Welcome back to another monthly update from Root of Good! We have enjoyed almost a full month back at home in Raleigh since our last vacation but we’re about to hit the high seas again in a couple of days.
We also managed to take a short mini-vacation in the middle of March with all of our kids. Our family visited the Outer Banks of North Carolina for two days during a nice and warm weekend.
Overall, March was a busy month for me between preparing my own taxes and planning a bunch of trips throughout the summer and fall. Hopefully April will bring a slower pace of life since I don’t think I’ll have as many “chores” to take care of.
On to our financial progress. March was a good month for our finances overall. Our net worth declined slightly by $14,000 to end the month at $3,347,000. Our March income of $13,401 was more than six times higher than our spending of $2,136 for the month.
Let’s jump into the details from last month.
Income
Investment income totaled $10,955 in March. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. As a result, we had a larger than normal amount of investment income last month. Here’s more on our dividend investments.
Blog income totaled $456 for the month. This represents an average month of blog income.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) was $1,028 last month. This represents five and a half hours of consulting. I’m keeping so busy with these consulting sessions that I decided to raise my rates in March. I didn’t raise rates in December to account for inflation last year, so part of this increase is just a standard inflation pay bump for myself. So far, April consulting session bookings continue to be strong.
Tradeline sales income totaled $550 last month. I ramped up my tradeline sales a few years ago and discussed it in a bit more detail in my October 2020 monthly post and in my July 2021 monthly post. During 2024 I made over $6,000 in exchange for lending out my stellar credit history from half a dozen credit cards.
For last month, my “deposit income” was $10 due to cash back and incentive bonuses from the Rakuten.com and Mrrebates.com online shopping portals (some of which was earned from you readers signing up through these links).
If you sign up for Rakuten through this link and make a qualifying $25 purchase through Rakuten, you’ll get a $10 sign up bonus (or more!).
My bank and credit card bonuses totaled $400 last month. That amount came from the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s “Pay Yourself Back” feature. I get a 25% bonus when I redeem the Chase Ultimate Rewards points to reimburse for my purchases in select categories like utilities and insurance. Since I have a TON of Chase points, I have started cashing them out by placing my utility and insurance payments on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card and using the 25% bonus Pay Yourself Back redemptions.
Starting in April, the “Pay Yourself Back” categories switch to gas and groceries so I may start putting those kinds of purchases on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card going forward.
Shocking Extra Income during March!
My final chunk of income didn’t make it into my income summary graphic because it’s so massive and the bonuses didn’t show up as transactions at my brokerage firm. The bonuses just “appeared” in the account alongside the transferred assets.
Last month, I moved over $2 million of our IRA assets from Citibank (where I was getting a series of transfer bonuses) to Robinhood. The offer at Robinhood was a 2% transfer bonus with no cap on the bonus. The total amount of the transfer bonus was $43,368!!
Yes, more than $40,000, paid instantly at the time of transfer, just for switching our IRAs from one brokerage firm to another. It’s already invested and making me more money right now.
The catch is that I must subscribe to the Robinhood Gold service for $5 per month for a year and I must keep the investments at Robinhood for 5 years. I’ll be giving up transfer bonuses on this $2 million over the next five years as a result. However the simplicity of just cashing in big time and not worrying about transferring assets while I’m busy traveling (or doing other funs things) is nice.
The Robinhood service is still very new to me but so far I am impressed. The transfer process was the easiest I’ve ever experienced (and I say that as a serial asset-transferrer to snag all these transfer bonuses!). The interface I give 4 out of 5 stars as it’s a little clunky for placing orders on their website trading platform. It’s more than adequate for buy-and-hold investing, however.
If you’re interested in trying them out or getting that sweet 2% transfer bonus on your million(s) then here’s a referral link that will add $5+ in free stock when you sign up for a new account. The 2% transfer bonus ends April 30th, 2025 so move quickly if you’re trying to take advantage of that offer.
If you’re interested in tracking your income and expenses like I do, then check out Empower Personal Dashboard, formerly known as Personal Capital (it’s free!). All of our savings and spending accounts (including checking, money market, and more than half a dozen credit cards) are all linked and updated in real time through Empower Personal Dashboard. We have accounts all over the place, and Empower Personal Dashboard makes it really easy to check on everything at one time.
Empower Personal Dashboard is also a solid tool for investment management. Keeping track of our entire investment portfolio takes two clicks. If you haven’t signed up for the free Empower Personal Dashboard service, check it out today (review here).
Tracking spending was one of the critical steps I took that allowed me to retire at 33. And it’s now easier than ever with Empower Personal Dashboard.
Expenses
Now let’s take a look at March expenses:
In total, we spent $2,136 during the month of March which is about $1,200 less than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Travel and groceries were the two largest categories from last month.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Groceries – $890:
We spent $890 on groceries last month which seems a little high. However we were at home for most of the month of March. I also think I may have lost my frugal card somewhere along the way while watching my portfolio continue to rise in value this past decade of early retirement.
We also buy a lot of imported ingredients. And we have some big time carnivores in the house so we don’t skimp on meat either. In fact, it seems like every time I go to the grocery store to stock up on meat when it goes on sale, someone asks me if I run a restaurant. Don’t normal people buy 30-40 pounds of meat at a time for their family?
The grocery spending seems high but it works out to only $6 per day per person.
Travel – $604:
Last month’s travel spending was a mix of several different expenses. The largest spending item is the annual fee on our Capital One Venture X card of $395. We’ll get back the whole annual fee in the form of a $300 travel credit and $100 worth of points that can be redeemed for $100 in cash or transferred to airline or hotel partners. The main benefit of this card to me is the nice airport lounge network from Priority Pass and Capital One Lounges.
I actually used part of that $300 annual fee to book a hotel room for $60 at the Outer Banks of North Carolina in March. I also paid $71 in cash to book a second room for the kids. Other costs on this trip were $21 in souvenirs, $39 in gas, and $3 for slushies at the gas station. I used a Domino’s Pizza gift card to provide a “free” lunch on our second day of the trip. Dinner on the drive home was Taco Bell paid with a gift card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve monthly $5 Doordash coupon. Slushies, pizza, and Taco Bell – all classic road trip foods!
Other March travel expenses included $42 for an Uber from the port in Miami to the airport in Fort Lauderdale.
Closing out last month’s travel spending was $34 in taxes on a set of six American Airlines tickets to Europe for our summer travels. We also booked several cruises during the summer and fall using Chase Ultimate Rewards points through the Chase Sapphire Reserve travel portal ($0 cost out of pocket for those). Three of these new cruises are in Europe so I have some travel hacking to do to make sure I’m getting great deals on flights to/from Europe.
Get free travel like us
If you are interested in getting free travel from your credit card like I do, consider the Chase Ink Preferred business card (my referral link). Right now, the Chase Ink Preferred business card offers an above average $900 worth of Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be redeemed instantly for $900 in cash (or even more for travel!). I just signed up for another new Ink card to snag one of these great bonus offers.
Chase is pretty liberal when it comes to “what is a business”. If you sell stuff on eBay or Craigslist or do some odd jobs occasionally then you have a business and could get a credit card as a “sole proprietor”.
I use the 90,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points by transferring them to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card (also offering a 60,000 point sign up bonus right now). With the Sapphire Reserve card, I can get 1.5x the points value by booking cruises, flights, hotels, or rental cars through their travel portal. For example, I used 165,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points to pay for the $2,475 in taxes, fees, and gratuities on two of my cruises. Or I can transfer those Ultimate rewards points to over a dozen travel partners’ airline/hotel programs like United, Southwest, or Hyatt.
Capital One VentureX card
Another favorite travel card in my wallet is the Capital One Venture X card. The Venture X card is a “keeper” for me. First off, it comes with a $750 sign up bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months. The bonus is paid in the form of 75,000 bonus points that you can redeem against any travel purchases from anywhere. Then you earn a solid 2 points per dollar spent forever! The other big perk is airport lounge access. You can get yourself plus unlimited guests into Priority Pass lounges. And you and two of your guests can get into Plaza Premium network lounges and Capital One Lounges.
The Capital One Venture X card does have one catch – a $395 annual fee. But they reward you every year with an easy to use $300 travel discount plus $100 worth of points. Together, that makes $400 they give you annually which completely offsets the annual fee. Another benefit worth mentioning: you can add up to four authorized users for free, and they also get all the benefits of the Venture X card including the valuable airport lounge access. We used this perk to “gift” a pair of Venture X cards with airport lounge access to my brother in law and his wife to use on their family trip back home to Cambodia last April with their two young children.
Since the annual fee is offset in full by travel credits each year, I personally plan on keeping the Venture X card forever since the card benefits are so great.
Utilities – $454:
We spent $163 on our water/sewer/trash bill last month.
The electric bill was $88 last month.
The natural gas bill was $204 for a combination of the March bill and the April bill for the water heater and gas furnace. I paid the April bill on the very last day of March so that expense is included in this month’s spending summary. I won’t have to pay the natural gas bill next month.
Entertainment – $69:
We went bowling during our son’s middle school spring break. For $69 we rented four pairs of shoes and got two hours of time on our own bowling lane. We managed to play four and a half games in that time.
Gas – $43:
A tank of gas for our Hyundai Accent for $18. Our daughter drives the Hyundai to school four days per week so she uses about a tank of gas each month when school is in session. I also topped off the tank in our family’s minivan for $25 during March.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $37:
Our 2025 health insurance is free thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies that we receive due to our low ~$51,000 per year Adjusted Gross Income.
Our 2025 dental insurance plan normally costs $32 in premiums per month. We picked a plan from Truassure through the healthcare.gov exchange. The dental insurance does a good job of covering most of our routine cleanings, exams, and x-rays plus most of the cost of basic procedures like fillings. I paid $37 for two months of premiums for one of us during March.
Since we have two separate policies, the billing got all messed up for the first few months of the year but I think it’s mostly straightened out going forward and we’ll be back to $32 per month soon.
Cable/Satellite/Internet – $25:
We usually pay $25 per month for a local reduced rate package due to having a lower income and having kids. 50 mbit/s download, 10 mbit/s upload.
Restaurants – $17:
Mrs. Root of Good went out to lunch with her friends during March for $17.
Spending for 2025 – Year to Date
We spent $9,688 for the first three months of 2025. This annual spending is very close to our budgeted $10,000 for three months per our $40,000 annual early retirement budget. I haven’t increased our annual budget for inflation in a decade, so at some point I need to revisit the budget numbers.
We started out the year with some big spending for our annual property tax bill due in January. Then we had a couple of low-cost months in February and March that brought our average spending back in line with our budgeted $3,333 per month.
These low spending figures make it sound like we’re living very frugal lives. In some ways we are since we own inexpensive cars and live in a slightly below median price home for our city.
However we also spend weeks at a time traveling all over the world. During the remainder of 2025, we’ll be spending eight weeks cruising around Alaska, Scotland, Ireland, and the Baltic Sea while visiting dozens of ports along the way. We also have two cruises booked with our kids during the summer. And to wrap up the year, we’re doing a cruise through the Panama Canal from Fort Lauderdale to the west coast of the USA.
I’ve written before about our $100,000 per year lifestyle on a $40,000 per year budget. I think that article is as accurate today as it was when I wrote it nine years ago.
Monthly Expense Summary for 2025:
- January – $5,091
- February – $2,462
- March – $2,136
Summary of annual spending from more than a decade of my early retirement:
- 2014 – $34,352
- 2015 – $23,802
- 2016 – $38,991
- 2017 – $31,708
- 2018 – $29,058
- 2019 – $25,630
- 2020 – $28,466
- 2021 – $31,740
- 2022 – $29,449
- 2023 – $37,865
- 2024 – $40,286
- 2025 – $9,688 (through 3/31/2025)
Net Worth: $3,347,000 (-$14,000)
Our net worth declined by $14,000 to end the month at $3,347,000. That’s not too bad of a month given how shaky the stock market in the USA has been lately.
I’ve stuck with my heavy tilt toward international investments since I retired early almost 12 years ago. They underperformed for most of that time period but they’re finally providing some nice diversification and keeping my overall portfolio in good shape.
Last month I wrote:
My international investments are also my answer to the concern of “what if the USA doesn’t maintain its position as the best large developed country in the world for the next 50 years?”.
Hey, let’s do everything we can to make sure the U.S. of A. remains number one, but also take proactive measures at an individual level just in case we drop a couple spots on the leaderboard.
(pardon the lump in the middle of this chart – that’s an artifact from double-counting our assets for a few days while they transferred out of Citibank and into Robinhood)
For the curious, our net worth reported above includes our home value (which is fully paid off). I value the house at $300,000, which is probably what we would net after sales expenses. However, please note that I don’t consider my home value as part of my portfolio for “4% rule” calculation purposes. I realize folks ask me about that every month so I just wanted to state that here for clarity.
Closing thoughts
As another busy but fun and adventure-filled month of early retirement draws to a close, I still feel incredibly grateful to have the financial freedom to do whatever I want on a day to day basis.
Some weeks we’re here at home in Raleigh relaxing and catching up with family and friends.
Other weeks we’re booked on some adventure just down the road or far away overseas (or on the seas!).
I’m trying to maintain a balance between being busy and traveling with having free, unstructured time at home to indulge in downtime activities. So far I think it’s going okay. A few weeks or a month at home and then two or three weeks on a trip somewhere seems to work.
We might as well keep up the pace as long as we find interesting places to visit and our knees and legs don’t disagree with us too much along the way. We can always rest when we’re “old”!
Well that’s it for me this month. See you next time!
Spring’s here, everybody thawing out okay?!!!
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Your life inspires me, Justin. Thanks for sharing here on your blog!
You are welcome!
Back to back cruises can be a lot of fun. We prefer staying in the same room each cruise so no need to do anything but put all our “stuff” in the closets or under the bed, but would have no issue with having to switch rooms, either. Most cruise line make it easy to handle the move so I assume MSC did as well.
On the saving money front, we have most of our insurance due this time of the year. I was shocked at how high our current provider raised our homeowners rate (we have never had a claim with any insurer in our 46 years of marriage). We were only with them a year and one problem with them, a very large company with a spokesperson whose name rhymes with Gro, was that we also could not get a personal umbrella policy. Checked back with our prior insurer, a very large company that rhymes with Nostate, and was able to get our home, autos, and another umbrella policy for under what the current company wanted for home alone. It definitely pays to check every year nowadays.
We did have to switch and we usually do on MSC when we book the “guaranteed” cabin rate. The upside is we’ve been upgraded to balcony cabins from oceanview guarantee bookings on the last six cruises!! So I’ll switch cabins in exchange for a high probability of the free upgrade to balcony cabin.
I haven’t shopped my insurance lately but I have heard from an insurance agent that I’m probably with the best insurance with teen drivers bc they don’t really rate them up a ton compared to other carriers. It still seems cheap compared to what I see others paying so I haven’t bothered shopping rates. Also paranoid that I get a 1 year intro rate elsewhere that goes up in year 2. And my current insurer gives a nice longevity discount from what I hear (not sure if that is the right term but basically the longer you’re there the better it is especially with teen drivers)
For what it’s worth, Justin, we were with our prior insurer and got the situation where they jacked the rate up in year 2. What was wild was how quickly we made the change to another insurer. Once we decided on coverage, how much we needed in the umbrella policy, and fact that we were adding a new vehicle that they were unaware of, it literally took minutes to have everything changed over, and an online chat with the old insurer to cancel that also took a couple of minutes. Never talked to a soul; everything was online.
Thanks so much for posting. Two questions. You mentioned doing your own taxes. What software do you use? Turbo Tax? You also mentioned foreign stocks for diversification. How do you address sequence of return risk? Do you have a safe bucket (cash and equivalents) for spending in retirement or just keep it below earned interest, dividends, and capital gains?
FreeTaxUSA (which costs $15 for state filing). It’s the only tax prep software I’ve ever used. About 8-10 yrs of using it now.
As for intl diversification and sequence of returns risk, I am pretty far past that point personally. I’m over 10 years in and my portfolio has more than doubled so my withdrawal rate is just over 1% right now.
But in general I do like the bucket approach or “bond tent” or whatever you want to call it. Have 5-7 yrs of living expenses in fixed income (bonds/cash) and spend it down first and let the stocks grow over that 5-7 yr period. Or some variation like sell from stocks if the market goes up but pull from fixed income when market goes down. This approach seems to be mathematically decent and also psychologically decent. You basically don’t have to worry about 5-7 years of stock market returns since you have a massive low-risk cash/bond cushion to provide portfolio withdrawals.
I can only imagine your portfolio hit today. It must be like a decade of my income
Hmmm I had to check now that you mentioned it!
Down $56k on April 3rd (yesterday) and down $179k today almost at market close. And that doesn’t include several hundred thousand of mutual funds that haven’t repriced for April 4th yet. That might be the record 1 day drop for me in dollar terms. It would take another day like today to knock me down below $3M so I have zero worries 🙂 Maybe next week I start worrying if it keeps on dropping.
You are bold. I would not have put the majority of my IRA into Robinhood. I haven’t checked the financial status of their books. Did you do any due diligence to see their financial health? How much of it is FDIC insured?
I did a little bit of digging but did not fully audit their books. They have a sizeable level of assets under management, the standard SIPC insurance, and are publicly traded (for what that’s worth). And the $500k SIPC limit is per account, and we each transferred in a Roth and a Traditional account so the amounts over $500k are not astronomical.
There would have to be a major level of malfeasance and failure of regulatory oversight and lack of whistleblowers to really implode Robinhood to the point where we wouldn’t be made whole by existing SIPC insurance plus their additional insurance. Never say never but I feel pretty good with the counterparty risk here. As far as FDIC I do not know what they have if any bc I don’t know if they offer deposit accts and I don’t have any cash there (just ETFs of various sorts).
Another solid month!
– What hotel did you find on the Outer Banks for those prices? Last time we camped (mostly to give the kids the experience), but other times in the past I have seen no hotels (mostly airbnb’s or private rentals)
– How much of the portfolio in international? And within the international part what do you hold, VXUS? Others?
We stayed in Kitty Hawk/Kill Devil Hills area of OBX. There are several basic but “good enough” hotels there for $60 or so off season (maybe a bit more later in March, during spring break, or on weekends). Sea Ranch Resort was where we stayed. Good enough for 1-2 nights but it won’t blow you away. Just search and sort by cheapest and then scroll down till you get to one with good enough ratings for you. 🙂 Definitely not worth $300/nt to stay where we stayed during peak season but pretty decent for a quick getaway off season. And you’re oceanfront too (but we had a parking lot view unless we leaned over and looked out the window at an angle).
International is ~50% of equities allocation. Mostly large cap like VXUS and VEA, but smaller slices to Intl Value (DFIV), Intl REIT (VNQI), Intl small cap (VSS), and Emerging Mkts (VWO).
Got it. Sea Ranch Resort looks more than good enough for those prices, and definitely not good enough for $300/nt 🙂
My thinking too. I would be pretty mad if I paid $300/nt for those rooms that aren’t even oceanfront. Although I know peak season room rates are insanely high (which is why I’m unlikely to visit there in peak season and it’s too hot for me anyway!)
Puerto Rico looks pretty nice.
We will have to go there someday.
Have they recovered from hurricane Maria ?
It looked fine from the parts we saw. I didn’t see much damage in Old San Juan where we docked or along the drive for a few hours. Lots of normal looking houses, shops, big shopping centers, etc and the national forest was in good condition other than a couple of areas where maybe the road washed out and they were repairing it. Don’t know if those road repairs are routine/planned or part of hurricane recovery efforts though.
I’m surprised you passed on the Robinhood 3% IRA transfer bonus last year but went for the 2% one this year with the same 5 year hold requirement.
I just bit the bullet and transferred. I hate I missed the 3% but at least I’m getting a decent 2%. 5 year lock up kind of sucks but it’s based on the dollar amount as of the transfer plus the bonus. So that’s the “high water mark” and I can transfer off anything above that amount in a few years to get a bonus somewhere else. Like if my $2.2M transferred in grows to $2.5M in 2 years, then that gives me $300k to transfer somewhere else and get $2500 sign up bonus (at Wells Fargo for example). So it’s not really a full 5 year lockup unless stocks don’t go up for 5 years. And I get the 2% match frontloaded so I will get 10%/yr market returns on that amount for 5 years as well. So that 2% transfer bonus paid instantly at time of transfer, compounded at 10%/yr returns would give me 3.22% match by the end of the 5 year lock up.
It’s great to see how early retirement has given you the chance to enjoy more time with family and take those vacations. It’s a good reminder that with the right planning, life can be a lot more flexible.
Always love reading your recaps!
Just commenting to say that if you are buying that much meat, you might want to look into purchasing a half hog/quarter cow. I find that is the most economical way to bulk purchase meat and get a good variety of cuts. Not sure what it’s like in your part of the country, but I live in a semi-rural area with a several meat markets that can hook people up if they don’t personally know someone who raises pigs or beef cows.
I don’t own a deep freeze (as hard as that is to believe!). And mostly just buy the same handful of cuts of meat. We do pretty well shopping the rotating loss leader sales and benefit from a highly competitive grocery market where we have ~8 grocery stores competing within a couple of miles (and a costco and Sams) so there’s always .99 to 1.99 chicken and pork and $4 lean boneless beef (cheaper for ground beef of course)
I never understood the appeal of deep freezers from a cost/benefit standpoint for most people. They can cost thousands upfront + ongoing electricity costs and its such a hassle to try to buy a 6+ month supply of something in bulk to try to make back those costs and avoid freezer burn. All the people that I know that have them end up with a lot of food that doesn’t get eaten for over a year then often tossed out. We just have one typical American sized refrigerator/freezer and things still get forgotten and lost in the bottom of the freezer. I’d much rather stick with one and buy a few items in bulk but otherwise have a high turnover freezer buying fresher meats/foods on the rotating weekly sales like you do.
The frugalwoods did a post on their blog about getting a chest freezer. At that time, the freezer cost them about $35 a year in electric costs. Not sure what it would be currently but I thought it was interesting.
I’m sure they’ve done the cost benefit analysis for their edge case but I don’t think a retired Vermont homesteader on dozens of acres of remote land falls under the definition “most people”. A quick gpt estimate suggests deep freezers cost about $1300 over 10 years in up front + ongoing costs using average electricity rates. Obviously you can get a cheaper model or a used one but many of those cheap ones annoyingly freeze up all the time. They can certainly work out great in some special cases but I still don’t think they’re worth the hassle in most cases especially in the typical suburban and urban home.
It probably makes sense for them. I think they do a big costco run every month or 2 but it’s like 1-2 hrs away. For us, we have a grocery store <0.3 miles from the house with nonstop loss leader sales on meats that I can just buy every week as needed. And I often stop by the warehouse club <2 miles from my house for just 1-2 items. Let the stores warehouse my food at their expense instead of me maintaining the frozen warehouse space. 🙂
That’s the conclusion I’ve reached too. Operating costs plus space to keep the fridge. And we’d be dumping all that waste heat into our house and then paying for air conditioning to cool it back down. Plus having to manage the inventory to prevent freezer burn. Like you, I already struggle with that in just a regular size ~5 cubic foot freezer that’s part of my fridge.
I love your blog. My husband is planning to retire next year. He has a few years before Medicare kicks in. We need to figure out how to negotiate our retirement withdrawals, along with taxes, and keeping our income lower to be able to possibly be able qualify for the ACA. Do you know of any personal finance bloggers who are in this stage of life, that I could start reading? Thank you!
I haven’t really kept up with other FI bloggers lately. Sorry I can’t help more!
Ok. Thanks for answering.
I am a little late reading this, but I love to hear about your a travels. I “retired” at the end of 2023 at the age of 44. My husband still works from home and I believe will continue for now and I substitute teach for the local school district when I want to. Last year in my first year of early retirement, I went on 5 cruises and over to Europe for 18 days. This year I have three cruises scheduled and am exploring Yellowstone and Glacier National Park as well as doing a New England state tour. I’m not quite up to your level of vacations, but I’m working up to it. Thanks for being an inspiration.
Sounds like fun! Yellowstone was one of the highlights of our 2021 cross-country road trip.