September Passive Income and Expenses

Another month has passed and it’s time to reveal what the expenses and passive income were for September. This month we stayed in the beautiful Sea Isle City, New Jersey. We also were lucky enough to stay at the Borgata which was one of the nicest casinos in Atlantic City. The bonus was the hotel stay was free because my uncle had a promotional offer in the mail. The Borgata also gave us $50 worth of slot dollars because we were new members at the casino. My uncle was also kind enough to let us stay at one of his beach homes for the week, so we were able to save a ton of money. One of my favorite memories of our vacation was the dolphin watch because it was my first time seeing them in their natural habitat.

                Going on vacation is a strong motivation for me to keep saving and putting my money to work. I am even more motivated in achieving my goals now because I would love to be able to go on vacation whenever I want. I hate having both jobs taking control of my life. So the more money I am able to save, the faster I will gain financial independence. I have been very mindful of my spending habits because I don’t care about keeping up with the Joneses. I could care less if my laptop is four years old and my car is a 2002. It doesn’t bother me when people around me have better phones, clothes, or cars because I don’t give in to consumer spending. There is only one thing I will always over spend my money on and that is food. I strongly believe that food quality is important to our health. This is why the groceries are usually high each month. Organic and gluten free foods are not cheap but it’s important to live a healthy lifestyle.

Here are the expenses for the month of September 2014:

Expense	Cost
Groceries	$356
*Rent	$250
Student Loan	$200
*Utility Gas	$183
General Merchandise	$178
Entertainment	$141
Car fuel	$158
Restaurants	$125
Auto Insurance	$108
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu	$90
Phone Service	$43
Liquor	$42
*Dish	$39
*Cable Internet	$37
Post Office	$29
*Electric	$19
Hair Cut	$17
PAYT Trash Bags	$10
Total	$1,842

*These are expenses that are split between my significant other and I.

This was an expensive month because I paid off my entire gas bill and I also put more towards my student loan in order to get it paid quicker. Overall it wasn’t a bad month considering we went away on vacation. It shows that I have been very mindful of my spending as of late. Now let’s take a look at all of my passive income for the month. This month my passive income was a little high which was surprising to me. The passive income made up for the heavy spending this month. I am hoping that the passive income will keep increasing every month and will try to keep expenses a little lower.

Passive Income	Earnings
Mattel (MAT)	$2.58
Pepsi (PEP)	$1.79
American Realty Capital Properties (ARCP)	$3.00
Time Warner (TWX)	$0.22
Microsoft (MSFT)	$0.33
Dunkin Donuts (DNKN)	$1.23
McDonalds (MCD)	$5.07
Kellogg’s (K)	$1.90
Unilever (UL)	$2.11
Walmart (WMT)	$1.26
Hershey’s (HSY)	$0.59
VF Corp. (VFC)	$0.21
Seadrill (SDRL)	$15.00
Target (TGT)	$5.76
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)	$4.90
1.5% Cash back Credit Card	$46.38
Savings Interest (.95% APY)	$6.42
CD (1.15% APY)	$0.47
Total Passive Income	$99.22

This was the first month that my passive income was nearly over the $100 mark. This is definitely a milestone and I can’t believe how many companies paid out this month. A total of 15 companies sent me a paycheck this month and that’s pretty exciting. The passive income was the highest this month but so were the expenses. The cash back rewards have been a great help because I have been using that money to reinvest into more shares. These cash back rewards are passive income because I don’t have to work extra and I am not holding a balance on my credit card. Therefore each month I am getting free money that I can receive in a paycheck or put it towards my current balance. Now let’s see how much of my expenses were covered by the passive income.

This was another surprising month to me. I already knew my expenses were going to be a little high this month, but I had no idea that my passive income would be $99.22 for the month. This is another record breaking month. Overall September was my best month because passive income covered 5.4% of my total expenses for the month. The blue bar (passive income) is catching up to the red bar (expenses) rather quickly.

 

How well did you do in September?