February Income: $12,937.50
This is before 19% year-end taxes, so my real “net” is $10,479.37.
February Expenses: $3620.13
$2643.01 – Business-related
$977.12 – Personal expenses
NET EARNED: $9317.37
BUDGET BREAKDOWN: $3620.13
Ouch.
This is where business & personal are inextricably linked.
Business: $2643.01
I’m traveling Monday to Thursday to work in another city, and I am incurring a lot of extra expenses.
Note: I’m taking a rental car just for the winter until the snow & ice melt and it becomes safer to drive my own car.
I was pretty thrilled to have the rental last week, as a snowstorm moved in, and we were crawling at 60 km/h on the highway. It was slippery and very dangerous!
The car I own was just meant to drive within the city to clients, not city-to-city for 4 hours a week on the highway. It’s 10+ years old and I’d rather pay and be safe than be cheap and sorry.
Personal: $977.12
Just squeaked under $1000 this month.
NET WORTH = $60,241.17
Increased by $6928.24 or 12.52%
Assets
- Cash: $88.55
- Savings: $7038.82
- Business: $10,051.69
- Business Accounts Receivable: $12,937.50
- Retirement: $30,124.61
Retirement took a bit of a beating this month, but I’m a long-term investor so I’m just going to chill out rather than freak out.
Will also max my TFSA before I receive the first payment from my client at the end of March, taking it out of savings instead.
Debts
- $0
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
I don't know what you use to book hotels, but I always use priceline and save a bundle. I have to travel for sales so I book hotels via priceline. If you are flexible enough it can work out great. I usually get 4 star hotels in the $35-45 bucks a night range (hotels that are normally $100-150.) Sometimes it even includes free breakfast! Only once did I ever stay in a dud hotel (out of about 50 times using it now). Great way to save cash travelling. Thanks for being honest!
I’m in Canada… doesn’t really help 🙁 Priceline is great for the States.
Priceline works in Canada as well. I always use it to book hotels.
Oh really? Is it priceline.ca?
I couldn’t find my hotels in there, and with the rate I’m paying, it’s pretty good… for the location too
Do you use hotwire.com when booking hotels? They're a godsend!
I actually used hotels.ca … 🙂
But I also had a CAA membership, etc, and I booked far in advance to get a pretty good rate
Are you using CAA for the car rental? I have CAA and if Enterprise can't give me a good rate, we're going through CAA.
I don’t use CAA for car rental. I am actually using Enterprise without any code I think. I just happen to be booking it for a long time.
At least I don’t think I do…. I have a discount code with Budget & my TD Visa but it was still more expensive than a corporate rate with Hertz, and Enterprise on its own was the super cheapest of them all.
Look into your alumni association benefits… I know my undergrad institution gets me 35% off with Enterprise.
Wow! That's a lot of business expenses, but it looks like you earned enough to make the expense worth it. Do you get reimbursed for any of those?
No, I cover it all under my company, which is why I have to be tough on my expenses
I’m going to do better for March — I am more organized now, with bringing my own food, watching my expenses in other ways…