January 2019 Income Statement

Happy End Of The First Month! It’s time for a review of my monthly income and expenses.

A few positive notes:

• 2019 started off with a big bang as I was able to immediately max out my Roth IRA within the first week.
• eBay raised the limits on how much I can sell each month. The limit went from $2,000 to $6,000. This was the result of my recent successful sales of my old Magic cards and old video games. Unfortunately this limit doesn’t mean much as I’m out of junk to sell.
• Started off the year with new meal prep containers and recipes. Also have access to an Instant Pot now.

With those out of the way, let’s take a look at my Income Statement for January 2019.

A few things to note:

• I drive an electric car and have access to free charging stations. My workplace being one of them, so I don’t pay for fuel. However, I still pay insurance and annual maintenance so those expenses will be included in the months in which I pay them.
• I live at home so I don’t pay rent either.
• These are two big expenses that are excluded from my income statements so don’t be surprised if they’re not shown.

Income Statement

 

Dividend Income – $547.13

My Dividend Income for January 2019 is as follows:

Date	Company	Symbol	Payment
1/2/2019	Southwest Airlines Co	LUV	$6.40
1/10/2019	Walt Disney Co	DIS	$88.00
1/15/2019	Realty Income Corp	O	$22.10
1/31/2019	SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust	SPY	$430.63

Total Dividend Income for January 2019: $547.13

Total Dividend Income for 2019: $547.13.

Options Income – $55.00

I only sold two options in January but I only fully realized the premium of one option since it expired in January.

Date	Option Trade	Expiration	Credit Received
1/3/2019	Sold 1 SPY 240.0 Put	1/4/2019	$55.00
1/18/2019	Sold 10 GE 9.0 Put	2/22/2019	$470.00

Total Options Income for January 2019: $55.00

Total Options Income for 2019: $55.00

Side Income – $2,396.72

My additional income for January 2019 came from a few of sources:

• Tutoring – $0
• Selling stuff on eBay – $1796.72
• Gifts – $600

Tutoring

I decided to start tutoring this month since I love teaching Finance. I advertised myself out there as a tutor in Finance and CFA in my area. This is a good way to keep my finance skills sharp and also make some side income.

I received my first two students this month. Both students are college students who had to take one finance course as part of their degree requirements. Fortunately I recently completed my Finance degree as part of graduate school so I know exactly how their programs are structured.

We have a schedule set up to once per week and go over their class notes and homework problems. My goal is to getting them a passing grade in this course since their main field of study differs greatly from finance.

Since I have just started the tutoring program, I have not been paid yet. So tutoring earnings for this month is $0.

Selling Stuff On eBay

I have been selling a bunch of my old Magic cards lately. I bought a lot of cards back in college since I used to be a competitive player. Recently I found out that some of the cards I had purchased are going for a few hundred dollars on eBay so I decided to sell them. Since I hardly play anymore, and online Magic is a big thing now.

Additionally I also started selling old junk around my house. Mostly old video games and video game systems that I no longer play.

This month, I sold a total of $1,796.72 in sales.

Gifts

This part probably isn’t applicable to most people as a side gig. However, my parents went off to Vietnam for the next month and kept me in charge of watering the plants, taking out the trash, receiving mail/packages, and ensuring the house bills are being paid. Additionally, the electric guy comes around periodically to check the meter and needs to be let in through the back yard to reach it. Our house is completely fenced off in the back because my parents like to plant stuff.

In doing all this, my parents paid me $600, both for taking care of the house, and also cause it was my birthday a few days ago. So I’m counting gift income as also side income.

Expenses For January

My two main sources of cash outflows were my Roth 401(K) contribution and paying off my credit card balance. I contributed $2,489.88 to my Roth 401(K) and paid off my credit card balance of $2,287.88.

While 401(K) is not necessarily an “expense”, I put it under that category to show a cash outflow from my salary.

On a balance sheet, it would be shown as

• CREDIT: Cash
• DEBIT: Retirement Assets

But both transactions would still be under the Assets column, balancing it out.

Keep in mind that I pay off my credit card balance in full EVERY MONTH. So that I’m not carrying over a balance to next month. Because if I did, then I would have to pay credit card interest.

NO THANKS!

My other expenses are calculated on an accrual basis. This is because if I spend money on something, I prefer to charge it to my credit card instead of expending cash. When my statement comes out next month, that’s when I pay it all off. I do this because I earn 1% cash back on my credit card purchases. I gain an additional 10% on top of that cash back if I deposit the cash rewards into my Ally checking account.

So everything you see below here will be paid off next month on my credit card statement.

Expenses Due Next Statement
Entertainment	103.99
eBay Fees	254.36
Haircut	22.00
Groceries	150.39
Amazon	204.19
Webhosting	215.40
Video Games	212.96
Eating Out	76.08
Fitness	72.08
Transportation	11.69

Entertainment

My entertainment expenses included a $75 ticket registration to MagFest which took place during the first weekend of January. Aside from that, I spent some money on Spider Verse and tickets on ticketmaster for the Cherry Blossom festival being held in March.

eBay Fees

The eBay fees are the % cut they took when I sold my items on eBay. These were charged to the credit card so while my eBay income was for next month, my eBay expenses will be for next month.

Groceries

I spent $150.39 on groceries this month. This included my meal prep ingredients as well as random products I needed around the house.

Webhosting

My annual webhosting on Dreamhost was due this month as well.

Video Games

I spent a lot of money on video games this month. More than any other time in any other year. I had just received a Nintendo Switch for Christmas so I spent some money on video games and accessories. This is more of a one-time thing. And this amount of spending will be drastically reduced during the rest of the year.

Eating Out

I only spent $76.08 on eating out this month. In fact, I only ate out 6 days this month which is a huge record for me. I’m hoping to be able to continue eating out less than 10 days per month to save money and meal prep more.

This was the same calendar I used in this Reddit post last year that made the front page. Every black mark means I did not eat out on that day. Every red mark means I did. I use red because it signifies all the red marks I got on my papers during school. Meaning I did something wrong.

Fitness

I started doing more Yoga and HIIT classes this year. To supplement that, I purchased my own Yoga mat from Lululemon for $70. This Fitness expense will be higher next month since I will be signing up for some additional classes. This month however, I’ve been signing up for a bunch of free trial classes at various gyms. I also signed up for Class Pass a

Transportation

I only used Uber once this month for Magfest so my public transportation costs are near to nothing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I was successful in keeping a positive net income for the month with a grand total of $1,905.35. However, my goal is to have a positive net income using only my salary income. This way, I can maintain my investment income separately and let it continually grow.

In addition, there are a lot of one-time items in this first month. With my Roth IRA maxed out, I can go back to focusing on saving money again and rebuilding that $6,000 in cash. Additionally, my net income this month was negative. Fortunately, my credit card balance due next month will be lower than this month so I will have more cash to save. I will also be expecting no eBay sales next month but higher side income from tutoring as my students dive further into their Spring semester.