March turned out to be a pretty good month. I thought I might be in the red after having to spend $355 on heating oil and $246 on doctor's visits. I also overspent on food, at $236, and had an unexpectedly higher car repair expense of $131 after Honda told me the transmission oil was very dirty.

All told, expenses totaled $1801. But my income from freelance work, unemployment, my part-time proofreading job, credit card rewards and online surveys/forums totaled $2754, leaving me with a positive balance of $953 for the month and $2,070 for the YTD.

Of course, my balance sheet always seems skewed to me since I only pay property taxes twice a year; after my next payment, I'm sure my apparent monthly savings will shrink quite a bit since property taxes come out to about $550 a month.

Keeping track of monthly income and expenses allows me to see certain "trends" right away, often as I'm filling out my Excel spreadsheet. For instance, I noticed that my p/t monthly income has been gradually diminishing since the start of the year, when I netted $1369. Their busy time is Jan/Feb. Now this month, I earned just $956, and I'm guessing it will drop further as we move into April. I talked to them Friday about this; they said they'd try to keep me busy on various "projects," so I guess we'll see.

While I was filling out the spreadsheet, I also noticed that I had forgotten to record the $46 refund I got after doing my state taxes, since I have a line item for that and it was blank. So I adjusted things accordingly.

In looking at my food bills, things are really out of control, despite my hopes that more regularly shopping at BJ's would save me money over the long run. Here's what I spent to date on food:

Jan: $496
Feb: $122
Mar: $236

And this was while I was still using up Shop Rite gift cards I'd purchased last year to hit a spending target for a credit card bonus. My hope was to try to keep it closer to $200.

This month I'll have to make an estimated quarterly tax payment to the IRS for my freelance work. It shouldn't be much because my chief client really drags its feet to pay me and in fact I have to call their accounting office Monday to inquire about some February invoices that still haven't been paid. Two months is getting ridiculous, though at least some of the time the delay is due to my marketing contact there forgetting to forward my invoices to Accounting.

But I decided to call Accounting about it first this time because it seems like my having to pester them about timely payments has an inhibiting effect on my getting more work. Not intentionally, but it's basically unpleasant for us both when I have to bring it up, so my preference would be to go straight to their Accounting office so I can avoid bringing it up with the person who gives me work if I can do so.