January 2018 Report
January involved a lot of staying inside trying to finish Get Your Money Together Workbook, which comes out in digital format next week! The stress of writing a book is reflected in my high coffee + “grocery treat” spending. I also worked a fair amount at my part-time fitness studio job, which has me getting up at around 4:30AM (I love it!)
Fun things that happened this month:
- I catalogued all 198 clothing items I own in a giant spreadsheet (holy procrastination!) I’ll follow up with more details on this project soon.
- I was a radio newsreader for the first time, co-hosting “News with Friends” on XRAY.FM’s morning show. I’ll now be co-hosting most Wednesdays from 7AM – 8AM.
- I had a piece published in the Portland Mercury.
- Stream PDX announced our inaugural fellowship program.
- A bunch of cool business things I can’t talk about yet.
YTD Spending: $1,145/ $20,000 maximum goal
(5.7% of total at 8.3% through the year)
Essential Expenses (in descending order): $990
Rent: $615.00
Groceries: $182.05
(Groceries – $144.60, “Treats” – $26.47, Coffee/Tea for Home – $10.98)
Electricity: $38.29
Health Insurance (after subsidy)*: $37.00
Water/Garbage: $27.50
Internet: $19.97
Household Goods: $19.76 (semi-annual TP + laundry detergent restock)
Notes: I actually had to move money from other categories into the grocery budget, that’s how over budget I went. I spent a TON this month on “treats” (snacks, kombucha) which was almost all related to book stress.
Discretionary Food & Drink (in descending order): $41.67
Restaurants: $21.51 (2 were emergency burritos during unexpected double shifts at work)
Coffee: $15.16 (mostly “work from coffee” shop purchases)
Bars: $5.00 (three soda waters at bar meetings)
Travel Hacking: $75.00
Bank of America Card fee: $75.00
Discretionary (in descending order): $58.99
Fitness Monthly Membership: $40.00
Clothing: $12.62 (was $37.62 but got a $25.00 swagbucks gift card)
Entertainment: $15.00 (Funhouse Lounge show)
Spending “Fun” Money: $3.99 (Stylebook app)
Health Care Subsidy Note
This was the first month where my health insurance dropped from $231 a month down to $37 a month, thanks to taking the low-income ACA health care subsidy. This subsidy is based on an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $22,000 – which I hope to exceed, if my business goes well. If I do exceed that, I will have to repay a portion of my health care subsidy.
Because of receiving the health care subsidy, I’ve switched from putting my retirement savings in my Roth IRA to a Traditional IRA, since Traditional IRA contributions are deducted from your AGI.
This means that if my income goes up by $5,500 and I manage to put that all in my Traditional IRA, I will owe nothing back for my health care subsidy because my AGI will not change (Roth contributions are not deducted from AGI because they are post-tax).
Money Set Aside in Sinking Funds (Not Yet Spent): $250.51
CSA Farm Share $21.00 ($250 per year)
Bike Drivetrain Repair Fund: $40.00 (towards $200 in May)
Renter’s Insurance $11.50 ($140 per year)
Dental Fund $50
Half Marathon Fund $26.67
Haircut Fund $18.34 ($55 every 4 months)
Clothing Fund $33.13
Makeup $50 (I hate makeup but it occurs to me I should learn how to do it for camera)
Savings: $1,555 (32%)
Traditional IRA contribution: $196
Cash Savings: $1,359.51
(15% toward my goal of saving $10,000 this year)
Total After-Tax Income: $4,830
My stated income comes from my December income, because I live on last month’s income. Because December was such a high earning month due to Kickstarter income and the next couple months will likely be thin for earning, I actually allocated December’s income out 3 months in the future.
Oh My Dollar!: $3,417.60 (about $3,000 was take-home from $15,000 Kickstarter after expenses and taxes)
Part-time Fitness Studio Job: $774.74
Freelance Graphic Design: $639.00
3 every morning (plus a couple for lunch once or twice).
That is ALOT of tacos!
Groceries would have been cheaper if you would have had weekly rents dinners! 😜
You have amazing graphs. Do you mind sharing how you make these or what app you use?
Thank you. Your life-stack post is amazing.
I use good old fashioned Excel & photoshop to make the graphs. For all my data tracking apps you can see them here: anomalily.net/life-stack/#qs
Great job with your expenses!! How do you track your savings?
What I didn’t understand was the (32%) next to your savings.
That’s my savings rate! It’s the percentage of my take-home pay I’m saving. My aim is 50% or more (which I was doing easily before I quit and became a rogue entrepreneur).
Lillian Karabaic okay, I am confused. Because you said you were spreading your December income out three months. Were you spreading 4K or 12k?
$4K was spread out over a few months. I wish I was spreading $12K. Only about ~$850 went forward.
Lillian Karabaic yes! We both have similarly jumbled financial futures 😊
(Oh I see what you mean – I only am counting this as my income for my savings rate this month ($1555/$4830) because the calculations get too confusing when I spread out the cash. So savings rate is based on what actually comes in this month. That $1555 is not allocated to future months. The balance of december’s income is allocated in my future months as spending money, but it’s very possible for those months my savings rate will be nearly negative because my income will be low (I think January’s income was closer to $1200 take home.) is that clear as mud?
All made possible by YNAB!
(The joys of being budgeted through March, with a separate area for investments and savings, never fail to make me happy)
I was mostly wondering how you get 98 Tacos for under $26 in spending at restaurants. I suppose you are making them at home. If you ever want to come live with me, the door is open.
I make them at home for breakfast every day. They cost about $.22 a taco. Here’s the breakdown: https://www.ohmydollar.com/2017/02/08/breakfasttacos/