Preliminary End-of-Year Number Crunching

[SiouzQ.]

I like this time of year for financial reflection, and I like seeing how accurate using Quicken can be. I've been going through and fixing little inputing mistakes but I am getting a clearer picture of my 2013 financial life ~ interesting stuff for me to see as a pretty low-income person who finds various ways to generate income. Here are some totals:

+ $1,917.25 from having housemates for the majority of the year
+ $203.80 for playing a few gigs
+ $786.81 from Taliswoman@SiouxStudio Sales
+ $700.00 approximately for selling my blood plasma
+ $2,050.00 Birthday and Christmas money
+ $2,247.00 Income Tax Refund

+ $17,257 at Whole Foods ($11.00/'hour)

All I know is that it would be very difficult to live on the Whole Foods income alone. That much is clear. Wait till I go over my expenses; I have a lot of medical bills this year, even though I have insurance now (the high deductible is the problem).

[jschmidt]

That is pretty great to be able to draw income from varying sources. I try to do that as well when selling things. it keeps the stress level low, knowing income can come from several places.

[Simply Divine]

How did you get such a large tax refund? I am in roughly the same income range and I only got ~$600 back.

[try2bfrugal]

Good job on the side income. It does all add up. I try to do that as well. We made some extra income in cash and products this year for with product reviews, sign up bonuses, selling stuff,credit card rewards points, and free stuff from store newsletters.

[SiouzQ.]

I was able to put a fairly large chunk of money into my IRA ($4000) so that really reduced my taxable income. I won't be able to do that this year, maybe $2000 at the most. I'll have to run the various numbers (I use Turbo Tax).