Welcome back to another monthly update from Root of Good! Happy belated New Years to all of you! We had a great 2025 and we’re looking forward to another great year in 2026. During December, we stayed at home the whole month to spend time with family over the holidays.
After a family-filled Thanksgiving at our house in November, we enjoyed having someone else in the family host our family gathering for Christmas. And we got together again on New Year’s Day for more holiday festivities.
Our adult children enjoyed having time off from work for the holidays even though they are trying to conserve their vacation time. The reality of the workforce is hitting them hard! Our son, still in middle school, enjoyed the two week holiday break too. Lots of fun family time together all around.
I’m still enjoying the laid back early retired lifestyle. It’s nice to be at home for an extended period after a couple of years of being on the road on a monthly basis for various trips around the world.
On to our financial progress. December was another great month for our finances. Our net worth increased by $44,000 to end the month at $3,958,000. Our December income of $40,619 was way more than enough to cover our spending of $10,792 for the month.
If you’re thinking over $10,000 is a lot of spending, then you are right! Keep on reading to find out how we spent so much last month.
Income
Investment income totaled $39,022 last month. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. As a result, we had a larger than normal amount of investment income. In particular, December is always higher than other months because many ETF’s pay most or all of their annual distributions at year end. Here’s more on our dividend investments. Full disclosure: about 75% of the investment income was paid inside retirement accounts. We actually don’t need any more cash right now so I reinvest the income within the IRAs.
Blog income totaled $569 for last month. This represents an average month of blog income.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) was $815 during last month. That represents four hours of consulting. The consulting income remains steady for now, with a few hours booked each month.
Tradeline sales income totaled $200 during last month. I ramped up my tradeline sales a few years ago and discussed it in a bit more detail in my October 2020 monthly post and in my July 2021 monthly post. During 2025 I made over $6,000 in total in exchange for lending out my stellar credit history from half a dozen credit cards.
My “deposit income” totaled $13. This amount came from cash back and incentive bonuses from the Rakuten.com and Mrrebates.com online shopping portals (some of which was earned from you readers signing up through these links).
If you sign up for Rakuten through this link and make a qualifying $30 purchase through Rakuten, you’ll get a $30 sign up bonus.
If you’re interested in tracking your income and expenses like I do, then check out Empower Personal Dashboard, formerly known as Personal Capital (it’s free!). All of our savings and spending accounts (including checking, money market, and more than half a dozen credit cards) are all linked and updated in real time through Empower Personal Dashboard. We have accounts all over the place, and Empower Personal Dashboard makes it really easy to check on everything at one time.
Empower Personal Dashboard is also a solid tool for investment management. Keeping track of our entire investment portfolio takes two clicks. If you haven’t signed up for the free Empower Personal Dashboard service, check it out today (review here).
Tracking spending was one of the critical steps I took that allowed me to retire at 33. And it’s now easier than ever with Empower Personal Dashboard.
Expenses
Now let’s take a look at December expenses:
In total, we spent $10,792 last month which is about $7,000 more than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Gifts and taxes were the top two spending categories from last month.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Gifts – $5,560:
The big news for our household was the purchase of a new (used) car. Our oldest daughter bought a lightly used 2019 Honda Fit last month for right around $15,000 total. We gave her $5,000 to help out with her first car purchase. She had saved up $10,000 cash from her new job, so she doesn’t have a car loan.
I really like the car a lot. It’s almost like a miniature minivan.
The remaining $560 in gifts covered Christmas gifts for our kids and extended family.
Since our adult kids have jobs this year, they bought a lot of Christmas gifts themselves this year. These gift-giving expenses are theirs and are not included on my spending report.
Taxes – $2,981:
Our annual property tax came due in December which totaled $2,981. I used a credit card to pay the property tax bill and incurred a $69 processing fee to do so. That fee is reflected in the “travel” spending category since I spend everything I can on credit cards in order to maximize travel rewards earned throughout the year.
Groceries – $999:
We finally had a long period of time at home, and we did quite a bit of grocery shopping during December. Some of this grocery spending went toward replacing pantry items that we use up over the course of several months such as a 50 pound sack of imported jasmine rice and a 36-count case of butter chicken curry paste.
Utilities – $344:
We spent $146 on our water/sewer/trash bill last month.
The electricity bill was $108 for last month.
Our natural gas bill for last month was $91. This month’s bill will be substantially higher.
General Merchandise – $302:
Stuff for around the house. Gardening supplies. Christmas decorations. Also some deferred purchases where we just didn’t have time to research and buy things during the last year when we were traveling a ton.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $181:
Our 2026 health insurance is $143 per month thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies. The Covid-era enhanced ACA subsidies expired in 2025 so we aren’t paying $0 per month any longer.
Our 2026 dental insurance plan premiums are $38 per month. We picked a plan from Truassure through the healthcare.gov exchange. The dental insurance does a good job of covering most of our routine cleanings, exams, and x-rays plus most of the cost of basic procedures like fillings.
Travel – $164:
I used a credit card to pay our annual property tax bill and incurred a $69 processing fee to do so. That fee is reflected in the “travel” spending category since I spend everything I can on credit cards in order to maximize travel rewards earned throughout the year.
The remaining $95 of travel spending is the annual fee on my Barclay Wyndham Business card. In exchange for the annual fee, we get 15,000 Wyndham points which we usually redeem before a cruise for a free hotel night that would cost $200-300 per night if we paid cash.
Get free travel like us
If you are interested in getting free travel from your credit card like I do, consider the Chase Ink business cards (my referral link). Right now, the Chase Ink cards offer an above average $750-1000 worth of Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be redeemed instantly for $750-1000 in cash (or even more for travel!).
Chase is pretty liberal when it comes to “what is a business”. If you sell stuff on eBay or Craigslist or do some odd jobs occasionally then you have a business and could get a credit card as a “sole proprietor”.
I use the 90,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points from my recent offer by transferring them to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card (also offering a 125,000 point sign up bonus right now). I can transfer those Ultimate rewards points to over a dozen travel partners’ airline/hotel programs like United, Southwest, or Hyatt. For example, I transferred 6,500 Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt and used them to book a $300/night room that sleeps five during the peak season in the Virginia mountains.
Capital One Venture X card
Another favorite travel card in my wallet is the Capital One Venture X card. The Venture X card is a “keeper” for me. First off, it comes with a $750 sign up bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months. The bonus is paid in the form of 75,000 bonus points that you can redeem against any travel purchases from anywhere. Then you earn a solid 2 points per dollar spent forever! The other big perk is airport lounge access. You get free entry for yourself into Priority Pass and Capital One airport lounges (guests are extra after February 1, 2026). Add to this primary rental car insurance coverage and a bunch of other perks.
The Capital One Venture X card does have one catch – a $395 annual fee. But they reward you every year with an easy to use $300 travel discount plus $100 worth of points. Together, that makes $400 they give you annually which completely offsets the annual fee. Since the annual fee is offset in full by travel credits each year, I personally plan on keeping the Venture X card forever since the card benefits are so great.
Entertainment – $114:
We attended the Chinese Lantern Festival in Cary, North Carolina right before Christmas. The total cost for 5 tickets for the family was $114. Pretty impressive exhibit with a lot of unique “lanterns” throughout the park grounds where the event was held.
Automotive – $65:
I bought nine windshield wipers from Rock Auto to replace the blades on our 3 cars. They charge $10 per order for shipping so I usually order several things at one time to economize on shipping costs.
Gas – $28:
One tank of gas for our car. The girls buy their own gas when they are driving to work. As a result we do not spend that much on gas each month since we don’t drive a lot.
Cable/Satellite/Internet – $25:
We pay $25 per month for a local reduced rate package due to having a lower income and having kids. 50 mbit/s download, 10 mbit/s upload.
Restaurants – $23:
I spent three dollars to add onto some Taco Bell orders to use up my two $5 Doordash credits from my Chase Sapphire Reserve cards.
The remaining $20 in “restaurant” spending covered donuts at Krispy Kreme in downtown Raleigh. After our daughter’s graduation ceremony last month, we stopped by the donut shop on the way home to celebrate with her. She actually graduated in July but had to wait till the fall graduation ceremony to walk across the stage.
Home Maintenance – $10:
Our clothes washer started making a strange noise and then it quit agitating the clothes and wouldn’t spin at all. When I advanced the cycle manually, the washer would drain fully so I knew the motor and pump were still fully operational.
I quickly figured out the issue was a failed motor coupler that I replaced sixteen (!!) years ago. Since I knew the repair was pretty straightforward, I bought a $10 replacement heavy duty motor coupler online and had it shipped to our house in a few days. The repair was straight forward once we got the old broken coupler removed from the motor which was quite a chore! Patience, perseverance, and lots of WD-40 won the day.
The washing machine runs like new now. Hopefully we get another 16 years out of this new motor coupler.
Spending for 2025 – Year to Date
We spent $44,013 during the full year of 2025. This annual spending is about $4,000 above our budgeted $40,000 spending per our $40,000 annual early retirement budget. I haven’t increased our annual budget for inflation in a decade.
If we didn’t make the big $5,000 gift to our daughter to cover a third of her car purchase, then we would have been just under budget. We did explicitly plan on helping our kids out some when they are getting established in the adult world. And we can easily afford this $5,000 gift given our financial position today.
All in all, our annual spending looks very good. No real surprises in any specific areas during 2025. No real “emergencies”. No ugly surprises. All of which is good news!
We managed to do a lot of living without spending much money. Having a paid off home certainly helps with that. We still DIY a lot of stuff but also outsource many things like auto maintenance and repair.
What does 2026 hold? Who knows?!?! Probably more of the same. Almost all of our 2026 travel is already paid for. The remainder will likely be paid for with our existing stash of travel points and miles. I don’t think we’ll need to buy another new car in 2026. Let’s hope it’s another boring year without any emergencies, spending-wise.
Monthly Expense Summary for 2025:
- January – $5,091
- February – $2,462
- March – $2,136
- April – $4,261
- May – $4,097 (average of May and June)
- June – $4,097 (average of May and June)
- July – $1,992
- August – $2,452
- September – $2,694
- October – $2,003
- November – $1,927
- December – $10,792
Summary of annual spending from more than a decade of my early retirement:
- 2014 – $34,352
- 2015 – $23,802
- 2016 – $38,991
- 2017 – $31,708
- 2018 – $29,058
- 2019 – $25,630
- 2020 – $28,466
- 2021 – $31,740
- 2022 – $29,449
- 2023 – $37,865
- 2024 – $40,286
- 2025 – $44,013 (full year of 2025)
Net Worth: $3,958,000 (+$44,000)
Another big bump to our net worth. We ended the year at $3,958,000, which was a $44,000 increase from a month earlier. We didn’t hit the magical $4 million milestone during the month of December but we did finally blow past that number in the first few days of 2026.
The best part is I didn’t even realize it had happened for a few days because I normally only log in about once a month to complete these blog post updates. It’s cool that we hit the $4 million number but it won’t change a whole lot in day to day life. Just boosts the margin of safety for our early retirement plans. And it means we can afford to spend even more money in the future should we ever want to.
When we zoom out and look at year over year net worth changes, it’s a shockingly large number for 2025. We saw our net worth increase by $725,000 during the year. That one year increase is more than half of our entire net worth at the time of my retirement back in 2013!
For the curious, our net worth reported above includes our home value (which is fully paid off). I value the house at $300,000, which is probably what we would net after sales expenses. However, please note that I don’t consider my home value as part of my portfolio for “4% rule” calculation purposes. I realize folks ask me about that every month so I just wanted to state that here for clarity.
Closing thoughts
2025 was a great year for us. We spent about 4 months on the water on various cruises all over the world: Mexico, Caribbean, Alaska, and six weeks around northern Europe. Our 2026 travel plans aren’t quite as ambitious but we do have half a dozen big trips planned throughout the year.
During these short winter days at home in Raleigh, we have been planning and prepping for our upcoming trips to warmer, sunnier destinations. Next up for us is a cruise to Hawaii in a couple of weeks. After that, we head to Europe in March for a two week cruise around the Mediterranean.
Throughout 2026, we have about a month in between each cruise or vacation. That’s an intentionally slower pace compared to our busy 2025 travel schedule.
I’m looking forward to our 2026 trips. We’re visiting Hawaii for the first time ever. If things go as planned, we’ll also visit about 8 or 10 new countries on various trips during the rest of 2026.
That’s it for me this month, folks. Thanks for tuning in to the latest monthly update. I’ll see you next month!
Any New Year’s Resolutions you want to share?
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Wonderful share as always. I find it really interesting to see things grow over time. 2013 kids were in school now they are launched on their own graduated found new jobs and got their first car.Time flies. One thing I really appreciate about you is that you have always maintained clarity all through these years not thinking about unnecessary spending inspite of net worth. Good share. Can you share total income earned in 2025 from blog, consulting , deposits, investment income etc?
Investments (dividends/interest) – $86,000
Bank/Credit card bonuses – $9,800
Tradeline Sales – $6,875
Blog Income $6,800
Consulting – $5,500
Deposits (basically “miscellaneous”) – $450
Total was $116k. Much of this was not taxable like probably 75-80% of dividends were in tax-advantaged accts.
Wonderful. I’m seeing gradual reduction in blog income but consulting is catching up
I always wonder how you are able to churn credit cards so well each and every year as these cards as well as bank bonuses typically demand minimum two year break in most cases
Good job
Think just saw you on the Ruby? Honolulu tomorrow yeah
You found me! Ha ha. Just sent you an email to the address you input here on the blog.
Edit: Ok that email address is still giving me an error, undeliverable to that address you left. If you want to try to leave a different email address in a comment here I can try to contact you that way (only I can see the email; not the public readers).
Congratulations for hitting the $4 million milestone in early 2026! That’s got to be a great feeling, knowing your plan worked and now you’re at the “I can weather any storm and do just about whatever I’d like to do.” point. I’m looking forward to hearing about Hawaii!
Also congratulations to your daughter for making a big purchase (it takes practice to do mindfully!), and as a Honda Fit owner myself, I think she picked a perfect car! 🙂 I’ve had my Fit for just over 16 years and it has been excellent! As one of my friends pointed out when I was helping her move, “Man, everything fits in the Fit!”
Happy New Year and I hope 2026 is great for you and your family!
Yes, it’s a nice feeling to have “more money than I’ll ever need”. Brings about a lot of peace of mind. Money does actually fix a lot of problems.
re: the Honda Fit – yes it’s a nice car so far. It was a little more expensive than some alternatives but it was really well maintained on the inside and mechanically in good condition too I think. Mrs Root of Good and I each had a Honda for 16 years and they both worked well for us over that time. Here’s to hoping this new car lasts our daughter at least as long!
Justin, how did you determine what was wrong with your washer to end up replacing the coupler? Ours is acting up and I feel like we cd fix it, if we cd just know what is causing the knocking/rocking. The load all of a sudden easily becomes unbalanced and overcomes the machine’s spin ability, leading to knocking/rocking. For years before, it worked perfectly.
We have had that problem before and found the machine was un-level, we let the plastic legs on the bottom out a little and it came back into level. Hope this helps
Thanks, we’ll give that a try.
I usually search the symptoms/issues in Youtube or the internet. Or now I might try Grok or another AI to see what it says. Then see if I can verify that’s the issue by trying what they suggest doing. Our washer was somewhat easy to take the big white metal exterior off of to see all the innards that make it work. So I can quickly look at everything and see if a particular part is broken/missing/leaking etc.
I had 2015, 2017 and 2019 Honda Fits and LOVED them. I was devastated when they stopped manufacturing them for the USA. We actually moved a washing machine in it once. Great car!!
Yes, I was surprised they stopped making them. The “replacement” is the HR-V subcompact SUV which also looks pretty decent. I read that the Fit was “just too small” but it seems like a perfect starter car. Plenty big to haul some serious cargo (just maybe not a whole couch!) but also fuel efficient. Comfortably seats 4 adults, maybe 5 if they are skinny enough.
Congratulations on a fantastic 2025, Justin! Lots of milestones for the family, lots of travel, and still seeing the net worth rise substantially. It is the same scenario many of us are living, particularly those of us who have always lived below our means. And your point around carrying no debt is critical, not even having a mortgage at your young age (hey, young compared to us). It makes for a very comfortable retirement as you know.
2026 will find us on four Celebrity cruises along with our winter getaway at our second home, plus some smaller trips here and there in TN. But we have already said we might start to tone down the cruises some in 2027, maybe to two 7 night ones, versus the 4-6 cruises we have been doing for years. Instead we’ll do more land traveling using our timeshare points and saving on travel costs that way.
Here’s hoping you have a very happy and healthy 2026, as well as all your readers!
Sounds like a good plan for 2026-27! I hear you on the land-based vacations. I’m planning on getting back to those at some point.
Congratulations on having a good 2025. Have your adult children’s careers been affected by AI?
Yes and no. They and their peers found the job search process very difficult and frustrating because no one is hiring (potentially because of AI) and everyone is using AI to help with applying to jobs. And many companies use AI screeners to filter through resumes. I read stats that something like 500 applications were submitted for the average job. Basically fewer jobs available and tons of competition mean the job hunt is tough right now for new college grads.
As for the jobs they ended up in, it’s ironically in a field you’d expect to be heavily impacted by AI (like many entry level white collar positions). However they are hiring a ton of new people with no signs of slowing down right now. So their jobs themselves have not been “replaced by AI”. I think it could in 5-10 years if they aren’t able to move to a new role or cross-train on other tasks. And there’s always going to be human oversight of AI efforts. I think the AI will just be another productivity tool like the spreadsheet, calculator, word processor, etc.
Did the 6,500 Ultimate Rewards points cover the entire $300/night hotel room you booked in Virginia? It looks like the conversion rate is 1:1. For comparison, 6,500 Citi Thank You points would only be $65.
On an unrelated note, your daughter has amazing hair! Do you save a lot of money on family haircuts?
Yes, the 6500 Chase UR pts fully covered the $300/nt hotel in Virginia. It was a “points transfer” booking. So I transferred 6500 Chase UR pts to the Hyatt program. Then redeemed for 1 free night. Hyatt nights vary from I think 3,500 pts/nt on the very low end (think very basic hotel in low cost country in Europe) up to 20,000+ pts/nt in some expensive big cities. This one in Virginia wasn’t particularly nice but it was during a peak travel period (fall leaf-peeping time) and the hotel said they had been booked 100% solid for many nights in a row, so very high demand. As a result, I got a great redemption value of almost 5 cents per point but that is because it’s a points transfer to the hyatt program, and Chase allows a 1:1 transfer.
We do all the haircuts in-house. The long-haired one rarely cuts her hair, and it’s just a short trim if anything. The long hair just means it takes 20 extra minutes to wash hair, so we spend a lot extra on water, the water heater, and shampoo/conditioner! ha ha
Hi Justin
You said that you don’t need any more cash right now so have reinvested the dividends, is your blog, consulting etc income enough to cover your expenses (even your gift) each month generally, or do you sometimes take/use the dividends?
Thanks for the update as always
Oh, I am reinvesting the dividends within the retirement accounts in general. And not withdrawing them (and potentially paying tax to withdraw them).
I mostly just spend the dividends from my taxable accounts. They all go into checking and are not set to automatically reinvest. I did just make a $5k investment to use up some of my cash on hand just because the pile was growing too big. But in most years I simply let the cash accumulate.
Just depends month to month and year to year. I do whatever makes sense for my near-term cash needs.
I’m curious how you handle your cash allocation – percent of overall portfolio? Number of months/years of living expenses?
If so, which method and what amount/percent do you do?
I take it you’re not super cash heavy if you just reinvested some.
I just wing it. No math, nothing too intentional. Cash flows in, I spend some, and either I’m cash starved and need to sell some investments from my brokerage account, or I eventually realize I have too much cash and I need to invest the excess cash.
My rough estimate of what is “too much cash” is $30,000 with no plans to spend it on anything soon.
Love the down-to-earth and transparent updates as usual. It’s really heartening to see a $4m net worth household take the time to fix a $10 part on a washing machine and replace windshield wipers efficiently… These are the things I do now that I hope propel me to financial freedome!
I would LOVE to see an updated version of the subsidy cliff post, especially in light of the expiring enhanced subsidies. It looks like that post has numbers from circa 2016.
I like to tackle the easier DIY tasks that I know I can handle. Wiper replacement, filter replacement, etc is all well within my automobile repair skillset. Beyond that I am no expert unfortunately 🙂 And I do pretty well with appliance repair so I usually give that a shot before replacing the appliance or calling a repairman.
Hopefully I get around to updating some older articles like the ACA cliff post. The numbers on that one are old but the underlying principles are still the same in 2026 (assuming they never pass the ACA cliff elimination from covid-era)
I am curious about the brand and age of your washer. I assume that if you replaced that part 16 years ago, then the washer is possibly more mechanical than electronic, which is a big plus, in my opinion.
It’s a Whirlpool. We’ve been debating exactly when we got it and I think it was 2003. That matches with what the internet says about the serial number on our washer. So the old coupler failed after 6 years and I replaced it with a heavy duty replacement part.
Yes – this washer is mostly mechanical with relatively simple electrical controls. No frills. AKA it mostly just works. In general, most of these washers from that era all have the same guts inside so it’s pretty easy to troubleshoot with some Youtube videos. Now that I’ve torn it apart, it looks really good inside. Some water damage here and there and a little bit of rust but a lot of the innards look almost brand new which is shocking given it’s at least 23 years old now. Fingers crossed it lasts another 23 years!
Hi Justin,
I’ve been reading your posts for years, pre covid by a number of years, and this is the first time I’ve ever truly disagreed with something and felt the need to comment. I think what your daughter did was remarkable, and I think you should consider outright purchasing the car for her (with the obvious caveat that the money goes into a taxable brokerage or ROTH).
My mom for years matched what I earned (until I graduated college), as long as that money (her contribution) went into savings, which was a roth for me. This started me on this path but also let me have some spending money. You guys are obviously on a rocket ship to the moon, 30 years from now your accounts will have ~40 mil in them. but in 30 years I doubt your daughter will need anything financial in terms of support (I am sure she will always have love, psychological, and emotional support from you guys!) but in the here and now, it would make a very meaningful difference on the much, much harder road to independence compared to even 10 years ago.
Just my 2c as the very grateful son looking at that first summer working in 1998 with 2k earnings now being worth ~25,000 in a roth. As a funny book end, my parents who drive Hondas\Acuras etc, also said they would help with a car potentially as circumstances dictated. I however as a bit of a car person, wanted a BMW. Now I did this in what I feel was a very “FI” way, I spent a ton of time researching, finding the right car with great service records, at the bottom of the depreciation curve, with a great mile\price ratio and frankly though it was 100% an extravagant purchase, I love it.
My very frugal mother (though not a FIRE person, shes very firmly a boglehead) when i told her what I was considering to buy, told me “Good luck, save money for those repairs!”.
You can rest assured that my 2 adult kids are putting a TON into their Roth IRA/401ks. They are very fortunate to not have a lot of expenses right now since we cover a lot of living costs while they’re living at home. Part of that arrangement is them knowing they have the flexibility to have ample spending money while also having the confidence to be able to max out 401k/IRA etc.
Ultimately it’s up to them to choose how much to contribute. But we’ve set them up well financially over the years and now they are benefiting from that in the “adult world”
Have you taken advantage of the HSA “hack” for your daughters where they can have their own HSA accounts separate from the family account, and their HSAs can be funded at the family limit, not just single? Works up to age 26. That would be one hell of a head start for them.
I didn’t know about that loophole. Looks good for those that can use it. Our 2 adult kids have their own individual insurance now. And at least 1 kid is contributing the max to the HSA account. The employer kicks in $1000/yr too so they are contributing the other $3400.
I love your writing style so much. Great read, it’s been too long since I’ve visited.
Is next year the year you inflate your lifestyle to 50k? Haha
Hey Anthon, hope you’re doing well!
Yes, we might spend $50k this year. Who knows?! Not trying to do that but also not not trying to do that. If that makes sense 🙂
How much of your portfolio is pre tax versus Roth? How are you planning to minimize future IRMA and RMD time bombs? I remember you had a Roth ladder article way back. Are you still doing the Roth conversion and contributions to HSA to manage these potential issues? Might be interesting to hear your viewpoints in an article.
It’s about half or a bit more in Traditional IRA and the other half a mix of Roth and taxable.
My plan is to convert to roth IRA as I can, without having my effective tax rate go way up. Right now, with loss of ACA subsidies factored in, I’d effectively push myself into a ~27% bracket right now if I increased my conversions beyond a low-ish level. That’s about the same as IRMAA plus 22-24% bracket from what I remember.
So in essence, I’m “kicking the can”. Maybe RMDs go away completely or the age RMDs kick in goes up more. Or worst case, I’ll just pay the 26-28% tax rates for RMDs plus IRMAA surcharges.
Very cool when you child makes a smart car purchase and you think maybe I’d like a car like that too. It was good for you to help her but make sure she had plenty of “skin in the game.” Happy New Year to you family and to your children who have started their new independent lives also.
It is a nice car. And after buying a merely “okay” car a couple of years ago, I’m glad it’s really nice and clean inside and out, too. A great car to last 10+ years she hopes!
I think it’s so cool you blew your budget (slightly) to help your daughter. Seems like a large section of the FIRE community minimizes helping their kids, and I love seeing a frugal member like you bucking the trend!
Just trying to set them up for financial success long term! 🙂
Do your kids have firm or vague financial plans? How gung-ho are they to continue in your footsteps? Have they said or done anything financially that has surprised you? How do they differ? meaning is one very enthusiastically FIRE and the others are kind of lackadaisical, etc. Your son and mine are almost exactly the same age 🙂
Would LOVE a detailed post, too.
One is like “I want to save a million dollars, ideally by 30” and she’ll make it I think. Very careful with money and wants to save save save. The other one saves a lot and also values saving/investing but isn’t in as much of a hurry (this is the one that just bought the Honda Fit). I think they both enjoy making and having money, for different reasons. One retires at 30 and other retires at 40 I guess? ha ha
25% increase! Congratulations! Honestly I am surprised considering the sp500 only increased 15% last year!
International investments were up 33% or something like that last year. And half my portfolio is international. So I did a lot better than the Sp500 due to asset allocation.
Thank you for sharing! I have been a big fun and reading the blog from time to time.
Honestly I was really surprised to see the numbers and could not figure out why. I would think people in early retirement would put a significant amount in bond which lowers returns but provides stability. “half my portfolio is international” still leaves my jaw open. Maybe I should just be more openminded to the world outside US.
I have some bonds in the portfolio but it’s under 10%. Over 90% equities, split roughly 50/50 US/Intl. So last year was a very good year for me (after a tough decade+ of international investing…)
Jimmy makes a very good point as the global tracker is up ‘just’ 12% in the last year. Your asset allocation and separate investment funds have worked in your favour. Do you still re balance to the original percentages planned for each?
When you arrange your cash for living, do you and your wife have one joint account to make it simpler for tracking spending? So income into it and spending from it? As tracking and spending low is so important.
Also when you were in saving/building phase. Did you actually live on one of your salaries and save the other? Or did you each save half your salaries?
I haven’t rebalanced in a while but I need to.
We just have a single shared account. All expenses come out of there. I fund the spending account as-needed and keep excess cash in higher paying money market accounts.
While working, yes we basically lived on 1 income and spent the other one. Eventually income went up enough to where we didn’t even need to spend 100% of one of our incomes.
Are you thinking about getting a new card for the lounge pass plus guests benefit? I was leaning towards, doing a product change from the Marriott to the Ritz card and adding authorized user to get up to 6 in lounges
Not sure what my approach will be. Probably won’t get a new card just to get the 5th person into the lounges. We don’t travel as much as a family since our older two kids are working full time now. Right now I have a CSR and CSR-biz so I can get at least 2 guests into a lounge with that. And Mrs. Root of Good has a VentureX so she can still get herself into a lounge. One of the kids will have to sit outside and wait while we relax and dine lol
This is the type of content that I have signed up for. Being a mother of two aged 5 and 7 years old, I have also started my FIRE last January and have been trying to understand how people spend and save money on their expenses. Glad to see you have been putting your wins and looses out in the open without the fear of being judged.
“Investment income totaled $39,022 last month. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. ”
So how much did you receive in months March, June, September?
What is the total for the entire year? Almost ~$160k?
The December quarterly dividends are always the highest because many funds only pay once per year, at year-end in December
I’m always shocked at how much travel you can do for such a little amount of money! And for 3-5 people every time is incredible. I’m in the points and miles game too and even using points we spent $5k for just 2 international trips for food, local transportation, and entertainment for a family of 4. I must be missing something because yall take many more trips (and cruises!) for the same amount. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
I guess we do a lot of economizing while traveling. Groceries instead of dining out (if restaurants are super expensive). And for entertainment, I do look for free things although we spend $100-200 for family admission tickets to various places from time to time.
i agree!