Welcome back to the life and times of the Root of Good household. We had another busy month during January. Mrs. Root of Good and I went on a ten night cruise out of Charleston, South Carolina. During the cruise we visited five Caribbean islands and enjoyed a brief respite from the “harsh” North Carolina winter.
Now that we are back home, we have been busy planning our summer trip to South America. We have a slow springtime planned. So far, we have zero trips to anywhere between February and the commencement of our summer trip in mid-June!
January was a bonanza month for our finances. Our net worth skyrocketed by $162,000 to end January at $2,788,000. Our income totaled $1,839, while our spending was a bit higher at $3,423 for the entire month of January.
Let’s jump into the details from last month.
Income
Investment income totaled $66 in January. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. As a result, we had a small amount of investment income last month. Here’s more on our dividend investments.
Blog income totaled $1,062 for the month. This level of income is slightly higher than recent averages.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) was $0 in January. I didn’t have any new inquiries during the month. Maybe people aren’t feeling as wealthy these days? So they aren’t calling me to figure out how to retire early? I’m not sure but I’ll give it a few more months before writing off this line of income.
Tradeline sales income totaled $0 in January as well. Tradeline sales were very slow in the last quarter of 2022. Perhaps higher interest rates led to fewer people needing credit. And therefore, fewer people needing to buy tradelines to repair their credit. I really don’t know for sure. However, January tradeline sales picked up in a huge way. I expect February and March tradeline income to be much higher than $0.00! I ramped up my tradeline sales in 2020 and discussed it in a bit more detail in my October 2020 monthly post and in my July 2021 monthly post.
For January, my “deposit income” totaled $10. This “deposit income” comes 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 $25 purchase through Rakuten, you’ll get a $10 sign up bonus.
January Youtube income was $0. Youtube only pays out when you exceed $100 in accumulated revenue. Recently, my Youtube earnings have been just under $100 per month on average, so I only get paid every other month.
Here is the Youtube channel for the curious. It’s random travel videos, birds, kids, and a couple of DIY videos. There are only a few main videos that bring in most of the traffic (and revenue!).
Closing out the income from January: a $700 payment came from a US Bank Leverage Business credit card sign up bonus.
If you’re interested in tracking your income and expenses like I do, then check out Personal Capital (it’s free!). All of our savings and spending accounts (including checking, money market, and five credit cards) are all linked and updated in real time through Personal Capital. We have accounts all over the place, and Personal Capital makes it really easy to check on everything at one time.
Personal Capital 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 Personal Capital 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 Personal Capital.
Expenses
Now let’s take a look at January expenses:
In total, we spent $3,423 during January which is about $100 more than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Taxes and groceries were the two highest categories of spending in January.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Taxes – $2,374:
Our annual property tax for our primary residence is due in January of each year. We paid $2,074 for our annual property tax bill.
The remaining $300 of tax expense comes from our quarterly estimated tax payment to the State of North Carolina. We typically owe $1,200 per year in state income taxes and we pay these quarterly using a credit card (for the points/miles of course!).
Groceries – $517:
Another modest month of grocery spending at $517 for the whole month. Mrs. Root of Good and I spent almost half the month on a cruise so there were two less mouths to feed for part of the month.
I am still surprised that the total grocery spending isn’t higher given the fact that so many products we buy are 50-100% more expensive than they used to be a few years ago.
Utilities – $198:
The total utility spending was $198 last month. That doesn’t include the $83 for the electricity bill and another $130 for the water/sewer/trash bill. I paid those costs with a promotional Visa gift card from our health insurance company.
Of the $198 utilities that we paid with “real” money, we spent $10 for the water/sewer/trash bill.
The natural gas bill, which provides heating and hot water, totaled $188 for last month. This bill covers the month of December’s usage. It is typically coldest here in December and January so that might be the largest natural gas bill we see all year.
Travel – $181:
Our January cruise to the Caribbean was prepaid several months ago. The only costs we had to pay for this vacation was a pair of one-way rental cars from Raleigh to Charleston and back home 10 days later. The rental cars totaled $130. Gas for the cars was another $45.
Since parking would have been $210 at the Charleston cruise port, we still came out way ahead financially by renting cars instead of driving our own car down there and parking at the pier.
We spent a few bucks on a local bus in St. Maarten to get from downtown to the airport for some oceanfront plane-watching. 2 round trip tickets totaled $8 in cash. I don’t usually record our cash spending unless I’m pulling money from an ATM. In this case, I treat a tiny cash expense as “rounding error” in our overall spending. It’s just not worth keeping track of $5 or $10 a few times per year in my opinion.
The remaining $6 in travel spending came from the 2% convenience fee that our state imposes on estimated tax payments made with a credit card. It’s worth it to pay the fee to get the extra credit card spending because it earns us tons of points and miles to cover our travel spending throughout the year.
If you are interested in getting free travel from your credit card like I do, consider the Chase Ink Unlimited or Chase Ink Cash business cards (my referral link). Right now the Chase Ink business cards offer 90,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be redeemed instantly for $900 in cash. And if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve card, those 90,000 Ultimate Rewards points are worth $1,125 or $1,350 (respectively) towards travel reservations. This is the highest offer ever on the Chase Ink Unlimited/Cash cards and may not last too much longer. Mrs. Root of Good and I each received our new Chase Ink Unlimited cards during December.
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”.
Education – $90:
The bulk of January’s education spending came from a $70 textbook purchase for our daughter’s community college coursework. Our two college students already had all the other books they needed for the spring semester. Or their professor indicated the required books weren’t really necessary for their section of the class. In any event, the textbook spending came in much less than expected.
The remaining $20 of education spending covered the cost of a yearbook for our elementary school student.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $35:
Our current 2023 health insurance costs $18 per month, thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies that we receive due to our low ~$45,000 per year Adjusted Gross Income. We didn’t have to pay the premium in December (for coverage during January) because we paid it in November.
We signed up for 2023 dental insurance plans and paid a total of $17 in premiums during January. The payment for my insurance posted in February so I’ll have a double payment next month.
I chose a very basic plan for $9 per month for me that covers most preventive care but no fillings. Mrs. Root of Good has a different set of dental needs than I do so we kept the more comprehensive $17 per month plan for her (same as 2022’s plan).
By buying insurance, we should save a couple hundred dollars on my dental care. For Mrs. Root of Good, we will still save a few dollars compared to paying cash for the preventive dentist visits throughout the year.
Gas – $31:
A half tank of gas for $31.
Cable/Satellite/Internet – $0:
We generally pay $18 per month for a local reduced rate package due to having a lower income and having kids. 30 mbit/s download, 4 mbit/s upload. Right now the cost of the internet service is temporarily reduced to $0 due to the “Affordable Connectivity Program”.
Spending Summary During Ten Years of Early Retirement:
We have shockingly never spent more than our $40,000 per year early retirement budget. Take a look:
- 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 – $3,423 (Year to Date through January 31, 2023)
Net Worth: $2,788,000 (+$162,000)
January was a hugely positive month in the stock market and our investment portfolio really loved it. After $162,000 in gains during January, our overall net worth closed the month at $2,788,000. We are very close to our all time high net worth from a year and a half ago.
At 90% equities, we take advantage of almost all of the upward movement in stocks but suffer when the market performs poorly. Long term, I expect the stock market to beat inflation by an adequately large margin to compensate me for the month-to-month volatility.
January reiterates the value of long term, buy and hold investing. In late December there was nothing but negative news, both economic and geopolitical. Not a lot has changed it seems, but here we are almost 10% higher in the stock market.
Without lifting a finger, we’ve made five years worth of minimum wage labor in the United States. Not a bad month! Especially considering we were afloat somewhere in the Caribbean Sea for half of the month while our money worked for us.
For the curious, our net worth reported above includes our home value (which is fully paid off). 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.
Life update
Ahhhhhh… finally some time to prop my feet up, do nothing, and relax for a bit. We have nothing planned between now and mid-June. It’s a great feeling after a busy summer, fall, and winter travel schedule.
Lately, we are keeping busy with planning our trip to South America from June through August, 2023. We’ll spend the summer mostly in Argentina, with a couple of weeks in Brazil and Chile.
First, we have a month in Buenos Aires to eat a lot of empanadas and steak and revisit our favorite spots around the city with two of our kids that are still young enough to travel with us.
Then we head south to Puerto Madryn, Argentina for some whale watching (we hope!).
After that we fly 1,400 miles north to the far northeastern extent of Argentina to Iguazu Falls for a week. We will stay on the Brazilian side of the falls. We’ll check out the Iguazu waterfall, Itaipu Dam, and enjoy our first visit to Brazil.
From there, we fly to Santiago, Chile for ten days.
That’s the plan so far. We have most of the lodging booked plus the big flights down to South America in June and back home in August. But we still have a lot of details to hammer out before the plans are finalized.
Well folks, that’s it for me for this month. See you next month!
Are things warming up where you are? Ready to bid adieu to winter weather?
Want to get the latest posts from Root of Good? Make sure to subscribe on Facebook, Twitter, or by email (in the box at the top of the page) or RSS feed reader.
Root of Good Recommends:
- Personal Capital* - It's the best FREE way to track your spending, income, and entire investment portfolio all in one place. Did I mention it's FREE?
- Interactive Brokers $1,000 bonus* - Get a $1,000 bonus when you transfer $100,000 to Interactive Brokers zero fee brokerage account. For transfers under $100,000 get 1% bonus on whatever you transfer
- $750+ bonus with a new business credit card from Chase* - We score $10,000 worth of free travel every year from credit card sign up bonuses. Get your free travel, too.
- Use a shopping portal like Ebates* and save more on everything you buy online. Get a $10 bonus* when you sign up now.
- Google Fi* - Use the link and save $20 on unlimited calls and texts for US cell service plus 200+ countries of free international coverage. Only $20 per month plus $10 per GB data.
Looks like another good month. I loved that I recognized some of the places (Maho beach and the fort at San Juan).
My wife and I have been in Argentina for almost two months now. Presently in BA.
Being the Money Guy you’ve probably figured out the blue dollar and the best way to exchange money.
Its unique here!
Best is bring a load of $100 USD notes in perfect condition.
Set up a Western Union account and send dollars to yourself.
Pay everything in pesos, especially accommodation and let your credit card figure out the rate.
For example my Chase Sapphire’s rate is about $AR334 compared to official rate of about $AR197.
Good luck!
Another good month! I appreciate the update. Winter here in New England always makes me feel like I’m doing life wrong when I read about your life in NC and frequent cruises!
Regarding NW growth, if I’m not mistaken, you have a lot of your assets in pre-tax retirement accounts. At your current very admirable level of spending, it seems you are on a compounding runway where your NW growth will continue outstripping your spending. If I have that right, do you have any plans to avoid some of the pitfalls of lots of pre-tax assets in the later years? I know you save a lot of money with ACA subsidies by keeping official income as controlled as you do, but I wonder at what point the future liabilities outweigh the current savings. The future concerns I can think of now are medicare IRMA payments, RMDs, reversion to pre-TCJA personal tax rates in a few years, etc.? I know the future is uncertain and the savings today are known and solid, but I’d be curious to hear about how you think about it.
Thanks,
Mike
+1
That’s a great beach right there! We just booked our first cruise in Alaska. I’m excited and a little nervous about that. Do you ever get motion sickness while in a cruise? I have a 3 and a 5 year and a little worry about that. If Alaska cruise goes well, I’ll definitely look up the Carribean.
What are you going to do with a 4.5 month break from traveling? Maybe posting more? haha
I know you have family in the area. Does someone stay with your kids when you’re gone? Or are they just available if there’s an emergency?
2.5 months remaining. Still busy doing other stuff. In fact, so busy that it took me a month to reply to this comment! 🙂
My parents usually stayed with the kids when we were out of town. Or my wife’s sister. And we have several other sets of family that live just up the street and have to drive by our house sometimes to get across town, so they can check in on them as needed.
I love reading your monthly reports!
Just a couple of observations:
-I’d be a bit concerned about the Devine in income from consulting/YouTube etc. this puts all the pressure on your investments going forward. As someone who is a bit older & retired, I can look back & see that I would have been better off to have increased my income during working years, if only to boost my retirement accounts
-when you report financials such as utilities expenses & others, I’d suggest you report full expenses & then offset them with credits for the various ways you reduce these expenses. This will give a clearer idea of the trends & prepare for the future in case credits dry up in the future.
-just an observation, you’ve built a great lifestyle with some smart thinking. When on these cruises I’d suggest getting out into every port you can, the learning & time with kids will be really valuable & not available forever. Relaxing on the ship deck is best for those working 80 hour weeks and trying to figure how to pay next months bills—you’ve already done it!
YMMV
I’m okay with a decline in income. I have the portfolio that covers all my living expenses, and then some. No problems there!
On cruise ports of call – we enjoy going into port, especially if it’s a new port or it has something unique to offer. However some of the ports are kind of boring or not very nice to walk in. So we skip some of those and enjoy several extra hours on the ship. The cruise ship itself is a huge part of the appeal of a cruise to me. Basically a floating resort. Except it’s priced way below your average resort.
Those photos of the Caribbean look pretty nice compared to the cold weather we are having now in Colorado. Looking forward to your trip to South America. We went to Brazil a few years ago and had a good time.
It is weird to have such warm weather in the middle of January. I kept on hoping it wouldn’t be *too* warm and fortunately it was not. It can get rather hot, even in the middle of winter, the further south you go in the Caribbean.
Hi Justin,
I look forward to your posts every month. You and your family are always discussed in our house!! How was the food at Carnival sunshine? We did MSC Mergavlia in December and liked it. Have booked the MSC Seashore for this December, got the kids sail free offer.
I mentioned to you previously that my daughter is enrolled into Wake tech and wants to complete the Associates in Arts before 12th grade is over. She then wants to join UNC business school as a Junior. Is this is guaranteed that the 2 years of associates degree with wake tech will be accepted at UNC chapel hill and they recieve admission? Did you meet with the UNC or NC state admissions officer to learn if admission is guaranteed for your daughters after wake tech course work completion?
I see my daughter working day and night on all these courses and just want to ensure if it will be worth while.
On the investment front – We have 900,000 saved up and its sitting in all cash. We missed going into the markets during December of last year because we had thought that the S&P 500 would go down to 3200, the rally took us by surprise. Now waiting to get a better entry.
I recently found out about 2 dividend etf’s JEPI (based on S&P500) and JEPQ (Based on Nasdaq 100). These 2 etfs are issued and managed by JP Morgan. JEPI pays 12% dividend and JEPQ pays 15% dividend. I did the compound calculations for 10 years, with dividend reinvesting and 1Million turns into 4.4 Million invested all in JEPQ. I am thinking if it would be a good idea to just put the 900K into both these ETfs and not touch for next 10 years and be done with the investment goal. This will also avoid all the stress form the markets, the valuations, the inflation, the fed which all have control over the markets right now. What are your thoughts on this?
Thank you!!!!
Carnival Sunshine food was okay. Buffet is pretty average for Carnival. You won’t go hungry but it’s not that exciting. The Mexican restaurant, burger restaurant, and italian restaurant were all pretty good too (open during lunchtime). We didn’t go to the dining room hardly at all so can’t really comment. It’s usually decent on Carnival.
For the UNC admissions question – I don’t think admission is guaranteed but if you meet the GPA requirement it’s probably a good chance of getting in there as a transfer student. The advisors at Wake tech should be able to tell you what will count at UNC and what will not. And yes, you can schedule an advising appointment with UNC staff. We did that once with the admissions staff (I think that was who it was) and they answered a bunch of questions to make sure we weren’t wasting time at Wake Tech.
JEPI and JEPQ – I don’t know anything about these two investments so I can’t really make an educated comment on them unfortunately.
Looks like an awesome trip! You said it best–nothing better than relaxing on a boat while the net worth steadily climbs!
He he – yes, indeed. Makes you feel like you’ve won at the game of life. 🙂
After being lost in the woods for several days and now becoming extremely hungry you come across a clearing where miraculously find a full hot golden roasted turkey hanging on a string from a tree branch. You cannot believe your good luck and reach out to grab the turkey. But as you are reaching for the turkey, a man in the wood swings his machete and cuts off your hand. He then gives you the roasted turkey in return for your hand. (This example may be extreme and graphic, but this is JEPQ)
We are just a few years out from retirement. We have various investments but are going probably be selling one soon plus have a large savings account. Do you think low cost index funds would be something to invest in, for just the short term? The personal finance blogs I read have invested in them but for the long term and just let them set there, so I guess the low’s and high’s combined together grow over decades. I am talking for just maybe a year or two. Thank you!
My rule of thumb is minimum 3-5 year period if you want to invest in stocks. Over a 1-2 yr period, you can lose a lot of money in stocks without having much time to recover.
Thank you.
I’m jealous of all your recent and upcoming trips!
Based on your upcoming trips to Argentina/Brazil, I just looked into cost of living in South America and was shocked at cheap it’s gotten down there. It seemed like not long ago it was quite a bit more expensive than place like SE Asia and it seems like that’s changed lately.
Sounds like you’re going to have a great time and safe travels!
Yes, it looks pretty affordable in LatAm at the moment. We were pleasantly surprised at the prices for accommodations down there. It does feel on par with SE Asia to some extent. But I think Argentina and Chile offer a higher standard of living for us tourists. And it’s not super hot and humid, which I am looking forward to.
Great job on reaching a high net worth. We touched $10.9 million in net worth this month (thanks to real estate appreciation).
Wowee!! congrats!
Hi Justin,
I look at your website every couple of months and it’s quite interesting. But I always leave with the same feeling and that is, I personally wouldn’t classify you as retired. Instead, I would say you fall into the category of “do what you love and you never work a day in your life.” The reason is that you are working extremely hard to stay retired, given your incredibly strict budget. Reading through your posts it’s clear that this is a full-time job. Hey, I love to budget and plan just as much as the next guy, but recording every small transaction, down to a couple of bucks, would drive me crazy! I can’t imagine that even when you’re on vacation, you’re not thinking about how much you can or can’t spend. But it’s clear you’re very happy with what you’re doing and you’ve found something that you absolutely love, but retired? I personally would put a different label on it, since all of this blogging, penny pinching, and deal-finding requires a LOT of effort. But at the end of the day, even if I would call it work, you’re doing something you love, which is something MOST people never do! And really, who cares what I think. :):):)
All the best.
I guess it’s all subjective!
“you are working extremely hard to stay retired” – I wouldn’t say I am working all that hard really. But maybe some people view what I do as hard work? I strive to get a good bargain on most of the things I do. But I don’t think that consumes a massive amount of time. I try to go with the “good enough” approach. Find a good deal and go with it, even if extra hours of effort might result in additional (but small) incremental savings.
“Reading through your posts it’s clear that this is a full-time job” – as in 40 hours per week = full time? Wow, I am flattered. But I don’t even think I spend 4 hours per week “getting deals”. Maybe if you include all the leisurely time spent dreaming about new destinations, researching them, and browsing through some Airbnb listings to figure out what’s available. And sometimes we do spend 20 hours in a week booking our next big trip. That is almost full time work! But like you said, it’s something I enjoy doing. And finding an awesome hotel/apartment for a great deal is pretty exciting for me.
Definitely subjective. Sounds like a great life. Cheers!