Income & Expenses For September 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 are my income and expenses for September 2016. You can see all my monthly budgets here.

	Sep 2016
Income
Wages	$10,061.76
Dividends	$2,185.93
Other Income	$1,061.73
Total Income	$13,309.42
Expense
Federal Tax	$678.24
Federal Tax Pmt/(Refund)
FICA-SS	$418.24
FICA-Medicare	$97.81
Rent	$450.00
Student loan repayment	$160.47
Grocery	$46.47
Cell phone	$12.90
Electric	$44.23
Clothing/laundry	$2.00
Donation	$5.00
Amazon sale costs	$3.57
Total Expense	$1,918.93
Ex-Tax Total Expense	$724.64
Surplus/(Deficit)	$11,390.49
Before Tax Saving Rate	85.58%
After Tax Saving Rate	94.02%

Income
Wages remain my primary source of income by far. 

Dividend income $2185.93 reach all-time high this month. 

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

As you can see, Sep, Dec, Mar, and Jun are typically high dividend months for me, generally equal to or exceed dividend income from the intervening months. 

Total dividends for the trailing twelve months: $13,848.91, up 19% from $11,630.24 in September last year. 

Expense

Expenses are pretty typical this month. Electric bill was higher than usual mostly due to air conditioning use during the hot summer month.

Total expenses for the trailing twelve months: $9,545.16. 

Dividend to expense coverage ratio = 1.45, also reaching new record high, thanks to record high dividend this month.

Savings
My after tax saving rate was 94.02% for the month of September, which is slightly above average for me. I expect to meet or exceed my 90% savings goal this year.