Welcome back to Root of Good! We arrived in Raleigh two weeks ago after spending most of the summer driving cross country for our road trip. I can’t believe summer is almost over! One of our kids starts college half time in one week and all three will commence regular classes in two weeks. When they said “time flies when you’re having fun”, they didn’t lie!
We’ve spent the past two weeks getting situated in Raleigh and relaxing after a busy but fun summer vacation. So far it looks like all the kids will be attending class in person this fall. For us adults, that means we will have a lot more free time between the hours of 9 am and 2:30 pm. This will be quite a schedule adjustment compared to the past 18 months of the kids being here almost all day every day.
Financially, last month was pretty decent but not overwhelmingly positive. For the second month in a row, our stock investments went down very slightly. Net worth dipped by $9,000 to end the month at $2,692,000. Income during the month totaled $2,888, which was slightly higher than our $2,128 spending during the month.
Let’s jump into the details from last month.
Income
Investment income totaled $259 in July. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. As a result, we had a relatively small amount of investment income last month. Here’s more on our dividend investments.
Blog income totaled $1,441 for the month which was a fairly normal blog income for one month.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) dropped to $0 for the month of July even though I had a two hour consulting session last month. The consulting fees didn’t hit the account until August so I’ll book the revenue for that month. After a busy June, it was nice to have a break in July!
Tradeline sales income was $900 in July. I ramped up my tradeline sales last year and discussed it in a bit more detail in my October 2020 monthly post. The company I use, Boost Credit 101, has temporarily opened enrollment for new tradeline sellers for the month of August. If you are interested in selling tradelines too, here is some more info.
Boost Credit 101 takes credit cards issued by Barclays, Discover, TD Bank (Redcard/Target Card only), Citibank, Huntington Bank, Synch (Care Credit only), US Bank, Elan, Amex (Amex-branded only and no charge cards), Capital one, PNC, NFCU, and Chase.
I’ve used Boost Credit 101 for almost a year and from my research and personal experience they are the best and most reputable tradeline selling company.
If interested in selling tradelines, please email investorsupport at boostcredit101.com and make sure to mention that “Root of Good” sent you their way if you want me to get a little referral bonus from them (or don’t mention me if you don’t want to!).
Include this info when you email Boost Credit 101:
- Lender and card type: (e.g. Discover It or Citibank Double Cash) It can’t just be “Citibank Visa”
- Opening date: (month and year)
- Credit limit
- The statement date: (aka closing date, this is not the same date as your payment due date)
Good luck with tradeline sales if you go that route. And thank you if you mention that “Root of Good” referred you to Boost Credit 101!
Moving on to Deposit Income. My “deposit income” totaled $11 in July. This $11 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 $25 purchase through Rakuten, you’ll get a $10 sign up bonus.
My Youtube earnings totaled $275 last month. Here is the channel for the curious. It’s random travel videos, birds, kids, and a couple of DIY videos. There are only two main videos that bring in most of the traffic (and revenue!). Based on several comments on this blog, apparently some folks doubt we make this much from Youtube. Which is funny. I also find it funny that we do actually make this much from Youtube.
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 July expenses:
In total, we spent $2,128 during July which is about $1,200 less than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Travel and taxes were the top two spending categories for the month (just like in June!).
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Travel – $1,035:
We spent 24 days on the road during July and spent $1,035 on travel expenses. I am including the groceries and restaurants we have enjoyed along the way in addition to gas, parking fees, and admission tickets.
A breakdown of the travel spending for the month of July:
- Hotels – $0 (paid for in previous months and/or reserved for free with points)
- Gas – $600
- Groceries and supplies – $90
- Restaurants – $300 (plus another $65 worth of restaurant gift cards bought in the past)
- Parking and admission fees – $45
Since all of our lodging was booked in June or earlier, we didn’t pay anything for lodging last month. We did spend a total of $2,300 in the previous couple of months on airbnb stays and prepaid hotel bookings. We also booked 18 nights in hotels for free throughout our whole trip using 243,500 hotel points spread across the Choice Privileges, Marriott, Hilton, and Wyndham loyalty programs.
Our best hotel point redemption was at the Ridgeline Inn in Gardiner, Montana. I used 8,000 to 16,000 Choice Hotel points per night to book a 2 room suite with full kitchen for six people. In total, the three nights we booked cost 32,000 points which are worth around $200 when valued at 0.6 cents per point. The cash rate was over $600 per night!
When we checked in to the Ridgeline Inn, they profusely apologized that the two bedroom suite only slept four people (and not the six people I had booked under the reservation!). The sleeper sofa had mysteriously disappeared sometime after the room was photographed and listed on their website.
Wow, what?
I told them that I wasn’t really interested in one of my kids sleeping on the floor in a $600 per night hotel room. Maybe they could go find me an extra mattress to throw on the floor? Nope, no dice.
So then I said “how about you just give me a second room?”. No dice there either as they are all booked up! “Well okay, just put me on a waitlist and give me a call in my “suite” if you find an extra room. Ten minutes later the phone rings. By this time it’s almost 10 pm and we’re beyond tired after exploring Yellowstone all day and driving many hours.
Success! The frazzled front desk lady worked her magic and scrounged up a room in the “fully booked” hotel. So we ended up with a second room with two queen beds for all three nights. The room normally would have been $500 per night. But it was free for us. I figured my request for a second room for free was a pretty big ask but it worked.
To summarize, we ended up getting $3,300 worth of hotel rooms for about $200 in Choice Privileges points (32,000 points in total). Best hotel points redemption ever?
If you want to get in on the travel hacking points and miles game, and you have a small business you can get $750+ in cash back bonus or travel with a new Chase Ink business card. No business? You can still get a Chase Freedom personal card with $200 in cash back when you spend $500.
Gas was our biggest travel expense in July at $600. We drove A LOT. And gas was very expensive by American standards in California and a few other western states. Overall we drove 8,200 miles this summer and spent a combined total of $1,035 on gas. This works out to 12.6 cents per mile for gas.
I definitely feel like we paid more than $2.50 per gallon for gas on average which means our fuel economy was greater than 20 miles per gallon. Not bad for a 13 year old minivan! The EPA says our minivan should get 19 mpg in combined driving and 23 mpg highway-only driving, so that sounds about right based on our experience.
We spent $90 on groceries and supplies including some new sunglasses for two of us. The Bonneville Salt Flats were SUNNY!
Restaurant spending totaled $300 (plus $65 of gift cards bought in previous months) which represents six “real” restaurant meals and some fast food. We also enjoyed the free breakfast buffets or grab and go breakfasts when they were available.
We brought some non-perishable staples from home (in case you were wondering how five of us survived on less than $500 for all the food for more than three weeks of vacation).
The remaining $45 of travel spending in July came from various parking and admission fees. Our 4th grader got us into all the National Parks like Sequoia, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Badlands for free. But we had to pay $15 to get into the Antelope Island State Park in Utah and $10 to get into Mt. Rushmore National Monument. The Mt. Rushmore charge was technically a “parking fee” and not an admission fee but you have to pay it to get in unless you walk half a mile or more on a busy narrow two lane road with no sidewalk. We also paid $20 to park at the Los Angeles Hilton.
Taxes – $693:
I found a deal on prepaid Visa gift cards and bought $750 of them for $693. I’ll be paying the quarterly estimated taxes or annual property taxes with these cards.
Groceries – $168:
The $168 we spent on groceries in July represents the cost to restock our fridge and pantry during the last week of July. We intentionally consume all the perishables before we leave on our big trip each summer. So after being gone for 7 weeks, we had quite a long grocery list!
Going forward we should be back to our routine $500 to $600 per month in grocery spending.
As a matter of personal accounting, I categorize groceries purchased while on vacation as a “travel” expense, so our grocery total for July really only covers the one week of July that we were actually in Raleigh.
Utilities – $38:
Our utility bills were next to nothing in July because we weren’t home during the month covered by these bills. We paid $38 just to keep the connections active for the month even though we didn’t consume any water or gas. And electricity consumption was under $10.
In August we should be back to spending a few hundred dollars on utilities because it is really hot here in North Carolina and we have the air conditioning cranked up!
Home Maintenance – $89:
While we were out of town, we paid to have our lawn mowed twice for a total cost of $80.
We spent the remaining $9 of home maintenance expense on a replacement toilet flush valve. Every summer when we leave for a couple months, we shut off the water to our house to prevent extensive water damage from potential leaks in the plumbing. As a result we occasionally have a small plumbing issue we discover upon returning home. My theory is that the lack of water leads to the seals drying out in our toilets, faucets and fixtures.
This year our toilet flush valve was screaming and yelling in a high pitch. I gave it a few days to see if the seal would heal itself and the issue would go away. It did not. End result: $9 for a Fluidmaster 400A toilet flush valve. That fixed the problem.
My forensic analysis of the failed toilet valve indicates some plastic spokes inside the column of the valve had failed at some point. Probably due to a manufacturing defect when the raw plastic was injected into the mold to form the spokes. A couple of these broken spokes would vibrate back and forth along the hairline fractures at a high frequency and “sing” (aka generate a really loud and annoying whistling noise).
In any event, it’s a $9 easily replaceable part. I threw the old one in the trash after installing the new toilet flush valve.
I briefly considered hiring a plumber to swap out the valve since our net worth keeps on growing and we have to spend the money somewhere. Then I realized it would probably be more of a hassle to get a competent plumber or handyman to show up and do the job right instead of just doing it myself. And at $100-150 labor expense, it wouldn’t have been cheap. For the time being, I’ll keep on doing these simple DIY repairs.
General Merchandise – $68:
A bunch of miscellaneous stuff made up this $68 worth of “general merchandise”. This category is the catch all for everything we buy at Walmart, Amazon, or Dollar Tree that isn’t groceries or some other obvious category. Or a mix of multiple categories of expenses that isn’t worth breaking out item by item.
Automotive – $30:
After driving 3,000+ miles across the country and around Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, we were due for an oil change in Las Vegas. I found a local Meineke to swap out the oil in our trusty minivan for a reasonable $30 charge.
Now that we are back home after an additional ~5,000 miles, we are almost due for an oil change once again.
I also took the van in for a routine free tire rotation and balance at Discount Tire while in Las Vegas. Normally they do a great job. This time around I think they failed to properly reinstall the front right hubcap. Somewhere between Las Vegas and Sequoia National Park in California (by way of Los Angeles), we lost a hubcap! It’s possible that someone stole our beat up old hubcap, but very unlikely.
I don’t know what hubcaps cost but $30 feels about right for some basic replacement hubcaps. Our old hubcaps made it through 13 years and look pretty beat up anyway. No big loss there!
Overall our trip-related auto maintenance/repair costs will be about $133:
- oil changes x2: $70
- windshield crack repair kits (bought in June): $33
- new hubcaps: $30
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $10:
Our current 2021 healthcare premiums are $1 per month thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies that we receive due to our low ~$45,000 per year Adjusted Gross Income. The benefit of being “poor” on our tax return.
The “American Rescue Plan Act” passed in March 2021 makes the Affordable Care Act premiums even cheaper through 2022. Households with modified adjusted gross incomes (MAGI) below 150% of the federal poverty level get some silver-level health insurance plans completely free. We opted for a slightly more expensive silver plan that comes with $1,000 in cash back incentive rewards. Our total cost is just over $1 per month now!
In May, we prepaid the health insurance for the entire summer which totaled $5. As a result, there is no cost for health insurance in July.
The only actual medical expense for July was a $10 copay for an eye exam for Mrs. Root of Good.
Gas – $0:
We haven’t bought any gas since returning to Raleigh, hence the $0 gas expenditure. All gas purchased while on our road trip went into the “travel” expense category.
Cable/Satellite – $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 “Emergency Broadband Benefit”.
Total Spending for 2021 – Year to Date
Our spending totaled $14,229 for the first seven months of the year. This is about $9,000 less than the $23,333 we budgeted for seven months of spending in our $40,000 annual early retirement budget.
We are on track to finish the year well under our $40,000 yearly budget. We’re hoping to spend more on travel throughout the fall. We have prepaid for our October cruise but we still owe $1,400 for our family cruise over Christmas. Will these actually happen? Who knows! Two months ago everything looked fine. Today? I’m less certain about our travel prospects.
In the intermediate term over the next 6 to 24 months, we’ll have to buy a second car and start paying for college. Used car prices are way up! However, it’s looking like college bills won’t be so bad due to a combo of financial aid and kids doing AP classes, college transfer classes, and community college for a year before university. Some more thoughts on college spending here.
Monthly Expense Summary for 2021:
- January – $2,577
- February – $951
- March – $1,483
- April – $2,450
- May – $2,418
- June – $2,447
- July – $2,128
Summary of annual spending from all years of early retirement:
- 2014 – $34,352
- 2015 – $23,802
- 2016 – $38,991
- 2017 – $31,708
- 2018 – $29,058
- 2019 – $25,630
- 2020 – $28,466
- 2021 – $14,229 (year to date)
Net Worth: $2,692,000 (-$9,000)
After a year of strongly positive monthly gains, we are now treading water. For the second month in a row our net worth dipped slightly. This time, we lost $9,000 during July to bring our total net worth to $2,692,000. So far August is starting off on a strong note, so we may make back this $9,000 loss and gain a lot more!
These monthly fluctuations are to be expected. Stocks don’t go up a steady 0.5% or 1% per month to generate those 9% average returns long term. In reality, we often see 2-3% monthly swings (up or down) which translates to big five figure and sometimes six figure monthly fluctuations in our portfolio.
The good news is that we aren’t liquidating more than a couple percent of our portfolio in a given year. So we can ignore the short term fluctuations on the other ~98% of our portfolio!
And the truth is that we have enough of a cash buffer and side income sources such that we are often okay without actually selling anything during the year (other than moving funds around for tax saving purposes).
Instead, we live on the cash flow as it rolls in from various sources:
- dividends and interest from our taxable brokerage accounts
- “side hustle” income: early retirement consulting, this blog, and youtube
- tradeline sales
- credit card/bank/brokerage sign up bonuses and promotions
If at some point during the year our cash reserves get depleted, we can always sell a chunk of taxable investments to replenish our savings.
Life update
Vacation is over. Back to work!
Just kidding. Back to relaxing, reading books, watching Netflix, riding my bike, and being a professional dilettante. And updating this blog occasionally.
Looking back on our vacation, I’m glad we did it. We got very lucky with the timing. No travel restrictions and minimal masking requirements almost everywhere we went. It was like a vacation from the global health crisis! Now things aren’t as rosy and I’m not sure traveling will be as easy in the next few months.
We’re already looking ahead to the summer of 2022 but don’t have a clue where to go yet. The only continent that hasn’t come up in discussions so far is Antarctica. So at least we are narrowing down the target geographies a little bit. That’s progress, right?
I’m looking at which countries will be the most heavily vaccinated and therefore more likely open to travel with few or no restrictions. My crystal ball is rusty but hopefully I can gain some clarity soon. It’s really hard to predict 10 months out given the fact that new variants can emerge and wreck any global progress we collectively make.
In the meantime, our travel planning is in a holding pattern. We don’t even know if we’ll be on our cruise in less than two months, let alone traveling the globe in 10 months!
I’d like to go somewhere cooler (temperature-wise) than the southwest USA. Eastern Europe from Hungary north to Poland and the Baltic Sea looks pretty interesting from a “chilling in cooler weather”, culture, and sightseeing perspective. And factoring in vaccine prospects, Europe seems to be well positioned for being open in summer of 2022. Time will tell!
Right now, our household is getting ready for school. Our kids are returning to 4th, 10th, and 11th grades this year. This will be the first time they are attending school in person since March 2020! Our 11th grader is going half time to community college and half time to high school. The community college classes start in less than one week!
The other kids will have back to school orientation in the next two weeks. And we are scrambling to complete all the routine doctor and dentist appointments before school starts.
Busy times! But at least I don’t have a day job, so the rushing around isn’t too bad.
Okay, that’s it for me for this month. See you next time!
Summer is coming to an end already??!! How will you make the most of it?
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As always, Thanks for the great posts, pictures and updates.
A quick question, Do you include your home equity in your personal capital assets at $2.6mil ?
In planning for early retirement and using the 4% rule I assume it’s wise to base the 4% only on investment assets and not include home equity ?
Just curious on your thoughts.
The $2.6M net worth includes home value. But I don’t recommend using home value as part of what you base your 4% withdrawals on. Just use invested assets.
What a fantastic road trip — thank you for sharing it with us! I can’t get over that photo of your Sienna in the middle of an expansive salt flat. It boggles my east coast mind that such places exist and folks can just drive out on them!
We’ve got Cleveland family whom we hoped to visit over Labor Day weekend. That’s looking less and less likely. So it goes.
It was pretty mind-blowing. The scenery out west was amazing to my east coast mind as well. I miss the green landscapes out here but they have a lot of natural beauty out there as well.
What an amazing trip. Would you have the route map to share with us? I’m dying to do something like that and if you drove from NC, that’s a really long trip you must have planned very carefully.
I’m going to try to put out a series of articles outlining my trip including the route.
Where did you find the Visa gift card deal for your taxes? Does this include activation fees? Does Raleigh charge a credit card transaction fee? My tax bill is due this month and is the same as yours so I’d like to save $57 too. Thanks in advance!
I saw it on Doctor of Credit. Can’t remember the actual retailer (but it was online). Yes, the savings include the cost of the activation fees. Raleigh (or rather, Wake County) does charge a credit/debit fee. It is $3.95 flat fee for debit card or 2.3% for credit cards. Definitely worth it if you’re doing sign up bonuses like me. Not sure if it’s worth it unless you get greater than 2.3% in rewards on purchases like taxes (kind of rare unless you have a particular card or a promo offer).
Please write a a book, it will sell really good.
That sounds like too much work! 🙂 Maybe when the kids are out of the house and I have (even more) free time.
Congrats on another great month of personal finance and living life! Really enjoyed following your road trip and the pictures. Love to see you living the life on such a small budget, continuing to show us all how it’s done.
Best of luck with the kids starting school! We started last week here in AZ, and it’s unfortunate how after a brief reprieve the pandemic has taken a turn for the worse.
Oh I know. Disappointing to have pandemic round 4 or whatever we are on. I thought we were done with it! Like everyone I’m ready to get back to “normal”, whatever that ends up being.
Justin, you’re living a millionaire life. It’s awesome to see what you’re able to do with a family of five on such a small budget. We all can learn from you!
How did the kids enjoy the road trip? And do the kids prefer American road trips, cruises or overseas vacations best?
I think pure enjoyment, probably cruises are the favorite for the kids. They are the laziest vacations we take and the unlimited ice cream and pizza on board certainly help. And probably a wash between road trip vs overseas trip. Pros and cons with both. Road trip is easier logistically just because we don’t have to get up early to catch planes and trains. And less walking when we have our car on road trips.
Did you turn off the AC at you home while you were on the road trip? Are you not worried about mold?
AC stays on but we leave it on 88F. The idea is to let it run a little bit occasionally to suck out some moisture. After 7 years of doing that, so far no problems with mold. FYI mold/mildew is our biggest concern of turning the AC off completely which is why we leave it on for the summer. Humidity control without buying dehumidifier(s).
Without moisture sources like showers, laundry, dishwasher, running water, humans respirating/perspirating perspirating, etc the moisture load in the air isn’t too high. Just whatever ambient humidity leaks in from outside the house (not too much I don’t think). Still a little moisture load (self-defrosting fridge, water evaporating from toilets and p-traps, ambient load from outside air, etc) but somewhat minimal I think.
Out of curiosity, why is your daughter attending high school halftime and community college the other half? Is that a program in your county/city?
Yes, it’s called “College and Career Promise” – a program here in NC for all high school students. Free community college dual enrollment. Credits transfer to state universities by law as well 🙂
We’re currently roasting in Playa del Carmen and planning on roasting in Puerto Vallarta next. We have a one-way cruise to Rome late next spring, and this summer has really focused our attention on spending summer months in cooler climates if we plan on being outdoors, so we may drift northwards (Outer Hebrides, anyone?) once the weather in southern and central Europe warms up. You’d think living in Texas would immunize us against the heat, but we’re indoors in A/C 95% of the time. So, your comment about planning around the weather in Europe resonated with me.
We spent a very very very hot and uncomfortable week or so in the Yucatan on our big “summer in Mexico” trip back in 2015. It was so ridiculously hot. It made SE Asia’s oppressive heat and humidity feel pretty decent (maybe it was shadier in Asia?). After dying and melting in the heat on the first day out and about, we decided we would just stay at the villa, enjoy the AC, swim in the pool, and I’d go out and order a big bag full of street tacos and tamales for us every day. And so Tulum was rather nice after we gave up on doing any sightseeing! 🙂
Have fun wherever you end up! Northern UK would do the trick I assume. Even the south of UK doesn’t get baking hot like the Yucatan peninsula.
Hello Justin,
Great monthly update read as always. I usually find something new/interesting in every update 🙂
Question – have you listed your account breakdown anywhere, like % or $ amounts in taxable, HSA, IRAs etc – basically a networth asset and allocation breakdown.
I don’t have a good post on breakdown between various tax status of accts. Roughly 20% taxable, 15% Roth 401k/IRA, 5% HSA, and the math tells me remaining 60% is traditional 401k/IRA! 🙂
Thanks for providing the breakdown.
This probably calls for a post which has potential to get a lot of views 🙂
Probably!
Hopefully you and the whole family will remember this trip for many, many years. Won’t be much longer that you will not be able to do them, particularly as the kids get into college. Life will take them in other directions, fortunately and unfortunately.
Hopefully your cruise in Oct will come about. We had a 10 day cruise scheduled for Sept out of Mobile cancel last month; don’t think Carnival wanted to go out that long just yet. Our next is in Nov and we have a total of five scheduled between then and May, all on the newest Carnival megaship, the Mardi Gras. Since all were rebookings from prior cancellations we are looking at nice OnBoard Credits on each (credit for rebooking, credit for being a shareholder, and credit for, well, making a reservation. Most will average $800 per seven day cruise, a nice perk.)
Yep, we are in a time of the markets moving sideways. Take advantage of high yield investments like REITs, or get into options trading like we mentioned in the past. Lets you pick up some extra income while waiting for the markets to hopefully move upwards again.
I hope your cruises (and mine!) actually happen. And that the hoops we have to jump through aren’t too onerous.
Hey Justin. Followed the blog for years and always love the updates. Thanks. My family and I live about 10 minutes away from antelope island so fun to see it in the post. Question about tradeline sales. Do they send you a 10-99 for the money they pay you or is it like credit card rewards and basically tax free money that doesn’t increase your AGI at tax time?
Yes, the income is taxable. I believe the tax form they send you is a 1099. Can’t recall if 1099-MISC or 1099-NEC. I think the latter. So the AGI will go up!
Do you have vision insurance? Noticed you mentioned a co-pay for the vision exam.
No vision insurance. This was an ophthalmological visit for a specific vision concern but ended up being a free eye exam too (20/20, good vision, no glaucoma!).
Looks like a fantastic road trip. I’m impressed with the amount of money you spend on food for 24 days.
We brought 3 huge boxes of non-perishables and staples from home so that certainly helped (spaghetti o’s from the can never tasted so good when you get to the hotel at 10 pm and you had a looooong day on the road and you’re tired and in the middle of nowhere with no restaurants or stores).
We didn’t go out every single day. About half the 24 days we were in Airbnbs or hotel suites with full kitchen, so we cooked in the house/suite some. Otherwise, $20 for fast food or pizza. $30-50 for Mexican places (hit a happy hour 50% off deal at 1 of them for example). I think the most expensive was $82 for a Cambodian restaurant. Also got a free meal in Vegas using a Groupon credit I had from 2020!
Yes, all those restaurants we visited are “full sit down meals”. Mexican, cambodian, chinese, as I mentioned. I guess 1 was technically a “stand up and walk to the buffet” meal but there was a waitress and a tablecloth and they serve you drinks at the table. We are good at getting deals so just pretend we spent $1000 on restaurants and that would translate to a “not fancy $240 meal” that you are accustomed to.
It’s also worth noting that we were in National Parks a lot of the days and there aren’t any great sit-down options in general. Sometimes they have restaurants in-park but lines were insane at most of them. And others were closed because of covid, so we packed lunches instead. So much easier and more flexible vs trying to drive to the 1 restaurant in park that might be an hour away from wherever we were at the time. Eat when hungry vs wait in line for an hour – guess which one works better with kids 🙂
If you avoid paying for drinks and keep your portions under control, its pretty easy to keep the costs around $10 or less/person in non-fancy ethnic places. For instance, an entre at most sit down Mexican places can easily feed 2 people for $15 or less before tax and tip.
Yes, our experience in general. We don’t usually share plates unless the are really big though. And sometimes there is a nice “dinner for two” or “family dinner” option where you can get fajitas for $20 that are designed for 2 people (for example). Also some family bundles at fast food where it’s cheaper if you are feeding 4-6 people (bucket of chicken+sides for $20 or BK/McD’s burger+fries+nuggets meal deals for $13-20 – both come close to feeding 5 of us)
If you wanna talk about Central / Eastern Europe, let me know. Happy to share insights as you progress with planning
Thanks, sounds good! Any off the beaten path places you would suggest in Slovakia or Poland? I’ve watched a ton of travel videos and looked at websites and seems like I’m seeing the same 25 things in Poland and same 15 things in Slovakia. Plenty of stuff to see but I also love hidden gems that no one knows about 🙂
Depends what you’d like but a few less-known Polish examples below:
1) Nature areas: Klodzko Valley, Beskid Mountains, Slowinski National Park, Dolina Malej Laki (doesn’t really have an English name, but would be “the valley of small meadows” in Tatra mountains)
2) Experiences: overnight stay in salt mine (Wieliczka), Miedzyrzecki Fortified Region (30km of underground tunnels open for visitors), wineries near Zielona Gora (you can stay there overnight, travel between them etc.)
3) History: Warsaw Uprising Museum, Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, The Raclawice Panorama
I did not list things like: Baltic see or visiting Auschwitz Birkenau because most likely you’ve seen that 100x times.
Thanks for the tips! I’ll make sure to check them out. Those are some new ones to research beyond what I’ve seen in the travel videos.
Any advice for what to do now for someone who wants to get started with tradeline sales in 1-2 years? I’m taking out my last loan ever in ~18 months and don’t want to start it before I take out the loan but want to ramp it up after.
Get some credit cards, let em sit for 2 years then start selling TLs. I like no annual fee cards so your annual cost is zero. The rates the TL companies pay are much higher for 2+ yr old cards vs younger cards, so focus on getting the cards “seasoned” for 2+ years. And that means starting soon. I’d say you can get a couple of cards now and get started with seasoning. Shouldn’t impact your credit score too much for a loan you’ll need in 18 months. Just lay off the new credit apps in the 6 months before your big loan in 18 months and you should be fine.
Hi Justin,
I’m wondering what cards you see as “expendable” for tradeline sales. Or how you gauge the risk for a certain card account when deciding to do them.
Do you only use cards where you don’t use the card benefits or card points? And only cards you may have just gotten the min spend bonus on and then let it sit there?
I’m relatively new to churning credit cards, and I’m very weary about getting any accounts into bad standing with any cc companies. For example I would be worried about using a Capital One card for tradelines if it would possible that the card gets closed and that get me in hot water with my current or future Capital One accounts.
Would love your insight into how you approach breaking the ToS on some cards.
Overall I plan to do tradelines but only once I’m sure I have a some cards I’m comfortable losing.
I do use some cards I would be sad to lose but the benefit of $200-250 every month or two (per card) is worth more than the benefits themselves. The cards I’m dealing with, I can cash out or transfer the points before the card is closed so I won’t lose all of them.
So I guess I’m pretty risk-accepting when it comes to what I’m doing. Bottom line is if you don’t want to lose access to a credit issuer, then don’t do TL sales with them. I don’t have any particular love of any of the card issuers (maybe Chase?) so I’m okay taking the risk.
Sounds like a great trip. Personally I am thankful to live in a large country with so many different and beautiful national parks . I particularly like the scenery out west. I hope the wildfire situation was not too bad.
Yes, it was great to see the rest of my country! Wildfires weren’t too bad. We had a couple of scares where the road was on fire a day or two before we went through (I-5 in California for example) but overall the biggest problem was the smoke and limited visibility. LA was a mess but I don’t know if that was wildfire related (probably) or just the “regular” dirty air from smog.
I thought the every kid in every park 4th grade pass start with school year? Is it not sep 2020 to aug 2021?
I’m not sure on the exact dates, but they have a web page. I was a little confused because Yosemite actually said “5th grade free pass” so maybe they extended the dates because of covid. Or used to be a 5th grade program?
Personal Capital is also a solid tool for investment management. Keeping track of our entire investment portfolio takes two clicks.
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I have some questions about how PC works.
If I just sign up for a free PC account and link to one of my investment accounts. What kind of information is shared with PC exactly?
Would PC know my social security number? (Even though you don’t need a social security number to sign up for PC.) Would PC know my address, full account numbers (or just the last 4 digits), etc.? I just curious how much data that is stored with the investment account is shared once that account is linked into PC.
I don’t know the full answer to that question but I would check on PC’s FAQs to see a more definitive answer as I recall they discussed it on their site somewhere. Or get in touch with them to verify!
My thinking is that they would not have your SS number in all likelihood. Most financial sites shy away from publishing that on their account overview pages or in their API interface (PC pulls data from one or the other depending on the financial site I think). Address – might be in the data but probably gets discarded once the account holdings are siphoned from the raw data. Acct number – I think the whole acct number gets transmitted to PC for investments, maybe just last 4 for credit cards. Only last 4 show up on PC’s display.
But to be honest I’m not 100% sure. I’d suggest clarifying with them or not using the service if data privacy/security is a big concern and you can’t get adequate answers.
Super fun travels! That’s what summer is for. Are your kids picky with restaurants and do you guys share entrees or make them drink water/only order x amount per person? I used to be amazing with my kids and eating out on coupons, etc, but now they are all teens and are pickier about what they want and get resistant when I use coupons or set a lot of parameters. I’m just curious how you did $300 for 6 sit down meals and fast food. We also tip 20-25% so that makes me do sit down even less!
We share entrees sometimes but still order 1 per person. Sometimes more if we want to try several different things.
Rule on drinks – water in general. If they have “fancy” drink like boba, smoothies, milkshakes etc the kids and Mrs. Root of Good often get those. I prefer to consume my calories in solid form so I get water. My philosophy on paying for soda/pop: Why pay $3+ (incl tax and tip) for 1 drink when you can buy a 2 liter for $0.89 and serve everyone when you’re picnicking or dining in your hotel/airbnb/at home? That’s a ~$15 savings right there. We do buy drinks sometimes if the place doesn’t have free water cups (an authentic street taco sit down Mexican restaurant in Vegas was like this – I think bottles of water were $1.50 or $2 and we got a few but didn’t open 1 as I recall).
We also hit up the weekly specials at several places instead of using a coupon. Like 50% off a selection of appetizers during 3-5 pm and $2 draft beers. We did that at a pretty nice sit down Mexican restaurant/bar place in Idaho. Total was $44 or so including tax and tip and we got 7 appetizers and 3 beers I think. Apps ended up $3-4 each for what was basically a full meal. Even took home some leftover nachos! And I even tipped on the full price pre-discount so the tip was closer to 30-something percent of what we actually paid.
As far as picky kids – they may grumble privately but they seem to enjoy what we get in general. It’s hard to make 5 people happy of course. We went to several Mexican restaurants and my 9 year old is pretty picky. He basically only eats quesadillas and even then he’s very picky (no beans or meat or veggies can TOUCH the quesadilla). But we decided to get several different kinds of tacos at 1 place so he sat quietly and refused to eat anything (including the chips and plain tortilla and plain chicken). Such is life in the first world occasionally – one must endure a temporary hardship and eat <1 hour later at the airbnb when there is a wide variety of food choices available.
I will add that we skipped all the tourist traps. The places where a merely okay burger (or salad) was $16 and fries are $4, plus tax and tip. I can see how five people could easily spend $100-150 on fairly basic food a few times per day if you didn't look at menu prices when selecting a restaurant to dine at.
Looks like a great trip Justin! Hope the family enjoyed it! I’m also glad you got to see some of our “wide open spaces” out West here before things begin to lock down again.
Can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but … eh, that’s life!
You think we’ll see big lockdowns? I feel like we never really had them at all here in most of the USA. I guess I was fortunate in that most of the stuff I routinely do out of the house is essential (groceries, restaurant take out, educational, recreation that is exercise).
It was certainly weird to travel during the 2 months where the pandemic was basically over! Hopefully we get back there soon (I know we are all ready)
Those Sequoia trees are magnificent! What a beautiful holiday you guys had. I’m looking forward to a bit if local travel too, hopefully our cases continue to decrease.
Did you see any towns on the way that you thought would be fun to move to or is home still the best?
Home is still the best.
I think my top choice of “places I might move” from our trip would be Idaho Falls in Idaho. Smaller than Raleigh but still big enough. Downsides are a lot of snow in winter and it gets cold (I’d have to wear pants!) and the airport isn’t nearly as big as ours. Maybe somewhere in Ohio could be nice too. Very green like home.
Colorado was pretty impressive but it gets hot in summer and cold and snowy in winter. Cost of living is somewhat higher too. Saw a lot of bike paths in Boulder which I like. But I think Boulder would be a bit like my old college town and I didn’t like it that much (the politics, lack of common folk, etc).
Cool to see Ohio! You stopped by my neck of the woods! I live just a few miles from the Air Force Museum and work in the tower on top of the hill overlooking it.
Working research for the Air Force means I get to see a lot of the country, and I gotta admit even though we don’t exactly have the epic scenery or perfect weather of the rest of the country, there’s something about Ohio that keeps me content.
Looking to take the FIRE plunge early next year. Going to be barista FIRE at first but I don’t need to earn much, and after watching your families low spending for years now I know it can be done. Mostly I want to enjoy the time with my young family while they are young, even if it means being a bit riskier than I planned. Thanks for keeping us inspired!
My biggest complaint about Ohio (I would guess) is that I can’t wear shorts basically all winter and it might snow more than once. Not sure about your climate though!
Will opening a roth ira account be qualified for the 1k Interactive Brokers offer?
I’d check the terms and conditions but I believe it is just taxable brokerage accounts.
Thank you Justin!
Great summary of your journey.
I do have a question regarding your your side hustle – sale trades? Could you explain the scope how that contributes to your income?
Thank you.