Income & Expenses For October 2015

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 October 2015. You can see all my monthly budgets here.

	Oct 2015
Income
Wages	$28,422.47
Dividends	$866.22
Other Income	$965.75
Total Income	$30,254.44
Expense
Federal Tax	$5,305.56
Federal Tax Pmt/(Refund)
FICA-SS	$356.13
FICA-Medicare	$83.29
Rent	$450.00
Student loan repayment	$155.80
Grocery	$67.79
Cell phone	$17.85
Electric	$34.18
Clothing/laundry	$9.81
Donation	$2.00
Amazon sale costs	$5.44
Other Expense	$141.00
Total Expense	$6,628.85
Ex-Tax Total Expense	$883.87
Surplus/(Deficit)	$23,625.59
Before Tax Saving Rate	78.09%
After Tax Saving Rate	96.39%

Income

Wages were highest this month due to annual bonus. Dividend income dropped from all-time high last month, but increased 21% on year to year basis. Alas, it was not enough to cover my expenses this month. Here is a chart of my dividend income by month for the last 13 months:

Expense
Expenses were higher this month due to one time expense of $141 for licensing fees. Other expenses were fairly typical.

Savings
My after tax saving rate was 96.39% for the month of October, which exceeded my target of 90%. This marks 8 months in row with above 90% savings rate. Going forward, I expect to meet or exceed my 90% savings goal for the year.

How's your budget? Did you save as much as you wanted to? On track to meet your savings goals for the year? Thanks for reading.