Income & Expenses For April 2017

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 April 2017. You can see all my monthly budgets here.

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	Apr 2017
Income
Wages	$10,296.36
Dividends	$1,023.59
Other Income	$244.20
Total Income	$11,564.15
Expense
Federal Income Tax
Federal Tax Pmt/(Refund)	$649.66
FICA-SS	$427.02
FICA-Medicare	$99.87
Housing	$450.00
Student loan repayment	$160.47
Food	$113.94
Gasoline	$56.50
Car Reg/Tax/Maint	$2.11
Cell phone	$12.23
Electric	$37.69
Clothing/laundry	$27.48
Donation	$45.00
Other Expense	$31.85
Total Expense	$2,113.82
Ex-Tax Total Expense	$937.27
Surplus/(Deficit)	$9,450.34
Before Tax Saving Rate	81.72%
After Tax Saving Rate	90.98%

Income
Wages remain my primary source of income by far.  Dividend income above $1000 is still respectable and enough to support my living expenses.

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


Total dividends for the trailing twelve months: $14,178.25, up 14% from $12,481.11 last year.

Expense
I bought some new uniforms for work. Food expense was a bit higher than usual, as I bought some dry goods in bulk. The other expenses were typical recurring expenses.

Total expenses for the trailing twelve months: $10,351.20.
Dividend to expense coverage ratio = 1.37.

Savings
My after tax saving rate was 90.98% for the month of April 2017, meeting my 90% saving rate target. I am optimistic that my saving rate will average above 90% for the remainder of the year.