Free Share on RobinHood

I am sure everyone is aware that Loyal3 will be moving over to a new platform. After reading the memo, I decided to cash out and move over my proceeds to RobinHood. I've been using RobinHood for over a year now and love the platform. The zero-commission trading on thousands of stocks makes it better than Loyal3. They also have an advanced API that integrates with TurboTax. It makes it much easier to pull your data so that you don't have to list each transaction come tax season. Additionally, you can have up to $1,000 of instant money to trade with per week. This is a huge plus because most brokers make you wait for at least 1 business day before having access to your money. If anyone is interested in joining, I have a link where you can get 1 free share on a random stock if you use my invite link.

Join Robinhood and we'll both get a share of stock like Apple, Mcdonalds, or Starbucks for free. Make sure you use my link. Get 1 Free Share of Stock

April 2015 Passive Income and Expenses

Expenses	Cost
Taxes	$386.48
Car Repairs	$334.17
Restaurants	$265.61
*Rent	$250
Entertainment	$191.62
Groceries	$180.10
Car fuel	$172.93
General Merchandise	$110.02
Auto Insurance	$108
*Utility Gas	$75.00
Liquor	$71.80
Student Loan	$50
Post Office	$46.83
Phone Service	$42.50
*Cable Internet	$39
*Dish	$22.45
*Electric	$19.00
Total	$2365.51

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

Expenses were a little high this month due to taxes, car repairs, and a vacation to Vermont.  Unfortunately I had a tax bill to pay for and that was due in April. My car needed the Emergency brake fixed in order to get an inspection sticker. Then our vacation to Vermont was the reason why the restaurants bill was a little higher than usual. The gas for the car was also high because I drove over 700 miles to get there and back. Next month things should get back to normal.

Now let’s take a look at the passive income:

Passive Income	Earnings
Baxter (BAX)	$1.97
GlaxoSmithKline(GSK)	$4.09
Diageo(DEO)	$2.87
Bank of NS(BNS)	$3.38
General Electric (GE)	$4.92
Pepsi (PEP)	$1.93
Viacom (VIAB)	$2.55
Coca-Cola (KO)	$11.60
Wal-Mart (WMT)	$5.90
Dr. Pepper/Snapple (DPS)	$1.62
Mondelez (MDLZ)	$0.42
Kraft (KRFT)	$9.90
CD Interest	$0.47
Savings Interest	$4.37
Credit Card Cash Back	$48.43
Total Passive Income	$104.42

This month my passive income hit the $100 mark. Not a bad month at all in terms of passive income. I am hoping I can keep the passive income around this mark each month.

Now let’s take a look at all of the income sources:

Income Sources	Amount
Analyst Job (Net)	$1727.51
Ebay	$180.49
Dividends	$51.62
Interest	$4.84
CC Cash Back	$48.43
Loan Repayment	$100.00
401K	$190.00
Hotel Refund	$374.67
Total	$2677.56
Savings Amount	$312.05
Savings Rate	11.65%

My goal is to save at least 37% of my total income annualized for the year. I was starting out way ahead with a 51.05% saving rate in January. This month I was only able to save 11.65% of my income. This is way below my average and has put me behind on my goal for the year.

Month	Saving Rate
January	51.05%
February	25.89%
March	19.59%
April	11.56%
New Average	27.02%

I am a little behind on my goal to achieve a 37% savings rate overall for the year. About 10% down on my average goal for the year means I really have to take a second look at my expenses. Now let’s see how much of my expenses were covered by the passive income.

This is the most exciting part of this post because I can see how much of my expenses were covered by my passive income. This month 4.41% of my expenses were covered by the passive income from dividends, interest, and credit card rewards. 

How was your month in terms of passive income?

April 2015 List of Buys Part 1

Since I will be going on a short trip in a couple of days I decided to announce my buys for the first two weeks of April. Later in the month I will also be announcing the buys for the last two weeks of April. The list is pretty long so I figured it would be a good idea to split it up into two posts instead of one.
Here is my total list of buys for the first two weeks of April:

Company	Shares	Price/Share	Cost
Wal-Mart (WMT)	.2463	$81.21	$20.00
Pepsi (PEP)	.3575	$95.10	$34.00
Wal-Mart (WMT)	.4929	$81.16	$40.00
Pepsi (PEP)	.3820	$96.85	$37.00
Starbucks (SBUX)	.2644	$94.57	$25.00
Wal-Mart (WMT)	.3089	$80.93	$25.00
Pepsi (PEP)	.2588	$96.60	$25.00
Wal-Mart (WMT)	.3218	$80.80	$26.00
Coca-Cola (KO)	.4904	$40.78	$20.00
Starbucks (SBUX)	1.3025	$47.67	$62.00
Coca-Cola (KO)	.6102	$40.97	$25.00
Wal-Mart (WMT)	.3097	$80.72	$25.00
Starbucks (SBUX)	1.0401	$48.07	$50.00
Wal-Mart (WMT)	.3115	$80.25	$25.00
Starbucks (SBUX)	1.0386	$48.14	$50.00
Hershey’s (HSY)	.2470	$101.23	$25.00
VF Corp (VFC)	.3333	$75.00	$25.00
Apple (AAPL)	.1978	$126.36	$25.00
Total			$564.00

What do you think of my list of buys for the first two weeks of April?