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July went SO fast, I can’t believe it’s August.

July was a much stronger month for me financially, mostly because I had a lot of roll-over money in my checking account from my emergency fund and sinking funds.

I hit a few milestones this month and I started my second no spend journey.

General $ Updates

I reached over $6,500 saved for my student loans

HUGE milestone!! This means that if I applied this money to my student loans, my balance would be below $30,000!!

I successfully completed month 1 of my No Spend 6 months

I purchased a few things that you could consider “unnecessary” such as travel and parking, but I don’t mind spending on those things for this.

Debt

I started the month of July with my official debt at $36,000 and ended with $36,000. However, I technically started at $31,996.86 if you consider the money I have saved to pay those loans down. 

In July I saved an additional $2,736.42 for my student loans (bringing my total saved to $6,743.91) so my final debt for July would be $29,256.09.

UNDER $30K!!!

I still have paid $0 in interest 😊

Spending

Some main things to point out about my spending in July:

Roth IRA: I usually only contribute $150 to my Roth IRA, but for my birthday I received $250 in cash. I decided to invest it all!

Groceries/Food Out: So I was quite under budget for food out. I think I only went grocery shopping 3x in the month. However, I was WAY over budget on food out which isn’t normal for me. This is from traveling and just going out more on the weekends in the month.

Business: I ended up spending less on email services, but also hosted a $100 giveaway on my YouTube channel so it was a bit over budget!

Income

Full-time job (microbiologist): $5,134.44

ONLINE/BUSINESS INCOME

Google AdSense (ad revenue from YouTube): $592.37
Financial Coaching: $200.00
Mediavine (display ads on LivinglikeLeila): $133.59
Buy Me a Coffee: $63.26
Affiliates: $11.58
Etsy: $1.83

Online/Business Income Total: $1,002.63

EXTRA INCOME

Discover Cashback: $16.62
Chase Cashback: $25.16
BOA Cash Rewards: $28.13
SimplyCodes User Testing: $170.00
Birthday Cash: $250

Extra Income Total: $489.91

Pre-Tax Total Income: $6,626.98

Net Worth

As of July 31st my net worth is -$9,189.60!!!! Finally above -$10K!!! Woo hoo! My highest net worth ever.

Roth IRA: $7,710.81
M1 Invest: $1,916.28

Sinking Funds:

  • Taxes = $1,658.83
  • Emergency Fund = $2,670.64
  • Gifts = $420.51
  • Medical/Dental = $0.99
  • Car maintenance = $737.43
  • Travel = $34.10
  • Car insurance = $480.69
  • FinCon = $1.19
  • Phone = $271.48
  • MacBook = $300.54

Credit Score

My VantageScore increased by another 3 points to 766!!

July Goals Update

  • Put at least $1,500 to my student loan savings (CHECK, I went WAY above this and put over $2,700)
  • Make over $1,000 online (CHECK, right above it at $1,002!)
  • No spend month 1 (CHECK)

August Money Goals

  • Put at least $1,000 to my student loan savings
  • Make over $1,000 online
  • 1-2 new financial coaching clients
  • No spend month 2