Income/Expenses For December 2013

Each month I will post my income/expenses for the previous month. I track every dollar in and out, so what you see is exactly what I earned and spent (rounded to the nearest dollar).

Income from December 2013:

$3,147–Regular Paycheck
$924–Online Income/Bonus
$605–Dividend Income

Total Income: $4,674

Expenses from December 2013:

$536–Rent & Utilities
$300–Auto
$190–Student Loans
$189–Health
$113–Groceries
$100–Fuel
$77–Auto Insurance
$52–Restaurants
$54–Fast Food/Pizza/Takeout
$45–Pharmacy
$40–Mobile Phone
$30–Gym
$29–Internet
$3–Entertainment
$624–Everything Else*

Total Expenses: $2,377

*The Everything Else category includes expenses I don’t have a regular budget for. For this month, it was mostly gifts. I spent $549 on Christmas gifts, after netting out any cash I received. I also spent $2.50 on toll fees to cross a bridge to the Tampa Airport (to fly home to Michigan) and $72 on parking fees at the discounted parking garage at the airport.

Income was great. My regular paycheck was rather average, but I more than made up for that in the other income categories.  Dividend income for December was my second highest total ever, and something I’m very grateful for. And the online income was wonderful! I earned a total of $868 from this blog, so thank you readers for continuing to stop by and support what I’m doing here. The rest of the bonus income was related to redeeming cash back rewards from my two credit cards for a total of $56.

Expenses were high mostly due to Christmas spending. I already admitted that I was going to embrace my inner consumer for the holiday season, so I wasn’t surprised to see the gift expenses start to pile up a bit. In addition, I now have spending in a new Auto category, and this is my way of amortizing out the purchase of my 2006 Toyota Corolla. Although I paid cash for the car, I’m going to spread out the purchase cost over the next thirteen months so that I can smooth out any major hits to my budget. Lifestyle inflation is a bitch. I miss the days of riding my scooter for pennies on the dollar, but it is nice to be insulated from the weather and crazy drivers. You’ll also notice I had a high month for fuel. This is because I filled up the tank in the Frugalmobile right before I knew I was purchasing the Corolla. I sold the Escort just a few days after putting gas in it, so that was an unfortunate loss. Going forward, I’m hoping to limit my fuel costs. I don’t live far from work and so far I’m averaging about 31 mpg in the city with the Toyota.

Internet is up a bit this month after Comcast raised my bill after a six-month reprieve. It looks like a call to customer service is in my near future. I also switched car insurance this month to Progressive, and going forward my insurance will be about $10/mont lower. Not only was it cheaper than Geico, but I also upped my coverage significantly. That was a win-win.

Food spending was down this month. As I mentioned in last month’s budget, I wanted to spend less than $250 in food for December. I accomplished that by spending only $219 on all food. I consider that a pretty solid month for food spending, especially considering that this isn’t only for me. I take my girlfriend out to dinner once or twice per month and always pay. In addition, I tend to get takeout or pizza every once couple weekends.

I manged to save 49.1% of my net income this month. Not one of my best months, but considering that I now have an “auto payment” and I spent rather heavily on Christmas gifts I consider this a pretty satisfactory outcome.

My goal is to average a 60% savings rate of my net income, monthly. So far, I’ve hit rates of:

75.7% – January
48.3% – February
57% – March
71.4% – April
64.2% – May
64.6% – June
71.4% – July
73.1% – August
61.3% – September
50% – October
51.9% – November
49.1% – December

All twelve months are tallied up, and I managed to save 61.5% of my net income for the year! This is my best year yet for savings. I had a fantastic 2013 in regards to savings, but you can see that I started to lose steam at the end of the year. This was mainly due to the introduction of health insurance and a car into my budget. Looking forward, I don’t know if saving 60% of my net income will be realistic but I’m glad I eclipsed that mark this year. It was tough, but incredibly rewarding.

How was your December? Where did your budget end up for 2013?

Thanks for reading.

Photo Credit: RambergMediaImages

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32 Comments

  1. December was a rough month Jason, I’m not going to lie. But we’re home now, in nice warm sunny Florida…..oh wait?! I know you know something about the cold, traveling to Michigan. Great job on the online income, and over $600 in monthly dividends :o)

    I do have a question for you though. What happened to the moped? Did you sell it off, now that you have “new” Frugalmobile? That Corolla is going to last for ever…….just a heads up.
    -Bryan

  2. Howdy Jason,

    My December was not awesome. Buying a used Jeep and subsequent repairs pretty much ate up my investing capital for both December and January. The market is pretty high right now anyways, so hopefully in February I’ll be able to make a new acquisition!

    Are there any stocks you have your eye on? Realty Income Corp (O) is still pretty low.

  3. Bryan,

    Yeah, it was pretty chilly today! I know it’s nothing like they’ve got up north, but it wasn’t comfortable either.

    I sold the scooter right after purchasing the Escort. I thought I mentioned that somewhere on the blog, but my apologies if I didn’t. I miss the days of $3 fill-ups and no insurance. But there was certainly some risk there, too.

    Thanks! I hope this Corolla lasts at least a decade. I hope to not have to purchase a car again for at least that long.

    Stay warm. 🙂

    Best regards.

  4. D-S,

    My salary wasn’t affected by the new guy in December, because he didn’t start until just this past Monday. My income is unsteady because I’m paid on commission only, and sales spike some months and dip in others.

    The weather here in Florida isn’t too bad, although we’re unseasonably cold. We actually broke a record for cold today, but it still got up to 50 degrees F. In Michigan, where my family is, they’re suffering through 0 degrees F with 18 inches of snow. It’s quite a winter. How is weather there in Germany?

    Best wishes.

  5. BuySmart,

    Sorry to hear about the expenses in December. But, hopefully, the Jeep ends up serving you guys well and increases your quality of life. The Corolla definitely set me back in the same way. I would have been able to invest much more in December and January, but now I’m extremely light on capital.

    As far as stocks go, I’m currently looking at KO, O, ARCP, HCP, TGT, UL, GIS. But I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to invest this month. I’m hoping for at least one purchase. 🙂

    Take care!

  6. Great job on reaching you goal for the year.

    You spent a lot of money on gifts, but I never received anything. 🙁

    j/k lol
    your blog is the best gift anyone can ask for. thanks for putting everything out there.

  7. Hey DM,

    Good to see you closed out the year on a positive note and hit your goal. I was randomly wondering, with the amount you label as Regular Paycheck, is that figure listed before or after taxes? This year I am also looking to track my savings and was interested in how you have been doing it thus far. I’ll assume the other two income sources are listed before taxes.

    Best,
    SkyInvestor

  8. FFdividend,

    Hey, I don’t have your address to send you anything (does that excuse count?). 🙂

    Thanks for the support. You did great in 2013 as well, and I hope your success continues this year!

    Best regards.

  9. SkyInvestor,

    The paycheck info is net of taxes, so that’s my take home pay. The other categories are indeed gross, but I reconcile these numbers in February or March when I do my taxes and the taxes I owe reduce my net income for whatever month the tax bill falls on. That’s why you see a big dip in February’s savings rate. You’ll see a similar dip this Feb. or March. So, factoring it all in the end result is a true “net” savings rate.

    I hope this helps!

    Cheers!

  10. 49.1% is still something like 10 times higher than the average american, so kudos to you. I spent more money in December than I would have liked, especially in the food category. It’s one of those months where you just have to do what you have to do. When we’re FI we’ll probably be far more careful with our spending.

  11. Hi DM,

    Even though our investing styles differ greatly, I enjoy your posts.

    That being said, maybe you can start a yearly tax post? As in how dividends are affecting your tax bottom line? Just an idea!

  12. I can’t wait to have more capital to invest. I plan to utilize my tax refund, and free cash after getting through the buying within the holiday season.

    ARCP is one that I have wanted to buy for a while, along with NYMT and MKC.

  13. Hi DM,

    the salary of “only” 3,147 USD this month – is that because of the new service staff?
    Last year you earned 1,400 USD more!

    How is the winter weather?
    In the German news it sounds very bad.
    It must be a murderous cold!
    This is very bad!

    regards
    D-S

  14. Not a bad month. I really enjoy reading the income/expense reports and am thinking about doing the same thing on my site. Did you have any qualms about posting this information or sharing this kind of data? Most people are pretty quiet about person income/expense numbers, so I was just curious about your though process.

  15. You might find that you can still hit that 60% savings rate despite increased expenses if you can continue building up your side income. How are the stats of this blog looking? If there is an upward trend it may get you a bit of extra cash needed to maintain that 60%.

  16. Nice work Jason, you still are rocking along with the online income, even after clearing off some of the ads. And I wouldn’t worry about the 50% savings rate being low. At this point the snowball has been made and is starting to roll. The progress will start growing rapidly on it’s own with the dividend raises and compounding of reinvestment.

  17. Good looking savings rate for the year Jason! In addition, smart flip to a Corolla which will only get you better mpgs in the future. Actually, I bought a diesel myself just recently to get about 37mpgs in city and over 50 on Hwy. Its really nice, bought from an auction with some damage. A fixer upper, so my brother in law will have something to work on. Here have a look

    http://www.easyexport.us/vehicle-finder/lot-26420883/2013-volkswagen-jetta-salvage-certificate-nj-somerville

    Take care,

  18. Hi DM,

    today it was 59 degrees here at my home.
    The winter takes a long time to be there.
    The average in Germany is for the month of January are 30 degrees!

    We are much too hot currently!

    Strange world…

    Best wishes
    D-S

  19. Spoonman,

    Thanks! 49% isn’t quite what I’m used to being able to acheive, but I still consider 50% the barometer for successful saving. If one can keep up that kind of savings rate and invest appropriately over the long haul they should do very well.

    It’ll be interesting to see how your spending fluctuates once you’re financially independent. You’ll probably want to be a bit more stringent, but the good news is that you’ll have more time to do so.

    Best wishes.

  20. dziuniek,

    Glad you enjoy the blog. Many of us diverge in our investment strategies, but as long as we’re all achieving our goals that’s all that matters. 🙂

    I’ll have to look into a post like that. However, I do think that sometimes people concentrate on taxes too much. To me, having a big tax bill simply means you’re likely making a lot of money. There were many years back in the early 2000s that I actually got back hefty refunds…but that’s only because I was making crap money. That being said, I’m not looking to pay one dime in taxes more than I have to. 🙂

    Best regards!

  21. Investing Pursuits,

    Thanks so much. Yeah, I still had a pretty good month everything considered. My days of saving 70%+ of income here and there might be coming to an end with a car and health insurance on the books now, however I’ll still be happy saving 50% or so over the long haul. It’s all about finding balance and being consistent, not hitting it out of the park for a short time only to burn out. 🙂

    Hope all is well with you!

    Best wishes.

  22. Matt Croce,

    Great question. I never had any qualms about it, and remained confident about my decision even after co-workers knew about everything after the media attention. For me, it’s all about being open and showing others out there what’s possible. I think here in America everyone wants to be secretive about their money and that’s really not helpful for anyone, including the people keeping the secrets. I wanted to put everything out there and – win or lose – show exactly what can be done with my earnings power. I think people have a lot of misconceptions about money, and one of those is that if you make, say, $50k a year or so that early retirement just isn’t possible. I view that perspective to be false and uninformed and I’m here to prove it. But trying to prove it with everything being hidden behind doors would be impossible, so I decided to be 100% open right from the start.

    I hope this helps.

    Best regards.

  23. insourcelife,

    It’s certainly possible that increased earnings online make up some of the gap from less income at work and more expenses (car and health insurance). I’m very hopeful for that!

    The blog stats are relatively static since September. I don’t know if Dividend Mantra will grow much more from here or not, but I’m still very excited about the future of earning money online.

    Thanks for the support! Much appreciated. 🙂

    Cheers!

  24. w2r,

    You’re right. I think a few extreme years early on in the FI/ER journey can do wonders, and I made some big strides over the last couple of years. I’m not planning on slowing down, and I’m also not making any excuses for the future. However, I still would be very happy with 50% or so savings rates for the rest of my journey while also having room in the budget to enjoy every single day along the way. I ate ramen noodles every day at work for a year straight, rode the bus in 95 degree heat and made many sacrifies along the way, but I’m in a great spot right now. I enjoy every single day while also maximizing my potential in perhaps a less extreme way. Although, it’s good to know exactly what we’re capable of. I enjoyed pushing my boundaries. I now know that I could get by with much, much less and still be very happy. And even if I’m not riding a scooter anymore or eating ramen noodles I know that I could do so once again very easily. 🙂

    Thanks for the encouragement! Much appreciated.

    Best wishes.

  25. DividendVet,

    Nice mpg there! 50 on the highway is very, very nice. 🙂

    Hopefully the repair bills won’t be too bad. Looks like you made off with a sweet deal! Good luck!

    Best regards.

  26. Pipeline,

    You nailed it there! I definitely believe in saving aggressively while investing conservatively. Furthermore, I believe for anyone seeking an extremely early retirement that the savings rate will have a much bigger effect on your success than the investment returns due to the short-term time horizon.

    To your success in 2014!

    Take care.

  27. FerdiS,

    Thanks! It was incredibly challenging, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to replicate it again anytime soon. However, I’ll take the victories when I can. 🙂

    Thanks for the support! I really appreciate it. The online income is really wonderful, and I honestly didn’t see it ever being as large as it is right now. I just hope I can maintain this type of online income going forward, so I’m going to continue putting out great, inspirational content as often as I can. 🙂

    Good luck continuing to build that snowball!

    Best regards.

  28. Congratulations on saving 60+% That’s an amazing savings rate! Your “online income” is fascinating… well-deserved, I would say!

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