Wow, It felt like March flew by! I’ve been extremely busy this month with work, tutoring, and volunteering to help low-income families file their taxes through the IRS VITA Program. Given that it’s the last month before taxes are due, our volunteer centers have been busy.
Anyways, without further ado, it’s time for a review of my monthly income and expenses.
March Highlights:
- I continued to tutor my three college students, two undergraduates taking an Intro to Finance course and a graduate student taking a required finance course for his MBA program.
- I got my first promotion in March! As well as an annual pay raise on top of that. Also got my bonus from work as well which was a nice boost to income.
- My first student loan payment ever was made this month in the amount of $693.94. The first of 120 payments for PSLF.
- As I said, last month was the worst month of spending for me. Since my expenses are on an accrual basis, my major cash outflow this month was paying off the credit card bill for last month’s purchases. This month’s purchases have tamed down tremendously.
Now let’s take a look at my Income Statement for March 2019.
Income Statement
I’ve always considered my income statement more of a Cash Flow statement than anything else. It shows the amount of cash outflow and cash inflows.
My main cash outflows where my contributions to my Roth 401(K) and paying off my monthly credit card balance. Remember, my expenses are treated on an accrual basis meaning that this month’s credit card balance reflects expenses from last month. Therefore, any expenses I have this month will be paid off on my credit card balance next month.
The majority of my side income came from my tax refunds this year. Mostly one time items that I won’t see in the future. That’s why it’s so high this month.
Dividend Income – $203.63
My dividend income for March 2019 is as follows:
| Date | Company | Ticker | Dividends |
| 3/5/2019 | Visa | V | $12.50 |
| 3/12/2019 | Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | $9.00 |
| 3/14/2019 | Microsoft Corporation | MSFT | $23.00 |
| 3/15/2019 | Mcdonald’s Corp | MCD | $34.80 |
| 3/15/2019 | Realty Income Corp. | O | $22.55 |
| 3/18/2019 | Duke Energy Corp | DUK | $46.38 |
| 3/19/2019 | UnitedHealth Group Inc. | UNH | $9.00 |
| 3/22/2019 | Kraft Heinz Co | KHC | $40.00 |
| 3/27/2019 | Southwest Airlines Co | LUV | $6.40 |
| Total | $203.63 |
A detailed briefing of my March Dividend Income can be found in my previous post.
Total Dividend Income for March 2019: $203.63
Total Dividend Income for 2019: $905.60
Options Income – $801.00
I mainly focused on writing options on SPY this month. My 300 shares of SPY were briefly assigned at the end of last month so I turned around and started writing puts at the beginning of March when the market took a dip. I sold SPY calls at the 275 strike price twice. The second time I got reassigned to my 300 shares again so those went back into my portfolio. I continue to sell covered calls on SPY as the market edges higher.
| Date | Option Trade | Expiration | Credit Received |
| 3/4/2019 | Sold 3 SPY 275.0 Put | 3/6/2019 | $234.00 |
| 3/7/2019 | Sold 3 SPY 275.0 Put | 3/8/2019 | $243.00 |
| 3/14/2019 | Sold 3 SPY 283.5 Call | 3/22/2019 | $162.00 |
| 3/26/2019 | Sold 3 SPY 283.5 Call | 3/27/2019 | $123.00 |
Total Options Income for March 2019: $801.00
Total Options Income for 2019: $1,418.00
Side Income – $6,511.37
My side income for March 2019 came from a few of sources:
- Tutoring – $1,451.25
- Work Bonus – $5060.12
Tutoring
I’ve been tutoring on an ongoing basis a few times per week. I’m making pretty decent income to supplement my full time job. This income I’m going to put towards paying off debt and using a portion of it towards health and fitness.
Expenses For March
My biggest cash outflows were for student loan payment and my credit card balance payoff. My student loan payment this month was $693.94. This is my first student loan payment ever and if I’m working towards PSLF, then I have 119 more qualifying student loan payments to make.
Cash Outflows –> Paid off one Credit Card Balance from last month for $4,769.14 and second credit card of $176.67.
Like I mentioned before, my other expenses are calculated on an accrual basis. Here are the expenses I put on my credit card this month which will be paid off in full next month.
Accrued Expenses due next month:
| Expenses Due Next Statement | |
| Entertainment | 128.46 |
| Eating Out | 274.24 |
| Personal Care | 502.60 |
| Groceries | 247.84 |
| Transportation | 174.59 |
| Misc | 301.48 |
Costs Breakdown
My entertainment costs include bowling, registration for a 5K run in May, registration for Awesome Con that’s happening here in April, and tickets to a Harry Potter Bar Crawl.
I ate out a lot less in March than I did in February. Specifically, I ate out only 9 days this month. The majority of my eating out occurred at the end of the month when I traveled out Boston for the PAX East convention.
In my Personal Care category, i combined my health and fitness costs. I had both a dentist and doctor’s visit that required me to pay some out-of-pocket expenses. Additionally, I’m officially a member of Orange Theory Fitness paying $109 per month for the elite plan.
My transportation costs have gone up in March because of my tutoring. Part of my sessions take place in areas that require public pay parking. In addition, there was a one time expense of $98 because I booked a round trip ticket on the Amtrak to visit my sister in NYC for May.
My “Misc” section is usually random purchases during the month. This includes my Audible subscription so I can continue my in-car audio books during my 1 hour commutes from work.
Conclusion
I had a lot of income come in for March 2019. The bonus helped tremendously with my large credit card bill. With the addition of student loan payments now, I have to be a little extra strict in making sure I have enough cash in my checking account to auto pay my student loan which is in addition to my credit card payments.