November 2014: Income and Expsenses

    Oh how I miss last months 3x pay period and seeing all that hard earned cash land in my account, and better yet my highest yet in not worked for cash either, with $63.5 in dividends! November was actually fairly good for me as well, with a total income of $1443, with $37.59 in dividends. Those dividends equaled 2.6% of my total income, and covered 3.2% of my expenses for the month.

Income	$
Work	1340.02
Other	65.3
Dividends	37.59
Total	1442.91

  
    My average work income was actually a bit higher than last months per pay period due to getting some more hours, which also resulted in slightly higher 'Other' income as well in the form of tips.

    Recently, as some may have noticed I'v only just qualified for, and setup Google Adsense. I put in  a few ads (hopefully not annoyingly) on the site and have been playing with the settings a bit for them. I am definitely leaning towards fewer ads and have also filtered out as many of the more off topic ones as possible. Who really wants to see Ads for make-up on a dividend investing site? Although Proctor & Gamble do have some extensive beauty and healthcare brands...
  
    Anyways, since its been one month ending with those up, the Google Adsense Dashboard says I have a finalized earnings of $1.12! But that is not added into that 'Other' income as I'v received no money from it yet. Its pretty exciting though and I am curious where it will lead to. If you've any feedback on Adsense/Ads on my blog feel free to leave a comment about it. I'm also curious on how they impact mobile device viewing as well.

Expenses	$
Rent	750
Phone	21
Travel	148.7
Groceries	76.64
Restaurants	52.18
Entertainment	57.18
Other	50.37
Total	1156.07

     My expenses this month were a bit lower than last months which is a good thing. General food costs like groceries/eating out have seemingly normalized at around $150 which seems pretty consistent and not over the top to me. I'v noticed that my main food cost is buying meats, so i stick with sales and will aim to keep an eye out for good prices on meats as well to keep them down.
    Travel costs were a bit higher with my metro-pass being most of it, but also some other  travel related costs on top of that. The good news is that each pass gives a $40 tax credit come tax season, so I'll at least get some of that back and help preserve my tuition tax credits for another year.
    Entertainment costs were lower this month as well which is good. Likely they wont be as low in December due to Christmas parties and the like. My Other costs were also higher this month mainly due to me being sick earlier in the month and having to buy some cold/flue medicine so hopefully that category will be lower in December as well.

    All in all, I managed a decent savings rate of 24% this month which is lower than last months 41%, although higher if you take out the 3rd pay period it had, which would have made it only a 15%. So hurray for saving/spending less!