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: This was a rougher month with expenses, which I don't fully understand to be honest, but it CLEARLY hurt our savings percentage. I think a lot of our costs were "leftovers" from the holidays, but we are definitely attempting to tighten up a few things in February. We'll need to if I want to achieve even just one of my Passive Income Goals for 2017.
All of that said, the first month of the year is behind us and listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of January 2017.
General Thoughts on INCOME:
1) Income continues to 'appear' high (at least to me!), but in reality be very low when you apply our debt and costs, etc.
Once there is actual 'excess' and not everything is plowed back into investments and debt repayments, we then should see the difference between our income and expenses. I said this in December, but I still strongly believe that your "system" is what is actually important (not your numbers), and I think our family's financial system is right. I think we are about 4 to 5 months out from really seeing and feeling the "difference."
2) Lending Club sales continue to offer around $100 or so income per month, which is nice. Here is a detailed description from June's report, explaining this number, as I unwind my Lending Club investment as quickly as I can. This number will eventually go to zero. It is best and easiest to consider this amount as 'income.'
3) Dividends were below my 2016 yearly average, but were up for the particular month (compared to last January) by ~12% YoY growth. Think we are moving in the right direction.
General Thoughts on EXPENSES:
1) Expenses were higher than I would have liked and higher than I can fully explain, to be honest. Kids were high, 'everything else' was high, shopping was high, groceries were high. Our total was high.
Where did all of this go? Despite our diligent tracking, sometimes this seems to happen. Can anyone else relate to this?
Post Takeaway - January typically is a rougher month, but I've got a lot of ground to make up in many areas now - Savings %, investing amount, debt payoff amount, etc. - if I am going to achieve ANY of my 2017 goals. All I can say is here's to a better February!
In conclusion, I am still very excited about 2017 as we transition away from debt repayment (around the ~May or June time-frame) and move much more towards investing. Our North Carolina Property will also go active during that time, which I am very excited about as well. Stay tuned.
What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts below.
Thanks for reading!
Passive Income Dude
20% of saving is still a pretty high rate. How come your mobile phone is so high? Or it's for a few plans?
ReplyDeleteHey Korb,
DeleteYea I was actually talking to a buddy about my phone bill today. :) So, good to see your comment! Our bill does seem high I guess. It covers two phones, financed, and some data, etc, so I don't think we are getting robbed, but it definitely is too high. I won't let this happen again, and I'll look to decrease it! Thanks for your help, truly!
Nice dividend YOY growth. Double digit growth is always a great thing! And don't even sweat the expenses, your savings rate is higher than most Americans today. You're doing a great job, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteHey Christian Investor, thanks - I appreciate your support! But I don't really want to be like most Americans, (especially when it comes to savings rates). :D. Next month should be better. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteHi PID,
ReplyDeleteI still think a 20% savings rate for the month is great, even if your expenses were higher than usual. Do you have any data on income/expenses from January 2016 that you can compare progress against?
Best wishes,
-DL
Hey Div Life, I don't have easily accessible data to that. I suppose I could still generate it, but 'Passive Income Dude' was created in JUN of 2016 and so that is when I really started formatting the data for sharing, etc to use to compare. It will be good in January of 2018 to compare to this month's....really like that idea, THANKS!
DeleteWe all have months where we spend WAYYY more than we intend. This month and generally at the beginning of every year, thing seem to get very expensive. It helps to stay focused on the big picture and not to sweat the small stuff.
ReplyDeleteJust think, you divi's grew 12% from last year!
Keep climbing :)
Thanks Divi Cents, you're absolutely right. I just don't like when I feel like the progress is slow and we aren't being the best of stewards. :) And 12% is growth, so right on!
DeleteNice showing for your dividend income. $377 is a solid figure no matter how you look at it. Seeing the rental income and expense almost be a push must be kind of tough. As you said, "here's to a better February!" Time to get those expenses under better control but I know things always come up. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks Keith. Yea my real estate is always such a roller coaster. Some times good. Some times bad. I'm always building equity, which is nice, but I never see that. lol. We are about half way through February now and I may need to report some declining progress AGAIN. Not with personal expenses, but with real estate! lol. At least I'm transparent. :/
Delete