After a busy month of traveling in Europe, I finally have a pause in the schedule to pull together another monthly update. We spent the first three weeks of our vacation in Croatia. Then we traveled a couple of hours north where we stayed in the middle of the Julian Alps in northwestern Slovenia for two weeks.
As of this writing, we have returned to Croatia for a week of relaxation at a farm stay in a little village in the mountains. Then we head to Hungary for a couple of weeks before returning to the United States.
It has been a busy summer so far, but we have seen a lot of cool stuff and checked off some bucket list items. In Slovenia, we revisited some favorite places that we visited on our last trip to Slovenia five years ago (covered in two previous blog posts on Ljubljana, Slovenia and the Julian Alps).
Financially, we had a month of mixed results. Our net worth dropped sharply due to a downturn in the stock market. By month end, our net worth dropped by $177,000 to end the month at $2,593,000. Cash flow presented a prettier picture. Our income in June was rather high at $12,743 while expenses remained moderate at $3,782 for the month.
Let’s jump into the details from last month.
Income
Investment income totaled $9,875 in June. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. As a result, we had a very large amount of investment income last month. Here’s more on our dividend investments.
Blog income totaled $554 for the month. Last month’s blog income was lower than normal but July’s blog income should be higher.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) was $957 in June. These earnings came from 5.75 hours of consulting work during the month. July consulting income will be a lot lower because I had to postpone some work due to really bad internet connections at our Airbnb’s in Europe so far.
Tradeline sales income totaled $175 in June. This is lower than the past couple of months but still a nice chunk of change for minimal effort. 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 June, my “deposit income” totaled $20. This 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.
I didn’t receive any income from Youtube in June. 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’ll be getting paid a bit under $200 every two months.
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!).
The final $1,160 of income for June came from credit card bonuses. I cashed out $1,060 in rewards from our new Capital One Venture X credit card. This was the $1,000 sign up bonus plus $60 for the spending I put on the card. I also cashed out $100 in cash back earned from a US Bank card.
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 June expenses:
In total, we spent $3,782 during June which is about $400 more than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Travel and Utilities were the top two spending categories for last month.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Travel – $2,842:
We are traveling at the moment, hence the much higher than normal travel spending.
The bulk of the travel expenses came from the $1,520 rental car fee. We booked a rental car out of Budapest, Hungary and then paid several hundred dollars for the rental car company to deliver the car to us in Zagreb, Croatia. So we are basically doing a one way rental from Zagreb to Budapest.
I had the option to take a 5 hour bus ride to Budapest, pick up the car, and then drive back to Zagreb to reunite with the rest of the family. After paying for gas, tolls, and an extra rental car day, the USD $335 delivery fee didn’t seem so steep, so I chose the easy way.
For our 37 day rental, we ended up paying $41 per day including the delivery fee. We initially booked a slightly cheaper category of rental car. And at the last minute they said they were “all sold out” of that model, and “upgraded” me for a small fee to a “much larger SUV”. It’s basically a compact SUV by American standards and just barely big enough to hold our minimalist luggage. But I paid the slightly higher price because I didn’t have much of a choice at the last minute, when daily rental car rates were $250/day in Zagreb.
The rental car makes our vacation so much more relaxing compared to relying on public transit. Where we’ve been in the countryside, there is generally some minimal level of bus service. But the bus only runs twice per day (9 am and 4 pm, for example) or every 2-3 hours. So it’s incredibly inconvenient given the alternative of paying $41/day plus a little bit for gas to go wherever we want whenever we want.
Other than the rental car, the next biggest expense was for groceries and restaurants. I didn’t break out the food expense separately because a lot of the transactions were paid in cash withdrawn from an ATM. However, it appears to be about $900 spent on groceries and dining out. But that overstates the cost a bit because I withdrew too much money while in Croatia and we are still spending the last bit of that right now (since we returned to Croatia for a week in July).
We also paid about $150 for various transit tickets, uber from the airport, parking, tolls, and museum/park admissions (which were minimal). Plus another $54 for round trip cable car rides up and down the Sljeme Mountain in Zagreb (about 3,000 feet elevation gain over the course of the 16 minute ride).
Gas for the rental car totaled $70 in June. We’re getting around 40 miles per gallon so the gas costs are actually cheaper per mile here in Europe than it would be at home in the USA driving our 21 mpg minivan. Converted to dollars per gallon, we paid $6.50 to $6.80 per gallon for 95 octane gas over here. So just a bit more than what folks in high priced California cities were paying at the same time period for premium fuel.
When we go to Hungary in a few days, we’ll be paying about USD $4.50 per gallon thanks to a fuel subsidy for Hungarian-registered cars (like our rental car!).
The last travel expense was a big one. We paid $200 in total for 2-day tickets to Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. It was nice to have two days there instead of just one day. That way, we could take our time to enjoy the scenery instead of rushing through the park along the lakeside trails. We saw plenty of guided tours on what appeared to be a forced march through the park, with the tour guide yelling “mush mush mush, little doggies” the whole time. Okay, the tour groups didn’t get mistreated that much but I wouldn’t want to be on their tours!
If you are interested in getting free travel from your credit card like I do, consider the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (my referral link). Right now the Sapphire Preferred card offers 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be used to book $750 worth of travel. Or transfer the points to a ton of different airline frequent flyer programs and book a free trip to Europe. Or cash out the points for a $600 check and buy whatever you want! The card also has a lot of nice travel benefits as well.
Utilities – $333:
The total utility spending back home in Raleigh was $333 last month.
We spent $169 on the electric bill and $135 for the water/sewer/trash bill. The natural gas bill, which provides heating and hot water, totaled $30 for last month.
The high electricity bill is due to hot temperatures in May and June before we left home. We cranked the AC to stay cool! The next few months of electricity bills will be substantially lower since we are out of town for half of June and August and all of July. The water and natural gas bills should drop quite a bit too, however those utilities have large monthly flat fees regardless of usage.
Taxes – $300:
I paid $300 toward my second quarter North Carolina estimated income taxes.
Groceries – $245:
We only spent $245 on groceries while at home in Raleigh in June. The number is fairly low mainly because we were only home half of the month and trying to leave home with the fridge mostly empty.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $40:
Our current 2022 health insurance is completely free thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies that we receive due to our low ~$45,000 per year Adjusted Gross Income.
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 select silver-level health insurance plans completely free.
For the adults in the household, we spend $20 per month ($240 per year) for a basic dental insurance plan for each of us (or $40 per month in total). Our routine dental exams and cleanings with the occasional x-ray have increased in price recently. The cost is now $125 (no x-ray) or $170 (with x-ray).
With two routine visits per year, we will spend almost $300 per person. A $240 insurance plan provides those same services for free. And we get some minimal level of insurance if one of us needs a filling during the year.
Gas – $18:
Gas prices were extremely high in early to mid June but I needed a few gallons to get us through the first half of June while we were in town. Plus a little bit more gas to get us to and from the airport! So I bought a quarter of a tank for $18.
Hopefully prices drop back down by the time we get home to Raleigh.
Home Maintenance – $6:
I had to refill our gas can for the lawnmower. With gas at almost $4.50 per gallon, the 1.2 gallons in the can totaled almost $6!
Restaurants – $2:
I had several free burrito coupons to use at Moe’s in June. But to use the app to order ahead, you have to pay $0.38 per order. So I spent just over a dollar to buy the convenience of having our orders ready as soon as we show up instead of waiting in line and placing our orders in person.
I don’t include restaurant meals while we’re on vacation, but here are some good food pics from our trip so far.
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”.
Total Year-To-Date Spending for 2022
Our spending totaled $17,157 for the first six months of 2022. This is about $3,000 less than the $20,000 we budgeted for six months of spending in our $40,000 annual early retirement budget.
So far our spending looks incredibly good all things considered. Inflation continues to drive up prices for staples like food, utilities, and travel expenses. But we are still somehow under budget!
In August when we return home from our summer trip, we will hopefully be able to purchase an additional car. Used car prices are finally starting to drop since February. I hope car prices continue that downward trend all summer so we won’t be paying $10,000 for a 15 year old Ford Escort. A little tiny baby recession in used car prices will be a welcome relief for us.
Our oldest kid starts full time community college in the fall. It’s looking like financial aid will cover the entire cost and cover all the books too. So we shouldn’t have to dip into the 529 plan too much. And in any event, the full price tag including books and fees is only $3,000 if we were to have to pay out of pocket.
In the fall and winter months, we have three cruises booked totaling 20 days. I am about to make final payments on two of those cruises that will total just under $1,000.
Overall, our spending looks good for the rest of the year. But this might be the year that we finally break the $40,000 spending level that we have budgeted for all along. And that’s totally fine because our portfolio has gone up quite a bit since I retired nine years ago, even after adjusting for inflation.
Monthly Expense Summary for 2022:
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 – $31,740
- 2022 – $17,157 (year to date)
Net Worth: $2,593,000 (-$177,000)
Down $177,000 in one month and here we are gallivanting across Europe spending money like crazy.
Truth be told, I think we are good. The stock market just had a little hiccup and we’ll probably be back to record high stock market valuations in a year or three or five.
Our withdrawal rate is under 3% of our portfolio now. That means we won’t even need to touch 97% of our portfolio for over a year. A lot can happen in a year, so why worry about it today?
I’d rather enjoy the somewhat expensive vacation we are on instead of focusing time and energy on stock market fluctuations that I have no control over.
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
Another great month of early retired life is in the books. We have been incredibly busy the first month of our trip through Europe. But we booked a nice quiet airbnb up in the hills for a week right in the middle of our vacation. We’ve been lounging around, taking in the views, and feeding/playing with the critters on the farm.
And catching up on emails, social media, video games, and keeping in touch with friends and family back home. Our airbnb host runs a restaurant downstairs from us. So delicious hot cooked meals are available for a reasonable price if we are too lazy to cook something for ourselves, or make the 15 minute journey into town to dine out.
So far, we have been fairly lucky with the weather. It’s only rained hard a few times and we were either hunkered down in our Airbnb or able to take refuge inside a restaurant for lunch to wait out the passing storm.
The heat is another story. Europe is in the midst of another heatwave, and it’s hot outside! We’ve had air conditioning of varying quality everywhere we’ve stayed except two places, so it hasn’t been too bad overall. And it’s dry enough here that 90F degrees or even 100F degrees doesn’t feel that bad in the shade with a breeze. But I’m definitely bumping up “air conditioning” in our priorities for future airbnb bookings if we are anywhere south of the artic circle (and north of Buenos Aires) during summertime!
In a few days we will continue our journey east to Hungary where we will wrap up our two month trip in eastern Europe. Then we head home in mid-August. Our older two kids will have a few days to relax at home before their community college classes start for the fall semester.
That’s it for this month’s update! See you in August!
How is your summer going so far? Staying cool?
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How do i connect with you re consulting? I would like to know more about things like getting $10k per year in travel from signing up for new credit cards. Safe travel
A link to my consulting page.
Fantastic update! I’ve never gone anywhere in Europe that wasn’t incredibly well-served by trains and trams and buses, but you’re making a very strong case with these photos and stories. Safe travels and good luck beating the heat!
It seems like most of the surface area of Europe isn’t well served by transit. Mainly the cities. And there’s SO much to see outside the cities. In the past, we’ve done the city stays and just rent a car for a few days here and there. This time around, we just kept the car for all 5 weeks, but also stayed outside the city almost all the time. Except this week where we’re in the city. But for the 5 of us, the $300/wk car cost isn’t a lot more than intercity bus/train tickets for the whole family. And we don’t have to pay for excursions to places (just hop in the car!). I’d recommend the car rental if you want to get into the countryside and explore!
How does car insurance work when you rent a car in Europe? Thanks!
They included free insurance with an $800 deductible. And I used my premium Capital One Venture X credit card to get extra insurance on the car (for free).
Justin, great write-up as usual. Really enjoy these tourist posts (also the financial stuff too)! And it looks like a smart idea to wait just a little bit longer on buying the second car as it appears there will be lots of repossessed cars coming on the market soon (according to Mish) driving prices down. Check out his latest post:
https://mishtalk.com/economics/a-flood-of-repossessed-cars-poised-to-hit-the-used-car-market
Let’s hope so. These used car prices are crazy right now!
Glad to hear from you, Justin; thought we might not until the fall. So enjoy your blog 🙂
Internet in our airbnbs all summer (until this week and part of last week) has been pretty bad. I didn’t think I’d be able to get anything published till we get home in August, either! I gave up trying several times in early July. But we got it done thanks to solid internet the last little bit!
You went to Plitvice, nice! Was it crowded? I was told it takes 2 hours just to buy tickets in the summer.
Lol that donkey is super cute. Glad you were able to get the kids out from that elevator.
Plitvice was pretty crowded but not too bad. Didn’t ruin the experience for us. Just a lot of ppl. Go early or late, I think that’s the secret. And for you guys, just go off season. Tickets are way cheaper off season anyway (like 1/3rd the price of peak season, seriously). And crowds/heat will be less. We also picked the weekdays to visit (hoping to avoid the weekend visitors from Zagreb or other nearby cities).
We bought tickets online I think the day before (or 2 days before) and had no problem getting the tickets that way. I think we just showed the PDF of the tickets to the worker at the park gate and they scanned the tix and let us in. No real lines. We had 9 am admission time slot IIRC (so had to show up 9 to 10 am ONLY on the 1st day, then any time 2nd day).
There was a bit of a delay taking the shuttle between the middle of the park back toward the entry to the park. Probably 30 minutes of waiting since the 1st shuttle was crowded. So we sat and waited and rested, then scrambled to pack into the next shuttle.
Thanks Justin for the great photos from Croatia. It looks like an amazing place to visit! Do many of the workers in stores, restaurants and tourist attractions there speak English?
It’s a crapshoot. Overall I’d say 80% have spoken enough English to transact business. The other 20% I google translate or just go w/ the flow, pantomime, point and hand wave, or fail to do business completely. We’ve been getting pretty far out in the sticks everywhere we go and it always surprises me when a random gas station attendant or waitress speaks nearly fluent English and we are 20-30 minutes from the nearest town of any size.
95 octane in Europe is about the same as 91 octane in the US. Europe uses the RON rating, while in the US we use an average of RON and MON.
That makes sense. I couldn’t remember the US Octane ratings for Premium since I usually buy “regular” (which is 87 Octane as I recall).
Some amazing photos and a great update! What a lifetime family experience that you have created!
My family plans on traveling to Europe for 2-3 months next summer. If it is not too much work for you, could you please give us a brief breakdown of your whole travel costs i.e. accommodations, food/dining out, transportation (domestic flights/trains, etc), attraction sightseeing fee. That would be great! Thanks & enjoy the rest of your adventure!
That’s a lot of info!
Basically: $300/wk on rental car (5+ weeks worth of that)
Lodging: $100-150/nt in most places when we book a 2-3BR apartment for a week.
Transport – just gas for the rental car and gas is $5-7/gallon; a few transit tickets and they are $0.50-$1 per ride so far.
Food – restaurants seem to be $20-40 per meal for the five of us depending on country and price of restaurants (we’re dining on the cheap side); groceries are comparable to US prices overall as long as we are buying European local foods
Sightseeing – I’d say about 1/2 the cost of most US-based attractions. Like museums are $3-5 vs $10+ in the USA. The one big expense was Plitvice Lakes in Croatia (it’s incredibly busy and popular) and it’s $200 for a 5 person ticket for 2 days. Still very reasonable $20/person/day (it includes public transport around the park and a boat ride across the lake).
What did you do for cell phone coverage over there? I got a data only e-sim in Italy last month. It was cheap, $7 for 3GB 5G data. Downside was it was data only, no voice. Wasn’t a problem as we all had iphones so we could just use facetime audio. Upside was that I used my e-sim “slot” in my iphone for the first time and it worked perfectly. Better than paying the $10/day per line from AT&T if I used my US SIM card.
Using Google’s Project Fi phone service. It’s $20/month plus $10 per GB. But I pause the service frequently when we’re just chilling in the airbnb or if I’m just running out for a minute. So we’ve probably only used a total of a week or two worth of service time (they bill hourly based on whether it’s paused or not). And data usage so far is under 1 GB. So the whole summer’s usage will cost <$20 probably and I'm able to use it in all 3 countries we visited.
That food looks so delicious! It looks like a great trip! I’d love to hear more about your daughter’s financial aid. Our financial situation is similar I think (similar NW, paid off house), but when I run the estimated cost simulations it looks like we would have to pay quite a bit.
We still haven’t received the financial aid letter/award and tuition is due in 9 days. Fortunately I can pay last minute w/a credit card and it’s “only” $1400 for the fall semester. And I expect we’ll get reimbursed eventually. Basically just filled out the FAFSA and they gave us a nice favorable aid estimate.
Question regarding dividends. Are your dividends that you are reporting in tax deferred or taxable account?
I tend to think of dividends in taxable as income but not in tax deferred as we aren’t drawing from them currently. The dividends are still being reinvested and reflected in the overall balance.
Loved the pictures and making me excited for our upcoming Europe trip. Excited to hear about Budapest as we are going too.
I report dividends from tax deferred and taxable accounts. About a third of the total dividends come from the taxable account. I actually reinvested most of them this quarter just because we don’t currently need the cash and the market was down pretty low.
Budapest looks cool. I’m researching it right now. We depart for Budapest in just a couple of days and have a whole week and a half there!
now my favorite dish is gonna be one of those massive hot buttered hamburgers! i’ll have mine with a side of heart attack.
enjoy the rest of the trip and watch out for the honyocks.
We didn’t really know what we were getting when we ordered it. And then it comes out and it’s a HUGE meat patty. And I thought it was cheese on top but it’s like a thick creamy fermented butter. Just delicious but I did cleanse my arteries w/ a nice big leafy salad for dinner (that’s how it works, right?).
Great update as always Justin! Love the pic of the elevator getting stuck 🙂 The net worth drop, while always a little bit of a bummer, is just so sleight you can tell it’s going to have zero effect on your future happiness. Great place to be.
–Fred
And we’re making up most of those losses so far in July (or maybe we made up 100% of the losses – haven’t even peeked yet 🙂 )
Plitvice Lakes National Park looks very nice. I know it is a popular attraction.
Did you see any effects from the Ukraine war while you were there?
I haven’t seen any obvious signs of the war in Ukraine. I did see a military convoy heading east way back in June, but might just be local military operations (I think it was in Croatia near the Adriatic so no particularly close to the conflict area, but headed in the right direction many hundreds of miles away).
No refugees at all that I’ve noticed. I did read a news article claiming that tourism is way down in Hungary and elsewhere in eastern Europe but I find that hard to believe given how crowded it’s been lately.
Hi Justin! It looks like you’re having a wonderful journey! Those locations look beautiful. Although, to be honest I’ve never heard of any of the places you are traveling too!
Congrats on your oldest graduating high school too! Will she start paying you rent soon? Or, are you doing the “free room and board for life” thing?
Cheers for another great month.
We kind of planned our trip to places that are relatively undiscovered. 🙂 So far so good!
The oldest kid graduated HS a year early. She will live at home and spend this year attending community college so it’s sort of like her 12th grade year except she’ll get college credit for everything (and live at home). No rent yet – as long as she’s in school full time!
wow I so envy you guys!! I’ll do that next year which will include Greece if all goes well.
It’s so nice not having to include rent in these monthly expense reports. I whish I could afford a home and not die before I pay it off!
Is your house inheritance or did you buy it using mortgage?
We bought it right out of college. Pretty cheap back then, only $108,000 (in 2003). And paid it off around 2015 I think.
Which dental insurance plan did you choose?
I went with Truassure and have used them off and on in the past few years. Cheap enough, and no problems so far!
Thank you for the update. I understand we are in all different situations but good to read your information and make adjustments in my life.
You’re welcome!
Great update! We just got back from 2 months in France and it was a life highlight for all involved.
One question – have you written / read any good resources on preparing your finances leading up to kids in college? Saw that they are covered by financial aid which is great and I’d love to do the same w/ our kids 🙂
I just have 1 article on college costs/savings and it’s right here. Not too specific for FAFSA/crafting AGI and income streams but maybe something helpful in there.
Do you happen to know if asset in the citi wealth management account counts towards $200,000+ balance to remain a Citigold client and any good ideas to use the $200 annual membership rebate?
Yes, investments held with Citi Wealth Management count toward the 200k Citigold balance requirements. That’s how I’ve met the Citigold minimums (only $5k in my savings account at Citi).
I’ve used the subscription rebate for Amazon membership and Costco in the past. There is a way you can buy an Amazon Prime membership (“Gift of Prime”) then not redeem it, but instead cash it in and convert to a gift card. I’ve done that a few times this year since I get $400/yr subscription rebates with the Private Client account. Look at Doctor of Credit for more info on that little trick!
Are you considering on taking advantage of any of the new energy efficient tax credits from the newly inflation reduction act? They will credit up to 50-100% of the cost of electric stoves, electrical wiring, heat pumps etc.
Not planning any of that right now but I’ll have to look into it! I like free/subsidized stuff even if the subsidies increase demand and drive up inflation 🙂
Yeah, I’ve already heard that the Mitsubishi mini-split heat pump systems are on multi-month backlogs so inevitably prices will go up until supply/demand gets back in sync. I’d personally be more in favor of taxing carbon as a way to nudge people towards reducing energy use and they can figure out the best way to achieve that.
I haven’t found out any of the details on whether they’re going to adjust the income cutoffs for family size or anything like that but it looks like you’d qualify for the max credits for being under 80% of “area median income” which would likely allow you to qualify for 100% subsidies to convert your heating, cooling, water heating, dryer, electric range, circuit boxes etc to more efficient ones. It looks like the credits aren’t refundable so you might have to spread them over multiple tax years though.
Natural gas is so cheap that I’d lose out big time if I switched water heater and furnace to electric (even super efficient heat pump). And the rest of the stuff is already electric but probably not the most efficient. Honestly I’m not sure if I want some of the efficient appliances since I like the performance and operations of what we have now (or planned non-efficient upgrades). Even if they were giving me stuff for free.
As it is, I pay very little in taxes so if the credits aren’t refundable I am not sure how I could benefit. The new/used car EV credits look more appealing since they are refundable. I’ll definitely keep an eye on these credits. Looks like the home improvement credits are going to be doled out through the states, and you have to wait to see what regulations and programs they come up with in the coming months.
Yeah, I haven’t run the numbers with my actual gas/electric rates and usage but according to the EPA energy guide numbers, the heat pump water heaters do save money over even the more efficient tankless gas ones. However, they likely have much bigger installation and maintenance costs that likely wouldn’t make the switch worthwhile unless it’s truly free with these credits.
I’ve yet to see all of the mechanics of how the payouts work but I’d think they’d have to offer the credits as a direct actual discount on the appliance installation costs because people making under the 80% area median income pay very little in taxes and it wouldn’t be worthwhile for them to make the change for a non-refundable credit.
Hi Justin!
I’m really enjoying reading about your summer vacations. Totally relate to having needing a AC at all your future AirBnB’s. I personally can’t sleep well when its too hot, that is one area I’m not super frugal on 🙂
As I reading I noticed you have travel marked at $2842 for your Europe Trip with the bulk of your travel expense coming in at $1520 for a 37 day car rental. Amazing deal btw!! I’m trying to optimize and plan for a future trip and follow many of your tactics to dial in spending. As I read carefully thru the blog post I didn’t see a expense for lodging/housing on your Europe Trip. Were you able to stay free at places or with family? Maybe I missed that portion! I kinda like details and just trying to get a full picture of the total cost for your trip with the kids ( I also have a younger daugther). I thought that would possible be the bulk of your travel expense. How did you optimize there? Can you provide any clarity?
Thanks for your inspiring blog posts!! Good luck with the used car shopping:}
I think we spent $6600 for the ~56 nights in Europe. That works out to $117 per night which sounds about right. Most of that cost was paid in the early part of 2022 when we actually booked the accommodations, with some payments in April or May as well. Overall, there seemed to be a lot of competition from other tourists for the places we visited, so I was surprised at how much we had to pay for some places that ended up being merely “okay” but not always great.
I think everywhere we booked was Airbnb.