Income & Expenses For September 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 inspiration for your own budget.

Below are my income and expenses for September 2017. You can see all my monthly budgets here.

	Sept 2017
Income
Wages	$13,171.36
Dividends	$2,599.53
Other Income	$185.70
Total Income	$15,956.59
Expense
Federal Income Tax	$1,454.58
Federal Tax Pmt/(Refund)
FICA-SS	$427.02
FICA-Medicare	$99.87
Housing	$450.00
Student loan repayment	$35.70
Food	$189.65
Cell phone	$12.22
Electric	$53.02
Clothing/laundry	$4.00
Other Expense	$141.00
Total Expense	$2,867.06
Ex-Tax Total Expense	$885.59
Surplus/(Deficit)	$13,089.53
Before Tax Saving Rate	82.03%
After Tax Saving Rate	93.66%

Income
Wages remain my primary source of income by far. Dividend income hit a new all-time high. 

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

Total dividends for the trailing twelve months: $15,488.41, up 15.7% from a year ago.

Expense
Food expense this month was higher than usual due to stocking up on some non-perishable goods. Electric also hit a seasonal high due to higher than normal AC use during a hot summer. The $141 "other expense" is a biennial licensing fee. All other expenses this month were typical recurring expenses.

Total expenses for the trailing twelve months: $10,109.97, up 5.92% from a year ago.

Dividend to expense coverage ratio = 1.53, another new high! 


Savings
My after-tax saving rate was 93.66% for the month of September 2017, exceeding my 90% saving rate target. I am optimistic that my saving rate will average above 90% for the remainder of the year.

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