I think it takes a little bit of guts to share your income and expenses openly with the world. But that said, I think there is value for both of us in reading this post. I will do a similar post every month.
Listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of August 2016. Still some things to work on, but great progress despite some obstacles. See what you think!
Overall, not a bad month. Still not optimized by any means, but I am happy with it. Here's what happened this month:
Income:
1) Income was great this month and will actually slowly increase over the next few months as I take on some smaller "side gigs." I've been very pleased on this side of the equation and I'm looking forward to continuing this increase.
2) I'll continue to explain the 'lending club sales' - like I stated in June's report, I am unwinding my Lending Club investment as quickly as I can. So whenever I get "cash available to withdraw" as they call it, from that account, I transfer it and count it as 'income.' This number will eventually get smaller and smaller and run out, but I can only get small amounts back as the individual loans are repaid, and it's great to receive!
3) Dividends were great and Rental Income was thankfully maximized at $398. One huge blessing this month was that my Missouri tenant just signed another year lease, so I expect that this may be the first year where both my monthly 'total earnings' AND monthly cash flow will be positive! The snowball is picking up some momentum perhaps..(After 4 long years!) A detailed explanation can be found in my August Report here. Overall, not a bad month at all for Passive Income, which came in right over $650.
Expenses:
1) Expenses were mostly in check this month, but I very much dislike seeing my 'everything else' category - the items I don't specifically have a budget for - being so high up on my Expenses List. You'll notice that my expenses list is sorted from largest to smallest, and as such it seems to follow that an optimized budget and spending plan would have the 'everything else' category as the smallest number at the bottom of the list each month. Not so for me in August apparently! This month my everything else category was 6th highest (ouch!) and consisted of a parking ticket (apparently if you park in a 2hr space and move your car in 1.5hrs, in Durham you can't park anywhere else in any open hourly spaces for the rest of the day...did not know that, nor do I agree with it, but hey, you live and learn I guess), a textbook purchase, a haircut for my wife and me, a few parking garage costs (see my ticket story above, :), and one trip to the movies to see the new Bourne movie, which was excellent.
In summary, I managed to have a positive difference of ~$2800 this month. Very cool! Again, as I've said for so many months now, unfortunately I still have family debt and some credit card debt (details here, in Goals), so I definitely didn't "feel" the extra yet. It went straight to paying down those items. Sometimes it's very hard to see positive differences in cash flow each and every month, but still feel like you have no money and are not making any progress! In time I hope!...
What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts below.
Thanks for reading!
Passive Income Dude
Doing good what you want is big positive months to pay off that debt. Once it's paid off things will really snowball. 260 in dividends isn't to shabby either
ReplyDeleteThanks Dividendsandhobbies. My debt is getting closer to zero but I still have a long way to go to be honest. My goal is to be down to $5k left to family by the end of this year. Once our NC home turns into a rental property, we should see the snowball pick up steam moreso than it is now. At least that is the goal. Thanks for commenting!
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ReplyDeleteThanks Divi Cents. I think there is some serious potential for passive income in a few years, but we will see. Love the 'huge cash cows' description! :)
DeleteThe chart is from excel. I too am trying to keep it simple and easy to read and I've found that excel (with support from Mint for budgeting and trends) is the best way for me to manage and present the information. Thanks for stopping by!
$2863 at the end of the month to put towards investing is pretty darn good:)
DeleteI like how your investment properties are moving more and more into the positive income side of things. In a few years they are going to be HUGE cash cows.
I like that chart also, very basic and easy to read. Is that just copied off exel? I've been searching for one to add to my site but everything is too fancy for my taste.
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