July 2022 Dividend Income And Expenses

After the long drive from Washington to Arizona, we started settling into our new home in July.  We’ve been here a little over 1 month!  The kids have now started school, and Mrs. Tako and I are starting to house hunt.  Overall, our move didn’t go very smoothly.  That said, I ‘m not going to hide any of the ugly stuff from you guys.

I think the readers of this blog value my transparency, and want to hear about all the problems as well as how much it costs in the real world.  No fake numbers here!  I simply copy the numbers straight from my bank accounts and credit card statements into each post… even when they’re ugly numbers, like today!

Expect to see some stupidly large numbers in this expense report!  But also realize that these moving costs are one-time only, and are not likely to repeat anytime soon.

With that said, let’s get this monthly report started with the July dividend income…

Dividend Income In July

Dividend income in July amounted to $794.  This was a fair amount of money, but sadly we did not repeat the record breaking number from June.  (No special dividends this month).

As you can see in the table below, our dividend income varies significantly from month-to-month.

This is expected of course, and just the nature of how our dividend payments arrive.  Most companies pay out dividends quarterly, with the bulk of payments arriving in March, June, September, and December.

In order to “balance out” these large dividend fluctuations, we keep plenty of cash on-hand to deal with day-to-day expenses and any emergencies that might arrive.

July Expenses

Expenses in July amounted to $9,737.  This was a HUGE amount for any single month.  We normally spend about half that, but it’s the god’s honest truth that’s how much we spent in July.

Here’s the expense breakdown by category:

Groceries

Grocery expenses for the month amounted to $1,248.  Yes, that’s not a mistake.  I didn’t miss a decimal point somewhere.  For a family that’s accustomed to spending around $500 per month, this is absolutely outrageous.

So what happened?  I attribute our higher spending to stocking-up a new kitchen (we were starting from scratch), and not knowing where to shop (as discussed in my previous blog post).

This is a perfect example of how not-careful shopping can really blow-up a budget.  Unfortunately, we didn’t start splurging on luxury goods like lobster and steak every night.  This was just buying standard stuff for the pantry.

Our meals were surprisingly humble affairs, despite the high spending incurred.  Take for example this okonomiyaki we made in July.  It might look exotic to someone who’s never had it before, but it’s basically just a Japanese-style pancake.

Simple home cooked meals were the name of the game in July.

Even though our kitchen wasn’t stocked or setup, I still had to try grilling-up some taco-y goodness.  These chicken-bacon tacos might not be up to my usual standards, but having fresh home-made food is a million times better than fast-food on the road.  (Thankfully, the avocado and tomatoes were super fresh.)

There definitely wasn’t anything fancy on the menu.  Our standard menu of simple Japanese home dishes, like this hiyashi-chuka somen we had in July is fairly affordable.  Just a few dollars a bowl!

I guess I need to buckle down in August and spend less.  That, and figure out where to shop and how to capture some better deals.

Wish me luck!  I hope to get our food budget down close to the $500 mark like before.

Fuel

Fuel spending in July was $635.  Most of this fuel cost was for driving our two cars (and a trailer) from Washington to southern Arizona.  We spent $465 on fuel for the move.  Climbing those mountain ranges with a full trailer really eats through the gas!

Only $170 of our fuel expense was for local driving, and I expect this should be a more ‘usual’ amount going forward.

Mortgage/Rent

Mortgage and Rent expenses in July were $5,983.  This is outrageously high because we were paying for two houses at the same time.  We were still paying the mortgage on our Washington house ($2313), as well as two weeks of rent in Arizona ($1470), and a deposit on the rental ($2200).

Our house finally sold in August, so this category should be *much* smaller going forward.

Internet

Internet expense in July was $5.67.  While this amount may seem strangely low, it amounts to a $25 ‘startup’ expense for Xfinity cable internet in Arizona, coupled with a $19.33 refund from the canceling of our old service in Washington.

Next month our internet expense should be back to a more ‘normal’ $39.95 per month.

Mobile Phones

Mobile phone spending in July was $0.  Yes, it’s really $0!!!  Our low phone spending is definitely a choice we make.

We choose to use a pre-paid mobile service, and pay for our mobile phone service only once a year.  We did this in May, and you won’t see mobile phone spending again until next year.  (Note: This cheap service does not include a data plan)

When we actually need a data plan (such as during a family vacation), we’ve used Tello in the past.  Pre-paid data plans from Tello are an extremely low cost way to go.  Sometimes as low as $5 per month (with 2 gigs of LTE data)!

If you’d like to find a similar low-cost plan — watch the Tello website for promotions.  They seem to run new promotions every couple of months.  You can then go sign-up using my referral code: p3s4bkgq to receive $10 off. (That’s basically 1-month free just for using my referral-code!

Utilities

Utility spending in July amounted to $340.  This amount is entirely the utilities at our old house.  Utility bills included a water bill ($268), a power bill ($43), and a final trash collection bill ($29).

These amounts might seem pretty high for a house we were NOT living in, but please remember that the water bill is bi-monthly, which means at least one month of normal water usage.  (There’s also a TON of fixed fees just for being hooked up to city water.)

As far as the power bill goes, real estate agents like to turn all the lights on when showing a house, and they’re notoriously bad about turning them off before they leave.  Hence the $43 of power use for a vacant home.

Insurance

Insurance spending in July was $0.  This is a normal amount for us.  Most of our insurance spending (at least for car insurance) occurs in October, due to the annual billing cycle.

Unfortunately our annual insurance situation will be changing soon.  Our Washington-based car insurer provider does not write policies in Arizona, so we will need to switch insurers starting next month.  The good news is that our car insurance will be going down due to the move.

(For the curious: We do have home-owners insurance.  It’s included in our mortgage.  I’m super lazy, and I don’t break that number out here in the insurance section.)

Other

Other expenses in July were $1,534.  The “Other” expense category is usually a ‘catch-all’ for the expenses that don’t fit anywhere else, and these were significant in July.

Usually I break each expense down individually, but there’s far too many this month!  Instead, I’ll cover the big categories:

$814 – More moving expenses.  Ugh.  They never seem to end!

$100 – Non refundable rental application fee.

$200 – School supplies (books, pencils, papers, binders, etc.)

$76 – Flowers for my mom.  Because moms are wonderful and need flowers once in awhile.

$41 – A terrible fast food meal on the drive down.  I regret eating it.

$253 – Misc. household items from Home Depot (doormats, lightbulbs, propane, etc.)

$27 –  Shipping fees & overpriced passport photos.

Cumulative Expenses For 2022

Total spending for our family in 2022 is $54,256.  This is a huge jump from previous years, which I blame mostly on home selling expenses (painting, a new water heater, home staging, etc.), and moving expenses.  The moving expenses really blew-up our budget this year, but I think we’re finally “done” with those for awhile.

Hopefully our spending will return to ‘normal’ amounts in August or September.

Here’s the breakdown of our YTD expenses by month:

With any luck, these large monthly expenses will be coming to an end soon!  Despite an extra large dividend income in 2022, we’re still spending more than our dividend income here, which is NOT a good thing to do long-term.

Emergency sirens are blaring and flashing lights are signaling that we’ve been over spending here at Tako Headquarters, and I’m tackling the problem as we speak.  I’m hoping I can finally “right the ship” again in August, and get our finances back on track.

Investing Update

Unfortunately very little happened on the investing front in July.  I was consumed with moving and finding a new place to live.  I had very little time to look at my investments, and I left the portfolio entirely alone in July.

For the majority of the stocks I own, my ideal holding period is decades.  Most of the time there is no need to make changes.  I only need to check-up on my investments quarterly.

That’s the beauty of long-term stock investing — I can leave my investments unattended for an entire month (or more), and it’ll be just fine!  Try doing that with a small business or some kind of rental, and you’ll eventually run into trouble.

Most of the time my portfolio runs entirely on auto-pilot and that’s absolutely fantastic.  Stock values may fluctuate daily, but I don’t bother looking at them most days.  Why stress yourself out when you plan to hold for decades?  I simply hold wonderful businesses and let them grow in value year after year!

That’s it for July!  Thanks for reading!

[Image Credit: Flickr]