Income & Expenses For July 2016

Since 2014, I have been tracking my monthly income and expenses. You can see a breakdown of every penny I earn and spend. For perspective, this budget is for a household of two in a small US city. By documenting my journey, I aim to demonstrate the feasibility of saving a significant portion of your income and provide some ideas and inspirations for your own budget.

Below is my income and expenses for July 2016. You can see all my monthly budgets here.

	Jul 2016
Income
Wages	$25,061.76
Dividends	$1,158.61
Other Income	$1,027.72
Total Income	$27,248.09
Expense
Federal Tax	$4,428.24
Federal Tax Pmt/(Refund)
FICA-SS	$418.24
FICA-Medicare	$97.81
Rent	$450.00
Student loan repayment	$159.53
Grocery	$0.00
Cell phone	$12.88
Electric	$33.73
Clothing/laundry	$0.00
Total Expense	$5,600.43
Ex-Tax Total Expense	$656.14
Surplus/(Deficit)	$21,647.66
Before Tax Saving Rate	79.45%
After Tax Saving Rate	97.06%

Income
Wages remain my primary source of income by far, and this month includes a 12k annual bonus.

Dividend income fell back to $1,158.61 from $2,075.56 all time high last month. 

Here is a chart of my dividend income by month for the past 13 months:

Total dividends for the trailing twelve months: $13,018.68, up 19% from $10,961.58 in July last year. 

Expense

This was one pf my lowest expense months ever, with nothing for grocery or laundry. Next month's expense will increase from this trough.

Total expenses for the trailing twelve months: $9,451.86. 

Dividend to expense coverage ratio = 1.38, same as last month.

Savings
My after tax saving rate was 97.06% for the month of July, all all-time high due to the combination of high income and low expense this month. I expect to meet or exceed my 90% savings goal this year.