Since 2014, I have been tracking my monthly income and expenses. You can see a breakdown of every penny I earn and spend.
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 October 2020. I retired in July 2020, after ten years of full-time work. You can see all my monthly budgets since 2014 here and here.
No wages this month, which is fine, as free time is more enjoyable to me than additional money, as I have reached the point of having enough of the latter. Here is a chart of my dividend income by month for the past 13 months:
Total dividends for the trailing twelve months: $12,460.38, down 22.67% from a year ago. This is a welcomed development, as I continue to switch from high dividend paying stocks to lower or non paying ones to reduce my taxes.
Here is a summary of my dividend income by month and year since inception of the blog in 2014:
Expense
No wages means no tax withholding this month.
Housing cost is the biggest expense this month, as I paid my annual property tax.
No student loan repayment this month, as the Care Act put student loans on forbearance status and no payments will be made till end of 2020. Nice! Yet another reason to love the coronavirus.
Food expense of $38.52 this month is back under control after huge spending last month, as I use down my stockpile from last month.
This month also includes car expenses of $13.11 for gas and $22 for annual registration renewal.
The utility bills are typical.
After-tax expenses came in at $614.30, higher than normal for me due to one-time annual property tax.
Total after tax expenses for the trailing twelve months: $3,095.35, up 4.19% from a year ago. This ttm figure has been hovering around $3000. My current expense ratio, the ratio of my ttm expenses to my net worth, is just 0.16%. Importantly, it remains far less than the 4% SWR. This should allow my net worth to continue to compound near market return.
Here is a summary of expenses (not including tax) incurred since 2014:
Big drops in housing expense accounted for the big drops in annual expenses from 2014 to 2015 and again from 2017 to 2018. My housing expense is now near rock bottom so I don't expect any more big drops in annual expenses in the future.
The chart below shows my TTM dividend (red line) versus TTM expense (blue line) since I started tracking in 2014. The dividend (red) line overtook the expense (blue) line around June 2015.
My overall expenses are bottoming out at approximately $3,000 annually, which means $4,500 annual dividends would be plenty. My currently projected annual dividends is around $9,000, so I still have a long way to go.
I will continue to exchange more high dividend paying stocks for low or no dividend paying ones as the bear market continues, to minimize my capital gains taxes.
Dividend to expense coverage ratio = 4.03 this month, quite high.
Here is a summary of my passive income (dividends) to expense coverage since 2014:
Interpretation:
Below 1: Not financially independent; keep working!
Between 1 and 1.24: Financially independent, but not much margin for error.
Between 1.25 and 1.75: Sweet spot for financial independence: passive income adequately covers expenses, with room for error, but not too as to cause tax drag.
Above 1.75: Too much passive income, which becomes a tax liability: try to convert some passive income generating assets to zero dividend growth stocks to maximize return without excessive tax drag.
The chart below shows my TTM dividend (red line) versus TTM expense (blue line) since I started tracking in 2014. The dividend (red) line overtook the expense (blue) line around June 2015.
Given that my expenses have gone down significantly, dividends have become too much of a good thing. Any excess dividends above the amount needed for expenses incurs excess taxes and becomes a drag on my returns. I think an ideal dividend to expense coverage ratio is around 1.5, which allows room for error without incurring too much tax liabilities.
My overall expenses are bottoming out at approximately $3,000 annually, which means $4,500 annual dividends would be plenty. My currently projected annual dividends is around $9,000, so I still have a long way to go.
I will continue to exchange more high dividend paying stocks for low or no dividend paying ones as the bear market continues, to minimize my capital gains taxes.
I have now tracked my monthly net worth for over 3 years and have accumulated a lot of data to display my expense ratio in a chart. My annual expenses is far below 4% SWR and has been steadily trending downward, a good sign.
Savings
My after-tax saving rate (calculated as after-tax expenses divided by after-tax income) was 61.86% this month, below my 95% savings goal, but not bad in a month with no active income and large non-recurring expense. I am confident I will meet or exceed my savings goal this year.
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