October Income and Expenses

This stuck out at me: "580- Car Insurance (Switched to a new carrier and paid up front for the next 6 months, so this 580 represents 6 months of paying $96 per month down from 174)"

You will be able to see a more accurate report of your income and expenses if you use an accrual method. This would mean that your monthly car insurance expenses would be recognized at $96~/month instead on the books, more accurate than $580 this month and no expenses the other 5 months. Look up 'accrual basis' if you are interested in it.

lol'd at the hand with 27o though

accruals lol eh, just spread the number out through each month on your budget ahead of time (assuming you're keeping a spreadsheet or something). do you know of a personal accounting software that works with accrual entries?

seems like the savings rate and keeping track of cash in/out is more useful for personal finance like this

neway, nice write up and savings rate. jealous :O

On November 01 2012 18:03 vlseph wrote: This stuck out at me: "580- Car Insurance (Switched to a new carrier and paid up front for the next 6 months, so this 580 represents 6 months of paying $96 per month down from 174)" You will be able to see a more accurate report of your income and expenses if you use an accrual method. This would mean that your monthly car insurance expenses would be recognized at $96~/month instead on the books, more accurate than $580 this month and no expenses the other 5 months. Look up 'accrual basis' if you are interested in it. lol'd at the hand with 27o though

exactly. i was going to simply point out that "Net Income" is defined as Revenues - Expenses. and just to maintain consistency I think you should just call your poker winnings "Salary Revenue"

and the prepaid 5 month car insurance of 580, that is an asset from which you "ammortize" expenses per month.

always a fan of your blog and seeing you use personal finance as a tool to help you make decisions is pretty impressive.

I thought about averaging the insurance cost out in monthly terms, but I figure since my income is sporadic that I wanted to just be as accurate as possible on a month-to-month basis on actual money going out and in. I can always average everything later on down the road from a wider stance. I don't average my income, so I don't want to average my expenses either. Just personal preference for me, however I may change my mind about it, who knows.

You are a good guy whoosel. Best of luck to you and your family and cheers to an enjoyable holiday season.

How did the MTT went?

On November 01 2012 21:58 DeluX wrote: How did the MTT went?

0/5

On November 01 2012 20:46 RiKD wrote: You are a good guy whoosel. Best of luck to you and your family and cheers to an enjoyable holiday season.

What does he wife do?

how did u decide upon your 65% savings target? is there a multi year plan with a financial independence target date? if so how did u decide how much is enough?

On November 02 2012 06:22 Ket wrote: how did u decide upon your 65% savings target? is there a multi year plan with a financial independence target date? if so how did u decide how much is enough?

Well given the assumptions that I can earn 5% after inflation on savings and a withdrawal rate that allows my money ball to last forever (4% safe withdrawal rate should be fine if I can adjust my spending during recessions, or play some poker/earn side income if I need to). Then, a 65% savings rate equates to financial independence in 10.5 years. (source here)

And although I plan to achieve better than 65% savings rate eventually, I figured it is a good starting point for my first year actively tracking it. My lofty goal is to be financially independent in 5 years by my 30th birthday, but that would require a few lucky breaks both with investment gains and run good @ poker.

The great thing about keeping track of your savings rate is that if you are happy with your current lifestyle, you don't need to decide how much is enough. For instance if you currently save 100% of $0 but you live for free somewhere, then you are financially independent if that is a permanent situation. My overall "number" I calculated in a previous blog post here as 1.35million to throw off 4500 per month. My goal is to align my expenses with that number by the time I save enough to reach it. Kind of a two prong attack on expenses and investment growth.

I may be able to be financially independent much sooner if we decide to relocate somewhere that I could play part-time online with much cheaper living expenses too...So I would say right now we are still in the planning stages of the whole thing, and in the mean time I am trying to sock away as much money as possible into different investments.

Holy fucking shit. You spent more in a month than I do in about a year (and I have rent/bills to pay for too, of course). Pretty amazing.

As always, good to see. Helps keep me focused for cost saving

On November 02 2012 14:39 Loco wrote: Holy fucking shit. You spent more in a month than I do in about a year (and I have rent/bills to pay for too, of course). Pretty amazing.

Seriously I was looking at this number and I know for a fact that for my entire year last year I spent $28,000 and that is including paying for school which was $12,000. Its pretty fucking insane to look at that number and think it can be right. Your expenses also don't have any payments on loans for school which I will also have later.

Anyone else think that spending 90k a year on shit seems high?

On November 02 2012 19:10 basementkid wrote: Show nested quote + On November 02 2012 14:39 Loco wrote: Holy fucking shit. You spent more in a month than I do in about a year (and I have rent/bills to pay for too, of course). Pretty amazing. Seriously I was looking at this number and I know for a fact that for my entire year last year I spent $28,000 and that is including paying for school which was $12,000. Its pretty fucking insane to look at that number and think it can be right. Your expenses also don't have any payments on loans for school which I will also have later. Anyone else think that spending 90k a year on shit seems high?

Me! I think it's very high, but I kind of slipped into this high-consumption high-spending lifestyle a few years ago and am widdling my way out. Two car loans, mortgage, and various large expenses this month caused the number to be so high. I am pretty sure from this point forward I will be in the high 5k's until both vehicles are paid off.

If you break the expenses down into "minimum expenses" i.e minimum debt payments plus utilities plus food then you quickly arrive at under 5k in required expenses (i.e if I were to suddenly have enough money to throw off 5k per month, then I wouldn't need many of the other expenses.) The child care, for instance, shouldn't really be counted since it pays for extra working hours, and if I were financially independent, then the expense would disappear. 5k per month is obv very expensive still @ 60k per year to live, but I'm considering the possibility of moving to a cheaper house at some point. For the next year or two, though, this is home.

are you upside down on the loans of the vehicles? or do you love them that much?

btw really enjoy reading your post, and really admire the self discipline. It encouraged me to do some tracking of my expenses, and I found big nasty holes

for example I have been spending on dinning out and drinking out over 600+ a month . This month I decided to lower this amount drastically