Category: Awesome!

Castles, Skyscrapers, and Prosciutto in Milan, Italy

Awesome!, Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Travel

Welcome to stop number five on our nine week trip across Europe! This post covers the four days we spent in Milan, Italy at the end of June. We flew to Milan from Seville, Spain on a super cheap two hour Ryanair flight.  Earlier in our trip, we visited Lisbon, Portugal, then flew to Malaga in southern Spain before taking a bus to Granada.

This was our first time in Italy and I didn’t have a clue where to visit. I considered Rome but I figured it would be too ambitious to tackle in just four days so we decided to save Rome for later.  Milan, though still a sizable city, proved a good choice to fit in a four day slot in our schedule before we headed onward to Venice.

Milan offers a great mix of the new and the historic.  In a single day of sightseeing, one can take a hundred year old trolley line to go from centuries old castles and cathedrals to cutting edge ultramodern skyscrapers.  Both the old and new proved interesting to me!

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July 2017 Financial Update

Awesome!, Personal Finance

It’s a rainy day in the outskirts of Koblenz, Germany and I finally have time to crank out the latest monthly financial update. It’s 60 degrees and drizzling all day. The fog rising over the farm fields obscures the view of the next village over. Though a rainy day would mark ruin for others’ vacations, for us it’s a nice forced break from our routine of exploring new cities and sights.

In July, we visited Milan and Venice in Italy, Ljulbjana and Lake Bled/Kranjska Gora/Soca Valley in Slovenia, Salzburg and Hallstatt in Austria, Munich and Berlin in Germany, and Prague in Czech Republic. Our nine week summer vacation in Europe is drawing to a close with only a few days remaining in Koblenz, Germany then a few days in Amsterdam before we fly back home to Raleigh.

July was another great month for us. Our net worth rose another $40,000 to $1,882,000. Our income remained steady at $1,549 which was barely eclipsed by our spending of $1,616. In other words, a combination of passive dividend income from our portfolio and a small amount of income from this blog came close to covering all of our expenses for the month while we have been vacationing in Europe.

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When is Enough Enough?

Awesome!, Financial Independence, Lifestyle

Guest post from Early Retirement Dude:

It’s May of 2005 and I’m officially quitting my job this morning—or, technically, I’m being laid off because I’ve turned down a directed transfer—and part of the process is an exit interview with our divisional president.

I’ve just turned thirty-six.

Cliff is a good guy, and for a couple more hours I’m two tiers down from him on the org chart. I report directly to a woman who reports directly to him, so he and I have gotten to know one another and become friends. He’s also helped me out career-wise; involved me in higher-level meetings, invited me to the right cocktail parties, and been solicitous of my opinion.

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Summer Vacation for 5 in Europe: 9 Weeks, 8 Countries, 14 Cities, $10,000

Awesome!, Lifestyle, Personal Finance, Travel

The Root of Good family is ramping up for an epic adventure across Europe during the summer of 2017. The five of us will spend nine weeks traversing an all new (to us) continent by train, plane, bus, car, and foot.

We really struggled to narrow down the itinerary to something feasible for a family with three young children. As a result this trip will NOT include London nor Paris nor a dozen other cities we would have loved to visit. What we will see are museums, parks, castles, palaces, cathedrals, caves, mountains, seas, rivers, lakes, and canyons scattered about the rest of western and central Europe.

Many will view this as a “trip of a lifetime” or a “dream trip” but I choose to view this as just another cool vacation in a series of vacations we have already taken and will continue to take.

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Cruising the Caribbean aboard the MSC Divina

Awesome!, Lifestyle, Travel

What’s the best way to fight off winter’s chill? Spend a week cruising the Caribbean of course! Right before Christmas the Root of Good family did exactly that. I wanted to share a few pictures from our eight day, seven night cruise aboard the MSC Divina sailing out of Miami, Florida.

After two lazy days at sea, we reached the island of St. Maarten where we watched airplanes zip by just feet off the beach. The next day we docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico where we explored the city and toured the Castillo San Cristobal fort. Then we enjoyed another relaxing day at sea before we reached Nassau, Bahamas. We didn’t get off the boat in Nassau since we seem to visit the island on every cruise we take. Relaxing on the ship while everyone was on shore proved to be the perfect way to spend the last full day of our vacation.

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The Role of Luck in Early Retirement

Awesome!, Financial Independence, Lifestyle

We’re celebrating Thanksgiving here in America in a few days, and that means two things: eating massive quantities of turkey and reflecting on all the beautifully awesome parts of life! Last year I mentioned how thankful I was for cool affordable tech gadgets, the ease of growing wealth, and lastly, economic and political stability.

I’m still a big fan of all of those! But in this post, I want to express my gratitude for all the good luck experienced throughout my life.

First up, I’m glad I was born in the United States of America. It’s one of the richest countries in the world as measured by per capita gross domestic product, consistently ranking in the top 10 or 15 countries of the world. In the good ole US of A, we speak English which is the lingua franca of business and culture worldwide. Speaking English as a first language boosts one’s career prospects and allows conversation with around a quarter of the world’s population. That also translates to a huge marketplace if you’re in the idea biz (such as writing a blog).

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My first person view of gentrification

Awesome!, Lifestyle

Earlier this week I walked out the kitchen door and down the sidewalk destined for the neighborhood Food Lion grocery store. It’s a quick five minute walk to the shopping center and proves uneventful on most trips.

This day was a little different for a number of reasons. Half a block away from home, I bumped into a new neighbor. We started chatting about the neighborhood, the fancy downtown magnet school both of our children attend, and his most recent acquisition: oboe reeds. This guy had a different vibe than many other neighbors that moved here over the past several years. He’s completely white and fluent in English for starters. Solidly middle class. After doing some cybersleuthing later in the day, I realized he paid about 50% more for his house than what his neighbors did a few years earlier.

We shake hands and part ways after exchanging contact info to stay in touch (we’re neighborly like that down here in the South). I proceed to the grocery store in no particular rush (I’m retired after all). I enter the shopping center through the short cut by the dumpsters. And lo and behold there’s a homeless looking gentleman laid out on the sidewalk in the sun chugging a half gallon jug of whole milk. Not my first choice of mid-day beverage, but it was warm that day so I guess 64 fluid ounces of ice cold milk hit the spot, right?

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How to Pay for College while Early Retired

Awesome!, Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Moneyhacks, Parenting, Personal Finance

One of the top questions I’m asked when people see “retired at 33 with 3 kids” is “yeah, but what about college?”. The truth is I never really gave it a lot of thought because the total cost is well into the future (though closing in fast for our oldest kid) and not huge relative to our total net worth. I had a very vague goal of being able to cover the tuition and fees for four years of in-state tuition for all three kids.

We funneled some cash into 529 accounts when North Carolina offered a tax credit for doing so. We earned a $350 tax credit for contributing $5,000 per year to the 529. When that tax credit was eliminated, I stopped contributing to the 529s and stopped thinking about college funding. Paying tens of thousands of dollars for college is no biggie when you have a million or two, right?

It turns out my lazy attitude toward college funding won’t spell disaster for my children’s higher education future. Between what we have saved in 529s, our large investment portfolio, and a plethora of other funding sources, the kids will be perfectly fine when the college tuition bills start piling up. You’ll have to read on to find out why I’m so confident (or is it cocky?).

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August 2016 Financial Update

Awesome!, Financial Independence, Personal Finance

Now that August is over, we are officially in the last third of the year! It’s hard to believe the year is already winding down. August was a decent month financially. Our net worth crept up another $2,000 to $1,635,000. Income totaled $5,191 while expenses were $2,817 for the month.

After spending the last half of July and the first part of August on our three and a half week road trip to Canada, we returned home in mid-August to a flurry of activity to get the kids ready for school. That meant buying school supplies (including a brand new fancy pants TI-84 CE color graphing calculator) and attending two back to school orientations. Our oldest daughter just entered middle school so now we have twice as many PTA meetings and school events to fit into our not-so-busy schedules. She’s loving middle school so far!

Here’s what our August 2016 looks like under a financial microscope.

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