Income & Expenses For August 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 August 2016. You can see all my monthly budgets here.

	Aug 2016
Income
Wages	$10,061.76
Dividends	$1,300.95
Other Income	$1,687.65
Total Income	$13,050.36
Expense
Federal Tax	$678.24
Federal Tax Pmt/(Refund)
FICA-SS	$418.24
FICA-Medicare	$97.81
Rent	$450.00
Student loan repayment	$161.17
Grocery	$86.31
Gasoline	$24.46
Car Insurance	$133.72
Car Reg/Tax	$32.00
Cell phone	$12.88
Electric	$26.82
Clothing/laundry	$5.50
Total Expense	$2,127.15
Ex-Tax Total Expense	$932.86
Surplus/(Deficit)	$10,923.21
Before Tax Saving Rate	83.70%
After Tax Saving Rate	92.13%

Income
Wages remain my primary source of income by far. 

Dividend income $1300.95 is up from last month, and is more than I need to cover my expenses.

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

Total dividends for the trailing twelve months: $13,240.31, up 18% from $11,240.59 in August last year. 

Expense

Overall expense is higher this month due to payment of $133.72 for 6-mo car insurance renewal. This insurance premium is an 7.8% increase over $123.93 six months ago. O well, not much I can do about it, and I'm just glad it's still much lower than the national average.

Total expenses for the trailing twelve months: $9,697.71. 

Dividend to expense coverage ratio = 1.37, a slight decrease from last month.

Savings
My after tax saving rate was 92.13% for the month of August, which is around average for me. I expect to meet or exceed my 90% savings goal this year.