Personal Finance Archives - Page 14 of 23

How To Score a $50 Car Payment For Life

March 28, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

Our latest big ticket purchase included a free membership in the Large Family Club. That’s right, we bought a minivan. “Purchase a minivan by 2008” I typed in my first FIRE spreadsheet back in 2006. Oops, eight years late but it still counts, right?

The main reason we were eight years late buying a minivan is because we didn’t need it prior to the last year or two. It was our planned five week multi-thousand mile road trip up the East Coast into Canada that convinced us that a larger vehicle would be more comfortable for long road trips. We are in the middle of planning our 2016 summer adventure (more details later!) and decided to upgrade to a larger car for this trip.

Read on to find out how we’ll pay $50 per month to periodically replace our new(er) car.

February 2016 Financial Update

March 3, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

February was an awesome month overall! Mrs. Root of Good finally quit her job and joined me in early retirement. Our oldest daughter was accepted into one of the best middle schools in the county (our first choice school) which feeds into the best high school in the county.

Our $4,221 income during the month was more than double our $2,030 in expenses. In spite of spending half of what we made, our net worth still declined by $4,000 during the month due to a slight decline in the stock market.

Pitfalls and Subsidies While Signing Up for Affordable Care Act Coverage

February 22, 2016 JustinRoG Personal Finance

While we were planning for early retirement, health insurance was the scariest unknown variable in the plan. This was in the dark ages before the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies and guaranteed coverage. Back then, I budgeted $1,000 per month when family premiums were $500 per month simply because I expected insurance costs to go up significantly and to account for the chance that someone in the family might end up in the state’s high risk pool with insane premiums.

In 2014, the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) proved to be the golden ticket for many hopeful early retirees. Pre-existing conditions no longer mean you are uninsurable. If you make less than 400% of the poverty level (400% of FPL = $113,760 for our family of five) you’ll also qualify for subsidies to help pay for health insurance.

Because Mrs. Root of Good retired early two weeks ago, our family health insurance coverage provided by her employer ends on the last day of February. In this article I’ll outline how we applied for health insurance coverage on the healthcare.gov marketplace including the pitfalls along the way and how we secured subsidies that will pay for 88% of our health insurance.

January 2016 Financial Update

February 8, 2016 JustinRoG Personal Finance

One month down, eleven to go. With the new year came a significant drop in the markets that left our portfolio a little lighter than it was during most of 2015. We suffered a $64,000 net worth decline during the month of January.

Our income remained steady at $6,912 while our expenses ended the month at a modest $2,293. In cash flow terms, we made much more than we spent. However that didn’t mitigate the stock market losses to any real degree.

We were due for a stock market correction for a while and it’s finally here now. Whether this is a real recession and how deep it might become remains to be seen.

Book Review and Interview – Job Free: Four Ways to Quit the Rat Race

February 1, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Personal Finance

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Jake Desyllas, another very early retiree. Jake hosts The Voluntary Life, a podcast about entrepreneurship, financial independence, and freedom. In 2000, he founded Intelligent Space, an award-winning consultancy in the UK, that led innovation in the field of pedestrian movement simulation and analysis. In 2007 he sold his business and in 2010 he retired early, at the age of 38. He is the author of Becoming an Entrepreneur and his new book is called Job Free.

Since achieving financial independence, his adventures have included becoming a perpetual traveller, going minimalist, playing in a band, writing books, and creating a podcast. He currently lives in Panama with his wife Hannah.

Budgeting in Retirement – 2016 Edition

January 25, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

It’s a new year so it’s time for a new budget. For the past two years I used this budget of about $32,000 per year. We spent $34,352 in 2014 and $23,802 in 2015, for an average of $29,077 over the last two years. We ended up an average of $3,000 under budget in spite of undertaking a major home renovation including new siding, new windows, and a roof repair in 2014, and a seven week trip to Mexico in 2015.

The $32,000 per year budget was my first attempt at developing an early retirement budget. I tracked our expenses for a few years before I retired in 2013 and figured out that we spent about $24,000 per year on core expenses that would continue into early retirement. To that $24,000 figure, I added extra expenses to account for increased costs in early retirement like health care and traveling the globe.

Living on Dividends in Early Retirement

January 19, 2016 JustinRoG Investing, Personal Finance

Dividends are a popular source of income in retirement. We rely on them for a part of our annual living expenses. Dividends provide a relatively steady stream of income regardless of the fluctuations in the stock market.

It’s worth stating that I’m not exclusively a dividend focused investor. Instead I focus on the total return of my portfolio. I’m an index fund investor with a fixed asset allocation that I use to periodically rebalance my portfolio. Right now I’m almost entirely invested in equities through mutual funds and ETFs. All of those investments pay dividends ranging from 1% to 4% per fund.

The Deception of a Billion Dollar Jackpot

January 11, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Personal Finance

I get it. It sucks you in. Dreaming of all the ways you would spend a sudden windfall. The lottery is this amazing chance to live on easy street for the millions that play it every week. It’s literally a ticket to a better life. Where else but the Powerball lottery can you invest $2 and turn it into $1.3 billion dollars overnight?

When you come forward, your name is public in most states. I hope you enjoy being a very popular third cousin once removed to everyone and their brother. And hey, if you do win, can I borrow some money because I’ve got a really great business idea and I’m willing to let you in as a partner on the ground floor? I’ll pay you back, I promise.

December 2015 Financial Update

January 4, 2016 JustinRoG Personal Finance

Goodbye, 2015! You were good to us all.

How did we do in the last month of 2015? During December we received over $18,000 in income while spending just $2,366. Our net worth dropped by $22,000 for the month, however we saw a modest bump in net worth for the year as a whole.

November 2015 Financial Update

December 7, 2015 JustinRoG Personal Finance

November is over and Thanksgiving is done. Fall is here which means cool days and crisp nights in North Carolina. In November, our net worth remained mostly unchanged due to relatively flat stock market performance. A little slower pace is okay after enjoying a $93,000 increase in net worth in October. With $3,908 in income and $2,954 in expenses during November, we still managed to keep our expenses below our income for the month even though we spent a good bit of cash on travel.