Welcome back to another monthly update from Root of Good! This month’s update is a little later than usual since I’ve been on vacation during the first part of March. We got home a few days ago and I’m finally catching up on things around the house.
Our last cruise was actually two week-long cruises back to back on the MSC Seascape sailing out of Miami. We had perfect weather that let us explore some new islands or new parts of the islands we’ve already been to in the past.
Now we get to enjoy almost a month at home before our next Caribbean cruise in April. But before that cruise we have a short two day North Carolina beach getaway coming up soon.
My plans for our month at home are to finish my taxes, catch up on some reading, and set the hammocks up in the yard to enjoy the spring weather that’s finally here.
On to our financial progress. February was a great month for our finances all around. Our net worth climbed by $39,000 to end the month at $3,361,000. Our February income of $4,844 was almost double our spending of $2,462 for the month.
Let’s jump into the details from last month.
Income
Investment income totaled $617 in February. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. As a result, we had a smaller than normal amount of investment income last month. Here’s more on our dividend investments.
Blog income totaled $591 for the month. This represents an average month of blog income.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) was $1,259 last month. This represents seven hours of consulting. Most of those hours will occur during March since I was booking pretty far out in the calendar due to my February and March vacation schedule.
Tradeline sales income totaled $200 last month. Another slow but steady month of tradeline sales. 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 2024 I made over $6,000 in exchange for lending out my stellar credit history from half a dozen credit cards.
For last month, my “deposit income” was $5 due to 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 $25 purchase through Rakuten, you’ll get a $10 sign up bonus (or more!).
My bank and credit card bonuses totaled $2,171 last month. Of the total, $396 comes from the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s “Pay Yourself Back” feature. I get a 25% bonus when I redeem the Chase Ultimate Rewards points to reimburse for my purchases in select categories like utilities and insurance. Since I have a TON of Chase points, I have started cashing them out by placing my utility and insurance payments on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card and using the 25% bonus Pay Yourself Back redemptions.
The remaining $1,775 of bank and credit card bonus income was $1,000 from transferring some funds to my IRA at Citibank plus a $775 bonus from a new credit card sign up. Tune in next month as I hope to reveal a massive windfall in the bank/brokerage sign up bonus category.
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 February expenses:
In total, we spent $2,462 during the month of February which is about $900 less than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Travel and groceries were the two largest categories from last month.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Travel – $1,113:
The biggest single travel expense from February was the $971 payment for a one week cruise for three of us during the summertime in two balcony cabins. We’ll pay another $323 to add one more kid to the cruise as long as her future work schedule doesn’t prevent her from joining us on the cruise.
The other main travel expense was $117 for three Ubers to and from the cruise ports in San Francisco and Miami. We also spent $4 on souvenirs on our latest cruise.
Rounding out the travel spending for February is $23 in taxes and fees for four otherwise free Southwest flights to and from Florida for our summertime family cruise.
Get free travel like us
If you are interested in getting free travel from your credit card like I do, consider the Chase Ink Preferred business card (my referral link). Right now, the Chase Ink Preferred business card offers an above average $900 worth of Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be redeemed instantly for $900 in cash (or even more for travel!). I just signed up for another new Ink card to snag one of these great bonus offers.
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 by transferring them to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card (also offering a 60,000 point sign up bonus right now). With the Sapphire Reserve card, I can get 1.5x the points value by booking cruises, flights, hotels, or rental cars through their travel portal. For example, I used 165,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points to pay for the $2,475 in taxes, fees, and gratuities on two of my cruises. Or I can transfer those Ultimate rewards points to over a dozen travel partners’ airline/hotel programs like United, Southwest, or Hyatt.
Capital One VentureX 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 can get yourself plus unlimited guests into Priority Pass lounges. And you and two of your guests can get into Plaza Premium network lounges and Capital One Lounges.
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. Another benefit worth mentioning: you can add up to four authorized users for free, and they also get all the benefits of the Venture X card including the valuable airport lounge access. We used this perk to “gift” a pair of Venture X cards with airport lounge access to my brother in law and his wife to use on their family trip back home to Cambodia last April with their two young children.
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.
Groceries – $623:
We were at home in Raleigh for almost three full weeks during February and we managed to spend $623 on groceries. That’s not bad given recent grocery inflation. Someone asked me recently if our food budget is lower because we eat on board cruise ships so often. The truth is we do end up spending a bit less on food for us adults. But our kids are usually at home during the school year and still need to eat, so our monthly grocery spending doesn’t drop drastically.
Utilities – $426:
We spent $138 on our water/sewer/trash bill last month.
The electric bill was $97 last month.
The natural gas bill was $192 for February for the water heater and gas furnace. The February bill was the highest natural gas bill we’ll have all year. Since it’s much warmer now, we will see much smaller heating bills starting next month.
Automotive – $142:
During February, I took our Toyota Sienna minivan in for the annual North Carolina state inspection. Normally that comes with a $30 price tag, however I had a $10 off coupon bringing the total to $20.
Once the inspection was complete, I then completed the annual registration process and paid the annual car property tax bill for the van. Those two items totaled $122.
Home Maintenance – $51:
I Doordashed a couple of orders from Home Depot using some 50% off coupons and some Chase Sapphire Reserve Doordash credits. In total I got about $100 worth of stuff for $51 after the tips and fees.
What did I buy? Ant bait broadcast treatment for the yard and a three pack of replacement toilet valves, among other things.
Cable/Satellite/Internet – $48:
We usually 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. I paid two months worth of internet bills in February totaling $48.
Clothing/Shoes – $33:
I bought a new pair of shoes for me for $33.
Gas – $28:
Two partial tanks of gas for our Hyundai Accent for $28. Our daughter drives the Hyundai to school four days per week so she uses about a tank of gas each month when school is in session.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $0:
Our 2025 health insurance is free thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies that we receive due to our low ~$51,000 per year Adjusted Gross Income.
Our 2025 dental insurance plan normally costs $32 in premiums 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. I didn’t actually pay anything for dental insurance during February because the insurer has screwed up our billing pretty bad. I need to sit down with a spreadsheet and figure out the premiums we’ve actually paid since December compared to what we should have paid.
Restaurants – $0:
No restaurants during February (other than a dozen meals on the cruise ship that were almost free).
Spending for 2025 – Year to Date
We spent $7,552 for the first two months of 2025. This annual spending is about $1,000 more than the budgeted $6,667 for two months per our $40,000 annual early retirement budget. I haven’t increased our annual budget for inflation in a decade, so at some point I need to revisit the budget numbers.
It’s still very early in the year to worry about being slightly over budget so far. We had a big lumpy annual property tax bill in January that only comes once per year. Looking forward to the next few months, we’ll have a few medium-sized travel expenses like cruise deposits or other travel bookings. We’ll also have some dental expenses in March or April. And our annual homeowners insurance renewal in May along with the six month auto insurance bill.
I think we have a decent chance to finish the year within our $40,000 annual budget. But if not, that’s okay too because our investments are consistently hovering above the $3,000,000 mark. We could conservatively spend about $90,000 per year if we really wanted to.
Monthly Expense Summary for 2025:
- January – $5,091
- February – $2,462
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 – $7,552 (through 2/28/2025)
Net Worth: $3,361,000 (+$39,000)
Our net worth increased for the second month in a row to bring the total to $3,361,000. We added $39,000 to our net worth last month in spite of the overall US stock market declining by about 2%.
Fortunately I have an asset allocation with a decent mix of international and other investments that performed better than the US stock market index. So our gain for February was just over a 1% gain. It’s been a difficult decade or two for international investors but this month highlights how international investments can play a role in a diversified portfolio.
My international investments are also my answer to the concern of “what if the USA doesn’t maintain its position as the best large developed country in the world for the next 50 years?”.
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
I’m really looking forward to my month at home. It’s a vacation from my vacations! Life here in Raleigh is pretty comfortable and easy. We have two cars and a decently large house by global standards.
All the good stores are 5 minutes away. Friends and family are not much further. We have a good kitchen and a well stocked pantry and fridge. For entertainment we have a firehose of streaming content from dozens of providers and a nearly unlimited amount of board games and video/computer games at our disposal. And of course a library full of interesting books that I’ve been meaning to read.
If I get bored (which is basically impossible if you read that last paragraph) then I can start planning my next adventure. We are slowly filling in the missing pieces to our summer plans so there’s a lot to think about and research for those future trips.
In the meantime, I’m ready for some peace and relaxation in the comfort of my own home.
That’s it for me this month, folks. See you next month!
Who’s ready for springtime?!!!
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Earning at 2x your spending, and with your spending at around 1.5% WR if you didn’t earn, must make for comfort on the finances/retirement =)
It sure does. No worries when I see the stock market drop 10% in a month or two! 🙂
What specific investments do you use for international diversity? What do you think of IShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF? Is 50% of your portfolio still international as described in your 2013 post “Diversification and Asset Allocation”?
That fund is fine if it’s all you have access to. The Vanguard equivalent, VEA, appears to have similar holdings and has an expense ratio half of what that Ishares fund has. That’s a nice core international holding I think.
And yes, still roughly half allocated to international. It’s a slight bit less than 50% today just because I haven’t rebalanced my portfolio in a while.
Thank you for the wonderful information in your monthly blog.
I was wondering if you would consider investing in these new high-yield ETFs that are focused on generating income through options trading. For example, investing $70K in $YMAX would generate about $750 per week in income (varies between $500 – $1,000).
For a small amount of investment, it could contribute towards more than half of your monthly dividends you are currently generating. Within 2 years, you could recapture your original investment, so it’s all house money from that point forward.
I probably wouldn’t invest in those personally nor would I recommend them to others without really researching them and understanding the risks. I assume one risk is they blow up and go to $0 and get liquidated if the right series of “unexpected” financial events happen. And the unexpected events probably happen every 5-10 years. Looking at the chart, I see it’s down 35% in the past year, so the yield appears to be paid from capital depletion to some extent (or it’s just a very volatile investment).
I’m not saying it’s bad necessarily but I think you would really need to dig into it and understand the risks.
Most of these max yield ETFs have only been around a short while, in YMAX’s case since January 2024. Let me give you some perspective on YMAX’s “performance”:
1 Year Return: -32%
YTD Return: -16%
They charge a high % for expenses as well, over 1%. Avoid these kinds of exotic ETFs since they are likely returning your own capital to you in the form of those high dividends, and not generating enough from their poor decision-making.
Thanks for your reply.
$YMAX is fund of funds, holding 31 Yieldmax ETFs, so going to zero is less likely (never impossible).
Yes, the return is down, but it has generated over $9 (nearly 50% in div yield) in dividends in 2024 with the projection of 100% return in 18 months, so after that it’s at cost free.
Once the dividends have been repaid for our original investment, we can DRIP it to grow another source of cash dividends during retirement. As Yieldmax continues to develop more ETFs, it will most likely continue to add to the $YMAX portfolio, so there will also be opportunities to earn weekly distribution.
Again, you are right, it is risky, but I feel it’s calculated risk. the big issue would be the reverse splits, if that occurs (and Yes, it can happen).
Thanks for your feedback.
Nice! How many cruises does it take to get MSC diamond status?
FYI Firecracker, you RSS feed doesn’t work in a site aggregator (aka, can’t keep up on the latest posts). Not sure how to fix it, but thought I would let you know. If you check in W3C RSS Validation it will tell you the reason.
10,000 points and you get something like 600 per cruise minimum I think. More if you book a more expensive room and they give you a few hundred points when you buy stuff on the ship too (even the mandatory gratuities seem to count as onboard spend!). So maybe something like 10-14 cruises and you hit diamond. And they status match with other hotel, airline, cruise, and rental car statuses so you might be able to match straight into MSC Diamond status if you hold the right status elsewhere.
Long time reader and now a first time comment! What do you think of MSC Cruises? Their reviews always seem less than stellar…specifically focusing on food quality and overall service.
We’ve have 10 great MSC cruises and one that was just okay (food was underwhelming being one of the main complaints). I would say it compares pretty well to most non-luxury cruise experiences. Maybe the euro-oriented service and food offerings aren’t pleasing to the American palette? Not really sure why they get such negative reviews but I’ve seen them too. Some folks are really picky too. And some folks seem to live and breathe hating every cruise they go on ha ha ha.
The one area that MSC seems to suffer is disorganization on their backend/IT side. Their website doesn’t work when you log in and it’s kind of a mess at times getting what you paid for or the status perks from having higher tiers in their loyalty club. I’ve sworn off MSC cruises forever at least a half dozen times while trying to get checked in, then I always book another one! Last four cruises on MSC Seascape have been very uneventful now that I just use their app and don’t rely on the website.
Do you do trade lines against your Capital One VentureX card or do they not accept that one?
It looks like they do sell tradelines for Cap 1. I do not sell tradelines against it because it’s a relatively new credit line for us but I might try listing it since it’s over 3 years old now. One small problem is that I have 3 authorized users on the account already for family.
How many authorized users do you add per card at any one time while doing tradelines? I just started with it (after learning a bit from you and others) and the company I am using asked me to add two AUs for the past month. Do you think that is too many?
2 is probably fine. I add two at a maximum on all of my lines at the advice of my tradeline company (Boost Credit 101).
While I never was on a cruise ship I imagine that the “Blue Diamond” party was meant to be a small circle, you’re not very special if you are in a room with 50 others and the captain.
That is true yet the seating arrangement was kind of weird in that the 10 of us were all spaced out and not really interacting at all due to the layout of the room. I guess I’m nitpicking because it’s still a nice gesture to be recognized for your “status” with a special meet and greet with you and the captain and senior officers and only 8 other people.
Love to see people enjoying the cruise life. We’ve never been on MSC, or anyone else for that matter, since we are 100% Carnival, but I am sure we would have a good time on any of them. BTW, if you do decide on Carnival sometime, we had three separate week long cruises in January on their converted Costa ship, the Venezia. We like the mega ships but the Venezia class was completely different than anything else Carnival has, and the Italian theme on the decor and food was interesting as well. Check it out if you want a change since they operate much of the year out of Port Canaveral, and the rest out of NYC.
I hear you on the tax front. This is the latest we’ll ever be coming home, the end of March, after not starting our winter travels until Jan 2nd. I have to hustle big time to get the taxes completed since I have a lot of stock trades to double check against Schwab. Another joy of living in the greatest country on earth.
Enjoy the upcoming cruises and be extra careful getting off in Jamaica. Not the best place to be wondering around right about now. Take care.
Venezia sounds nice. We’ve been on Costa Atlantica a loooong time ago when it was owned by Carnival. I’ll make it back to Carnival again at some point. Still doing a lot of sailings on other Carnival Corp. ships from Holland and Princess along with MSC. Since we have top tier status at MSC I have a slight preference for them but will take whatever looks appealing (and reasonably priced!).
Jamaica is something else. I guess the beaches are nice at resorts but it’s pretty unappealing from the parts I’ve seen so far.
Another great month, your posts are always great inspiration.
Do you have any tips on greeting good deals on the streaming services and video games? Noticed that mention at the end of the update, but don’t remember seeing them as big items in the budget updates.
Thank you!
Streaming – I got Paramount for free using some coupon code from DoctorofCredit maybe 2-3 yrs ago. As far as I know I still have it for free, as I canceled after the initial sign up and they just keep on giving it to me for no charge. Haven’t logged in to watch it in a few months though. Otherwise, there are deals here and there for promos for a few months for cheap. Hulu, HBO etc. Even Amazon Prime shows me offers for $1.99 for a month occasionally. The basic strategy is to be disloyal and cancel frequently and hop around. Or just pay full price 🙂 I still feel like $14.99/month or whatever the going rate at all these streamers is a fantastic deal compared to paying $50-80/month for cable 15-20+ years ago (which would be $100+/month after inflation!).
Video games – I get a ton of free games from Epic Games weekly giveaways and Steam giveaways. This is for PC games. Just don’t chase the newest titles and be patient. And don’t be afraid of indy releases which can be incredibly fun too. Or pay sticker price – $59.99 for a brand new AAA game is decent if you’re getting 50-100 hours of entertainment out of it.
Thank you!
Managed to get a good deal on HBO some time back ($49 for 1 year, and got $12 cashbackl on top).
Will keep an eye for the steam give aways.
Continue to be amazed on how you manage to live a much more “expensive” life than the money your family actually spend would indicate.
As a veteran cruiser what’s your go to “routine” at ports?
I’ve only taken a couple cruises and so far I’ve found that paying $20-60 round trip for a taxi to whatever the best beach or natural wonder is and do a self led excursion seems like the best bang for buck compared to doing the organized ones that can cost $500+ for a family. Sometimes a $10 taxi ride each way is all it takes to get away from the crowded touristy cruise ports and feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.
Yes, that’s the trick. Just arrange your own stuff. $2 bus ride or $10 taxi, and go wherever you want. Or get a rental car if you’re there for a long enough time. We just rented a car all day in Puerto Rico when the ship was in port till 11 pm. $30 for a rental and $3 for gas and we got to see a secluded beach with cave and El Yunque rainforest for $33 total. Ship-based excursions would have cost 10x as much and would have gone to a far inferior beach that’s crowded and not as pretty/interesting.
The general rule of thumb is that the ship excursions cost about double what you will pay if you buy the excursions from providers on land directly. Or DIY your excursions with taxi/bus/walking on foot of course.
I’ve also been to enough caribbean islands that I don’t always get off the ship. Or just get off for an hour to walk around and stretch my legs, maybe do a bit of shopping in port.
Do you have a favorite all time cruise port experience?
I know you probably get free internet on board with diamond status but do you ever try to get esim cards for internet service on land on the shore days? I tried out airalo esims that you can buy and set up before you get off the boat that start working as soon as you get within cell phone range in another country and only cost $4-7 a week for 1gb of data . The esim card that I got for Mexico worked better than my spouses “free data in Mexico” that came with their more expensive U.S. At&t plan. Its pretty handy for when you only have a short time on land and want do some research on the fly for when things don’t go to plan. They have dozens of other countries and plan capacities for if you need more data.
Hmmm Kodiak Alaska might be best all time ever. Just found a nice magical place to hike to in the woods.
Otherwise private islands are pretty decent for laid back days. No locals trying to sell you trinkets every 3 minutes and you don’t have to worry about anyone stealing your flip flops (mostly kidding but nice to know you can go swimming in the ocean and your cell phone will prob be there when you come back).
That data plan sounds good. I am thinking more about doing that when we’re on longer cruises. WAY cheaper than ship-based internet at $20/day or whatever. And yes on MSC I get free unlimited wifi with my Blue Diamond status. Only cruise line I have that privilege though.
Hi. Have you used United cruises to book a cruise with United airline points ? And if so, did that transaction go smoothly? Thank you!
I have never used United Cruises. I use the Chase Travel Portal travel agents and it’s okay overall. Slightly clunky bc they have to talk to the cruise then and go back and forth instead of just booking directly. But I guess if you have a ton of United miles then it’s a decent deal to get rid of them.