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.
General Thoughts on this Month: The slow grind continues. I'm reminded of the wisdom and importance of not comparing yourself to others, of being patient, and of sticking to the plan. Otherwise, it'd be pretty easy to be depressed! I continue to pay down debt AND TO BE HONEST THAT IS ABOUT IT. Despite achieving a relatively high savings rate, there still is "no money left over" for any extraordinary items.
All of that said, listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of October 2016.
1) Income was great this month: with rental properties' income essentially "maxed out" with no repair costs or other expenses, and I earned an addtional $323 from my side job, so in general I was very pleased with income this month. Now if only it wouldn't all go towards debt!..soon, I hope.
2) No change to Lending Club 'sales'. Here is a detailed description from June's report, explaining this number, as I unwind my Lending Club investment as quickly as I can.
3) Dividends were very low, as the "1, 4, 7, and 10" months have very few companies paying in my portfolio. A detailed explanation of my $467 in passive income from my October Report can be found here. Overall, not a bad month at all for Passive Income.
Expenses:
1) Expenses were somewhat on the higher side. We drove up to NYC and back for a few days of vacation, visiting some of my wife's family, so gas was higher than normal, with many other travel-related costs inflating several other categories as well. We also had a final repair cost ($162) for my wife's car. Those two events aside, our "non-GAAP" expenses were great. :)
One thing I do want to highlight in regards to expenses though is the following:
Many of you may be thinking, "Wow! Over $7800 in expenses in one month! That's ridiculous! He does not spend wisely!" However, if you remove just three categories from the above expense list: housing, and rental properties, and gifts/donations, we are actually only spending around $2200-$2500 per month living as a family of four in America. That, in my opinion really isn't that bad, though I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this. A $2200 monthly total equates to about $26,000 per year, which seems pretty low, but please help me optimize this process! Where can we get better? I ask as a humble request because sometimes I see the aggregate numbers myself and wonder "what is going on!", but I also know I am LIVING it on a daily basis, and I see that we really are not "splurging" anywhere or spending that much at all on niceties.
In summary, I managed to have a positive difference of ~$2000 this month. Very cool! 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. Eventually!
What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts below.
Thanks for reading!
Passive Income Dude
I have to start posting my income reports as well. Helps keep me honest with my spending.
ReplyDeleteGreat job on being up 2G btw, very impressive.