May Expenses $1278.16

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

Household $403.75
Entertainment $80.28
Transportation $93.50
Food $168.53
Student Loan $37.71
Travel $146.38
Phone $36.79
Health $311.22
Total $1278.16

 

My May expenses were back to a normal level. I would have made my $1000 spending target if it weren’t for paying for a dental scan and the amount of the doctor’s bill for my colonoscopy that my insurance didn’t cover. In order to meet the $1000 target I need to have a month with no irregular expenses which doesn’t happen very often.

My total expenses for this month will probably be about the same. My transportation expense will go up since I’m driving 60 miles round-trip to work and I’m driving to a conference that is about three hours away. My health and travel expenses should go down which will hopefully more than offset my increased transportation expense.  There shouldn’t be a big change in any of the other expense categories.

I’m pretty satisfied with my current level of expenses.  There isn’t much improvement to be made there. Income is where I need a lot of improvement.

Back to Work and Other News

customerserviceI started at a new document review job this Thursday. I had been waiting for the document review company I worked for previously to contact me. I hadn’t yet heard from them on Tuesday and decided to search a couple of job sites online. I found a couple of document review jobs and submitted my resume for both of the jobs. One of the companies emailed me later that day offering me a job and the other company contacted me on Wednesday offering a job. Since the job for the first company was only scheduled for a week and the job at the second company is predicted to last through the summer I accepted the job with the second company. On Friday the document review company that I’ve worked for in the past contacted me about a new project.  I had to let them know that I’d already started at another company. I found it slightly amusing that I waited two weeks without hearing anything and as soon as I accepted a job I was offered jobs at two more companies.

There are a couple of good things about my new doc review job. One is that they are open 7-7 Monday through Friday, 8-6 on Saturday, and I can work my 40 hours whenever I want to during that time frame. If I wanted to I’m allowed to work up to 60 hours a week. Since there is no overtime and I find 40 hours a week to be enough work for me it is extremely unlikely I’ll ever work 60 hours a week but it is nice to have the option. Another nice thing about this job is they have a casual dress code. As in it is okay to wear shorts and a t-shirt casual. This is the first doc review job I’ve worked that had that casual of a dress code everyday. It is nice to be comfortable while I’m working.

The drawbacks to the job are that it is very boring just like all the other doc review jobs. I can listen to music or podcasts while working which does help alleviate the boredom. The other drawback is that it is thirty miles from my house. That is a longer commute than I’d prefer. The traffic hasn’t been too bad yet so at least the commute isn’t stressful. It is just time-consuming.

Next month I will be attending the Missouri Solo and Small Firm Conference. I’m hoping I will learn enough there to be able to start my own law practice. Or at least learn enough to start the process of opening my own firm. Doc review jobs here pays $22-$23 an hour. Before law school I would have thought that was a great rate of pay. Now that I have six figures of debt that level of pay just doesn’t cut it. If I’m going to be able to pay off my student loan I need to make a lot more money. I’ll let you know how the conference went after it is done.

That is all the news I have for now. I probably won’t be writing much the next few weeks since I generally don’t feel much like writing for the blog when I’m working full-time. If there are any topics you would like me to write about let me know and I’ll eventually write a post on the topic.

 

May 2016 Net Worth Update

penniesIn order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth each month. This month’s is a little delayed since I was hiking at the beginning of the month.

My net worth as of today (5/13/2016) is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $4029
IRA – $22,677.65
Roth IRA – $9865.33
Car/Stuff – $5000

Liabilities
Student Loan – $128,165.88

Net Worth = $-86,593.90

***Update*** After I posted this I discovered the net worth total was incorrect. The post has been updated to reflect the correct amount.

My net worth improved about $350 in April. That isn’t much, but at least it was an improvement. (actually after correcting my math my net worth did decrease a little in April) Since I was hiking and didn’t make much I thought I might have a net worth decrease for the month.

Although I didn’t have much income for the month my cash position increased quite a bit. A lot of that was due to selling quite a few low or no profit items on Amazon FBA. Those items didn’t result in much income, but since they were purchased in previous months they increased April’s cash flow.

The big negative continues to be my student loan. The loan accrued another $791.58 in interest since last month’s post. It appears that I’m being charged interest on my entire balance although it is my understanding that I should only be charged interest on the original principal amount. I will have to contact them and see if I can clarify this.

As I’ve stated before this massive student loan makes it difficult for me to get ahead financially. I’d like to get this refinanced, but that will be difficult to do until I have steady employment and consistent income.  I need to do something soon since I’m basically throwing away $700 a month.

I’ve been using Personal Capital (aff link) to help track my net worth. It keeps track of all of my financial accounts and my student loan making it pretty easy to calculate my net worth each month. It is free to sign up. If you would like to sign up I’d appreciate you using my link.

Personal Capital

April Income – $1079.26

Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

Motif Bonus $100
Interest $0.85
Online Income $432.95
Uber $3.97
Amazon FBA $393.34
Cash Back $98.15
Bank Bonus $50
Total $1079.26

April was a decent income month considering  that I was hiking three weeks of the month. My online income was a nice surprise. After months of little or no income I actually made a little bit of money from my blogs. I will be getting a payment from Adsense and Commission Junction this month giving me two months in a row of online income. It would be nice if I could get my online income back up to what it was a few years ago.

I’m struggling to get my FBA business making the kind of money I’d like to make. I read online about people who are able to make $1000s in just a few months with FBA and I think I should be able to do that to. I’ve had a couple of months with over $1000 profit and I want to get to where every month is over $1000 profit. I’m struggling to find enough stuff to sell right now. I will need to spend more time sourcing this month to get more products in inventory which should lead to more sales.

I should have an increase in income this month since I’m not hiking. So far I’m on pace to make less than last month though. I notified my document review job that I’m available for work, but they haven’t added me to a project yet. I’m hoping that they will do so soon. In the meantime I will focus on making more money from my other sources of income.

April Expenses – $1710.89

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for April.

Household $413.18
Entertainment $12.15
Transportation $0.00
Food $292.57
Student Loan $37.71
Travel $286.91
Phone $36.79
Health $631.58
Total $1710.89

 

My April expenses were higher than normal. This was mainly due to the cost of my colonoscopy and medicine. The travel expense of $286.91 also inflated my monthly total. I’m okay with the colonoscopy and travel expense increasing my expenses. My colonoscopy revealed a couple of large polyps that were benign, but may not have still been benign had I waited until I was 50 to get a colonoscopy. Knowing that I don’t have any major problems with my digestive tract was well worth the money spent.

The travel expense was for my three-week hiking trip. It includes my airfare to NJ, train to town near trail, taxi to trail, and four nights in a hotel.  I think I got a lot of value for the money spent. Since the trip went into the first few days of May there will be a little bit of travel expense this month as well.

I spent way too much on food. A lot of that was due to eating at restaurants while hiking. Most of the restaurants near the trail were a little pricier than I would have preferred, but I chose to eat at them rather than not have a restaurant meal at all. I need to cut my food expense way down this month.

One bright spot in my expenses was the transportation category.  I didn’t spend any money on transportation. Since I wasn’t home I didn’t drive my car and didn’t have to buy gas or otherwise spend money on my car. This expense will obviously go up this month. It still shouldn’t be too much though.

My expenses should go down this month although they will still be higher than usual.