheapest phone they had.  The new phone plan should save me a few bucks a month, but it will take a long time to make up for the cost of the phone.

I expect January to be a low expense month and most of my expenses should be in their normal range. Sometime this week I plan to post a yearly summary of my expenses and income.

How was your month?

2016 Review and 2017 Plans

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Since this year is almost over it is time to reflect on how this year went and look ahead to what I would like to accomplish in 2017.  Before writing this post  I had to read last year’s post to see what my goals for this year were. That was a pretty good indication that I did not achieve this year’s goals.

I don’t feel like I accomplished much this year which is exactly how I felt last year. And that was probably true for at least a couple more years before that. I definitely feel that I’m in a bit of a rut. Looking back at my “goals” posts I see a lot of goals being set, but they are hardly ever being achieved. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again since it is still true, I have to start working towards my goals and not just writing about them.

The only goals I set for this year were to run a 23:59 or faster 5k and to be able to do a pull-up. Those goals were carryovers from the year before. I didn’t make any progress on those goals and only worked towards them for a little bit of the year. Although those goals are both things I’d like to accomplish they aren’t things I really want to do right now so I’m not going to make them goals again this year. I might make them goals again if things change.

My priority goals for 2017 will be the two goals I set last July of losing 50 pounds and completing the Appalachian Trail before I turn 50. I won’t be able to start hiking the trail again until after my tax job ends in April. I should be able to finish the A.T. in a little less than two months of hiking. I can start losing weight right now and I have some ideas on how to do that. I’ll share those once I have actually put them into effect.

The title of this post talks about my 2017 plans rather than goals since my goals for this year aren’t yet detailed enough to really be called goals. I am also trying to plan what I will do with the year. The first half of the year is all planned out. I’ll work the tax job until midway through April and then hike the A.T. until about halfway through June. After that my plans are a little murky.

I have three different plans of what I might do for the second half of 2017 and beyond. I’ll provide a brief overview of these possible plans now and possibly write a more detailed examination of them later. The first plan is to work the tax job in the spring and then travel the rest of the year. I can travel pretty cheap making it possible for me to  live off my tax job income and other random bits of income. I’ve always wanted to travel extensively and I feel like I’m running out of time to do so. However, I wouldn’t be able to save much money or pay off my student loan debt under this plan. There would be other drawbacks to this plan as well. If I write a blog post about this plan I’ll include a more complete list of pros and cons.

A second plan is to find a job with the government or a non-profit. After ten years of working I’d be eligible to have my student loan debt forgiven. I’d also be able to put a large chunk of money into savings. If I got a job with the state of Missouri I’d be vested in the state pension after ten years. The big drawback is I’d have to work at the job for ten years. I haven’t come remotely close to working a job that long. Also, I would be 60 years old by the time I got my ten years in. I always thought I would be retired before that age. Working ten years and getting six figures of debt and qualifying for a pension is a pretty good deal though.  Another thing to consider is that there is a chance that the loan forgiveness rules could change before I’m eligible to get my student loan debt forgiven. Although I don’t love this plan it is a pretty sensible and achievable plan.

A third plan is to find a relatively high-paying job that would allow me to pay off my student loan debt in the next three to five years. I estimate that I’d need to make at least $60,000 a year in order to pay off my student loans in this time frame. A big problem with this plan is I don’t think I’d be able to find a job paying me $60k a year. The seasonal/temporary jobs I’ve had the past few years would pay about $40-$45k a year if they were full year jobs. The extra $15-$20k seems like a pretty big jump. My spotty employment history and poor interview skills would also contribute to making getting a high-paying job an extremely difficult task.  That being said, a $60k salary isn’t really that high for an attorney/J.D. so it shouldn’t be impossible to find a high-paying job. I just don’t have any idea how to do it. A drawback to this plan is that after three to five years of paying off my debt I would be at zero. I’d still have to work a few more years or figure out another way to make money before I’d be able to retire.

Those are the three possible plans I have for my future right now. I’m not sure which one I’ll pick and it is possible that things will change and I won’t do any of them. What are your thoughts on these possible plans?

November Income – $1470.28

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Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

Qapital $15
Interest $1.41
User Testing $10
Online Income $61.91
Amazon FBA $1333.53
Cash Back $48.43
Total $1470.28

My November income was an improvement over October. It still needs to be a lot higher. It should get to an okay level once I start my tax job.

Most of the improvement in income in November came from increased Amazon FBA earnings. Black Friday shoppers and early Christmas shopping in general helped boost my FBA earnings. I’m hoping for a record month of FBA earnings this month.  I’ve sent in a lot of inventory and plan on buying and sending a lot more inventory before Christmas. Even with a record month I doubt I’ll make as much as I really should be making. I do feel like I’m slowly making progress on my FBA business, but I think I should be making a lot more. It would be nice to get my income up to about $5000 a month which I think is possible. I’m just not sure how to do it.  FBA will get put on the back burner once I start my tax job so it will be a while before I’m able to ramp up the FBA business again after this month.

Although the income is less than I like, it is enough to pay my basic bills and keep me going until I start making more money from the tax job.

 

November Expenses – $2040.40

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

Household $450.94
Entertainment $118.67
Transportation $82.53
Food $222.65
Student Loan $500
Travel $477.06
Phone $36.79
Health $151.76
Total $2040.40


November was a high expense month.  I had a few low expense months in a row so I suppose I was due for a high expense month. The expense isn’t as bad as it would first appear though since a good chunk of my November expenses went towards paying future expenses. Also we had a trip to Las Vegas for four days and Greenville,SC for another three days which increased my expenses a bit.

I signed up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and paid a $450 annual fee. Although I hate paying a large annual fee like that I will get much more value from the card than I paid for the annual fee. I’ve already used the card to get $300 credit for flights next year. I’ll get another $300 travel credit next year and I’ll receive a 100,000 point bonus that is worth $1500 in travel expenses. Taking that into account I paid for a lot of next  year’s travel in November.

I also bought a bunch of discounted restaurant gift cards and a couple of movie gift cards. My restaurant expense should be zero this month and probably next month as well. The movie gift cards should cover my movie expense for this month and possibly a bit of January’s expense. My gift card expenditures in November will lead to much lower food and entertainment expense this month and probably next month as well.

All of my other expenses were pretty much in their normal range. I don’t expect any major changes to my expenses other than the ones I already discussed. December should see my expenses return to their normal level.

How was your November?