The month of May improved my financial outlook greatly. My Net Worth is on the rise, I netted $8,781 in income this month, and I’ve started 3 additional savings accounts. However, this rise in Net can be misleading. A few things happened this month that are anomalies. I got over $5,00 in refunds from my escrow accounts. I also added my car as an asset in my net worth and added the loan amount that goes with it. That added about $9,000 to my net worth.
As a whole, I spent $15,034 last month. Wow, I know. Now let’s take out Real Estate and Work expenses. That brings the total down to $2,674! Holy bejeebas! That’s great!
Here’s the pie chart for May:
Food and Dining
Looks like my biggest expense is on food by far (other than student loans which I have no control over). Let’s adjust that based on how much I worked and was given a stipend on. I get $40 per work day for food and $20 per travel day. I always try to only spend $20 per day to compensate for the pay cut we got last year. The total reimbursed comes to $580, which means I personally only spent $57 on food. That’s damn good! Let’s do some additional comparison to previous months.
|
March |
April |
May |
| Restaurants |
$180 |
$213 |
$290 |
| Fast Food |
$102 |
$72 |
$108 |
| Groceries |
$60 |
$81 |
$123 |
| Alcohol & Bars |
$55 |
$38 |
$35 |
| Healthy Food |
$48 |
$21 |
$61 |
| Coffee Shops |
$11 |
$28 |
$7 |
| Total |
$456 |
$453 |
$637 |
Overall, I spent more on food this month, especially fast food. I had a pretty awful schedule some weeks and there was no other food. Food is always something I can cut down on.
How much did I save?
Since I worked 13 days this last month, I made gross $4,940 give or take. Let’s take 29% out of that which is what my research into my paychecks shows me is taken out on avg. And we’re left with $3,507. Spending only $2674, and I’ve got $833 left over. This is great because I’ve set up auto drafts into my 3 different savings accounts of $200 each, leaving a cushion of $233! Yay, we’re into upward mobility.
Come to think of it $233 would more than cover the boat club membership… no No! Can’t think like that. Keep on saving, people! Don’t be tempted by thinking you have “extra” money to spend. Put that money to good use in a savings account. I’m just thankful I’m able to save 15% of my net paycheck. I want to work my way up to 30%!
The Real Numbers
Let’s see if the estimated value of how much I made aligns with the estimations above. Removing all reimbursements, my total paychecks in May amounted to $7,099. This means two things:
- It balances out the low paychecks I had in April and averages around $4,000 which is what is expected.
- My Net Worth will go down next month when I get paid less. Oh well, I’ll bask in the light at the end of the tunnel while i can still see it.
Real Estate Break Down
So that’s all personal expenses. My work expenses cancel themselves out, so let’s check out Real Estate and see how things are going there. Made a lot in income this month because of the tax refunds, so let’s take those out and just include rent income only. That totals $3,063 this month. In expenses, we did relatively well, a total $2,044, however the payments were offset again on one of the mortgages, so we should include an additional $1340, which brings us to $3384. It seems Time Warner has raised its rates by $10/mo this year. That’s $120/year. I’ve disemboweled tele-marketers for less! I’ll have to shop around a bit and see if I can get something lower.
In total, that’s a loss of $321 this month, which I can chalk up to cheap rent. However, remember that $233 cushion? Well now that’s an $88 loss. So $600 in savings is still the max I can put to it right now.
Conclusion
Getting better and better at these breakdowns! I now know where money is going and its getting easier to put information together. This post only took me an hour and a half, instead of the usual eternity!
I expect my Net Worth to drop next month, but hopefully it will still be higher than last month’s.
Just keep saving, keep moving forward and don’t back track! Really glad I didn’t go to Vegas for my birthday. 
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I started out with more than most on student loans. In fact, I've NEVER met anyone with more student loans than me outside med students. When I graduated from a private university, I owed $120,000! Thank goodness I'd never had credit problems and I live pretty cheaply. Given the amount of debt I've had, I'm actually quite proud that I've been able to live my life pretty fully even paying more than $1000 every month to student loans.