On Sunday evening, I took a little time and tallied up all my incomes and expenses.
Incoming (all figures are after-tax):
$3,668 salary
$800 housing
$110 misc
Total: $4,578
Outgoing:
$488 car payment, gas, tolls, parking
$101 cable, broadband, phone
$45 cell phone
$54 utilities
$2,145 housing
$200 student loan
$180 cash withdrawal
$100 charitable donation
$175 clothing
$174 dining out
$233 groceries
$75 household
$290 car insurance
$73 credit card interest
Total: $4,350
Net:
Differentce: $228 => credit card payment?
With my living arrangement right now, I write checks for $2,145 each month while getting $800 paid back. In short, I spent $1,345 on housing each month. The $290 car insurance is quarterly, so it won't show next month. The $175 clothing shouldn't be there next month :-)
In November, I look forward to cutting back on dining out, clothing, and random cash withdrawal. Good news, no black hole this month!
November 6th, 2006 at 04:06 pm 1162829207
November 6th, 2006 at 05:52 pm 1162835577
Few observations, do you give $100 to charity every month? That is really generous. You have mentioned it and I will mention it again...$175 a month is a lot on dining out
November 6th, 2006 at 07:50 pm 1162842625
You are on track with your ideas for cutting spending. You can and will get to financial freedom if you persevere! Keep up the good work!
November 7th, 2006 at 12:18 am 1162858723
hey thanks for the encouragement, i started using Microsoft Money to track expenses in october. i used to the monthly report feature to generate the list. yeah, there is a charitable organization i regularly support, partly related to my own health situation. well, sometimes boys don't pay for their date and you have to go dutch :-)
November 7th, 2006 at 01:27 am 1162862872
to answer your inquiry, i got the 3.9% balance transfer from Amex Clear, it was an incentive to sign up.
November 7th, 2006 at 02:09 am 1162865369
November 7th, 2006 at 02:11 am 1162865516
Keep in touch!
November 7th, 2006 at 03:09 am 1162868958
November 7th, 2006 at 06:29 pm 1162924144
i don't work in the city, but i do work in new york state. the state income tax is much higher than jersey, yikes! you know, there are so many shopping malls/outlets nearby!
November 7th, 2006 at 06:36 pm 1162924584
that's a very intersting proposal. i agree 3.9% APR is quite low, but what's the best altervative investment? perhaps 5.05% APY savings account at HSBC or Emigrant Direct. do you think it's favorable to have credit card debt ($14,000 is quite significant) and still invest instead of paying it back?
November 7th, 2006 at 08:58 pm 1162933109
Whether to invest to money depends on how many months you still have before you have to pay it off. If you have a couple of years left, investing may not be a good idea as you have the risk of losing money. In this case, you can choose long term CDs that matches your time frame. On the other hand, you can keep the money for several years and only need to pay interests, then investing the money in, for example, low cost index mutual funds may give you better returns. Just my opinion.
November 7th, 2006 at 10:31 pm 1162938705
Thanks for the quick response. These are accumulated throughout 2006 due to medical reasons. The amount of debt I have is approaching my neck, at least my head is above it. Good thing I can swim! i'm hoping to use my potential bonus to repay. my job is much performance based. from the grapevine, i hear, that the bonus would be quite substantial in january.
November 8th, 2006 at 02:00 pm 1162994439
However, I am still going to try to take out my student loans next year....
November 12th, 2006 at 08:53 pm 1163364780
good thing about student loan is that the interest is tax-deductible, however, CC deb is not. i consolidated my student loans in 2003, it's a uber-low 2.49%! car loan was 2.79%! isn't it crazy?