Welcome back to another monthly update from Root of Good! We’ve been at home for about a month since wrapping up our Panama Canal cruise in November. We intentionally blocked off Thanksgiving and Christmas from our travel calendar so we could be at home during the holidays.
We will be at home for roughly two full months, with no more travel planned until the end of January when we depart on our next cruise adventure. Over the last month, I’ve been catching up on a lot of year-end tasks, checking things off my to-do list, and enjoying time just being at home. A vacation from vacations.
We capped off November with a big Thanksgiving family gathering at our house. Lots of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and eggrolls for everyone!
On to our financial progress. November was another great month for our finances. Our net worth increased by $64,000 to end the month at $3,914,000. Our November income of $2,534 was more than enough to cover our spending of $1,927 for the month.
Let’s jump into the details from last month.
Income
Investment income totaled $632 last month. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. As a result, we had a smaller than normal amount of investment income. Here’s more on our dividend investments.
Blog income totaled $522 for last month. This represents an average month of blog income.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) was $420 during last month. That represents two hours of consulting. The consulting income remains steady for now, with a few hours booked each month.
Tradeline sales income totaled $925 during 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.
2025 tradeline income is higher than 2024 so far. But the “worst case” outcome finally struck! I had a credit card closed due to “risk” according to the credit card issuer. I don’t know with certainty that my card was closed due to adding authorized users but it’s certainly possible. Five years of tradeline sales, and tens of thousands of dollars later, I would say the risk was more than offset by the gains. Another reminder that the tradeline sales game is not without risk.
My “deposit income” totaled $34. Out of the total, $30 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 $30 purchase through Rakuten, you’ll get a $30 sign up bonus.
The other $4 of deposit income was a small class action lawsuit payout.
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 November expenses:
In total, we spent $1,927 last month which is about $1,400 less than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Insurance and groceries were the top two spending categories from last month.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Insurance – $936:
Our six-month auto insurance renewal just came due at the end of November. There are four drivers on the policy, two of which are inexperienced drivers with under three years of driving history. One of those inexperienced drivers will hit the “3 year of driving” mark in a few more months so we should see lower insurance bills in the future.
Groceries – $331:
We were home for a week and a half in November but didn’t do a ton of grocery shopping. We prepped for our big Thanksgiving meal by shopping for some staples before we went out of town for our Panama Canal cruise.
I think prices at the grocery store have mostly stabilized, and we’re even seeing some prices drop on staples like milk and eggs. However, other items are still really expensive. Anyone bought coffee and chocolate lately?
Utilities – $248:
We spent $167 on our water/sewer/trash bill last month.
The electricity bill was $82 for last month. That represents a very low monthly electric bill for us.
I didn’t pay the natural gas bill during November, because I paid it early in October before leaving for our Panama Canal cruise. We use natural gas for heating the house and for our water heater so the gas bill usually increases quite a bit during the winter months when it’s cooooold.
Travel – $237:
We spent a shockingly low $68 in total on our 18 day cruise vacation in November. Of that total, $46 was uber or lyft rides to/from the cruise port or around town in Panama City, Panama. We also rented a car in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. I paid for the $30 rental car with Chase Ultimate Reward points and spent $16 on gas driving around the mountains and coastal region of western Costa Rica.
Another travel expense was $76 for seat reservations for our roundtrip flights to Spain in March. We paid $15-20 for each seat on the long transatlantic flights. We usually book the row of two seats in the very back of the plane so we have the whole row to ourselves. A very nice upgrade. We’ll take whatever seats they assign us for the shorter 1-2 hour connecting flights to get to/from our final destination.
The remaining $95 of travel spending is the annual fee on the Barclay Wyndham Business card. In exchange for the annual fee, we get 15,000 Wyndham points which we usually redeem before a cruise for a free hotel night that would cost $200-300 per night if we paid cash.
Enjoying the Casco Viejo historic section of Panama City.
Get free travel like us
If you are interested in getting free travel from your credit card like I do, consider the Chase Ink business cards (my referral link). Right now, the Chase Ink cards offers an above average $750-900 worth of Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be redeemed instantly for $750-900 in cash (or even more for travel!).
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 125,000 point sign up bonus right now). I can transfer those Ultimate rewards points to over a dozen travel partners’ airline/hotel programs like United, Southwest, or Hyatt. For example, I transferred 6,500 Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt and used them to book a $300/night room that sleeps five during the peak season in the Virginia mountains.
Another excellent choice is the 85,000 point offer for one of the Chase Southwest Personal cards. Those are enough points for four round trip flights in the USA if you shop carefully.
General Merchandise – $119:
I’m trying to split out all the miscellaneous purchases and keep them separate from my “grocery” spending. These are all the random things we buy at Amazon or Walmart that get lumped into groceries if I’m not very intentional about splitting receipts carefully.
We spent $119 on various non-food items throughout the month. Included in that total are a few new upgrades for my new bike, such as a $30 exxtra wide bike seat kind of like this one. I bought the exact same kind of seat I had on my old bike several years ago. Problematically, they no longer manufactured the exact same seat so I had to buy a brand new one from ebay for $30. This is the business class bike seat. No way can I ever go back to riding in economy class!
Cable/Satellite/Internet – $25:
We 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.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $19:
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. In 2026 our premiums will go up to about $142 per month.
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.
Mrs. Root of Good’s dental insurance was $19 total for November. I didn’t pay my dental insurance bill during November but I did catch up on the bill payment in December.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica port of call. This place was really amazing. First we visited the mountains then headed to the beach for the afternoon.
Electronics – $11:
Best Buy sent me a $10 off coupon, so I bought two $10 bluetooth mice to have on hand. Between the five of us in the house, we seem to go through a pretty large number of mice on an annual basis. Okay, maybe it’s just one or two replacements per year but it seems like that is often enough to have a spare mouse or two on hand. Just in case.
Home Maintenance – $4:
A toilet tank flush valve seal replacement from Home Depot. Super easy to swap out just the seal and it did the trick to get the guest toilet flushing again. Of course the flush valve had to fail mere days before we invited 30 guests over to our house for Thanksgiving. Fortunately this one small part saved the day!
Restaurants – $1:
I spent a dollar to add onto some Taco Bell orders to use up my two $5 Doordash credits from my Chase Sapphire Reserve cards.
Gas – $0:
No gas expense this month for us. Our kids pay for their own gas for driving to work.
Spending for 2025 – Year to Date
We spent $33,221 during the first eleven months of 2025. This annual spending is about $3,500 below our budgeted $36,667 for the first eleven months of the year 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 will end up pretty close to our $40,000 budgeted spending once again in 2025. However it’s looking like we will end up a few thousand dollars over budget. We have had some massive spending during December already. I want to keep part of the spending a secret until next month (no spoilers, sorry!). The other big spending is our $3,000 annual property tax bill that is due in the next few weeks. I’ll probably go ahead and pay it during December which will push us over the top budget wise.
All in all, I am very happy with where our spending is at for the year. I know I could spend a whole lot more but I’m also happy with my current lifestyle.
Monthly Expense Summary for 2025:
- January – $5,091
- February – $2,462
- March – $2,136
- April – $4,261
- May – $4,097 (average of May and June)
- June – $4,097 (average of May and June)
- July – $1,992
- August – $2,452
- September – $2,694
- October – $2,003
- November – $1,927
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 – $33,221 (through 11/30/2025)
A quick port of call to Puerto Chiapas, Mexico. We didn’t leave the port complex but enjoyed the local music and dancers putting on a show for us right outside the ship.
Net Worth: $3,914,000 (+$64,000)
Another big boost to our net worth last month! Our net worth shot up by another $64,000 to end the month of November at $3,914,000. We came very close to hitting the $4 million dollar mark last month but we didn’t quite get there. Maybe in another month or two?
I’m just letting the portfolio do it’s thing. We go on cruises or other vacations for weeks at a time and I don’t even peek at the portfolio till I get back home and log in to do these monthly updates. Aren’t index funds great? Eventually we’ll have a big downturn. Next month or next year or next decade? Who knows!
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
Retirement is a time to check things off your bucket list. The Panama Canal was definitely on my bucket list. We managed to visit the Canal on land a few years ago when we were docked at Colon, Panama. That was an awesome experience to see the gigantic cargo ships passing through the canal on their transit toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Last month we got the full canal experience. While onboard the Emerald Princess, we enjoyed the 16 night journey from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Los Angeles. Along the way we stopped at several ports of call including Aruba, Panama City in Panama, Puntarenas in Costa Rica, and the ports of Puerto Chiapas, Huatulco, and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.
The highlight by far was the transit through the canal. That’s what we came for, after all. We got up early in the morning without a clearly defined game plan, not knowing exactly when we would get a chance to enter the canal. Around 7:30 am, we entered the channel leading to the first set of locks on the Atlantic side. We stood outside on the bow of the ship watching our grand entrance.
We ran around the ship quite a bit to catch the canal infrastructure from multiple vantage points. By lunchtime, we were in the middle of Panama traversing Lake Gatun.
The canal is actually two sets of locks about 30 miles apart. Lake Gatun and the Chagres River span the central section of Panama and connect the two sets of locks together.
After passing through Lake Gatun and the Chagres River, we entered the narrow channel of the Culebra Cut. Upon reaching the end of that channel, we approached the Pacific set of locks that would lower us back down to sea level.
The whole experience fascinated me as a retired civil engineer that worked on transportation infrastructure projects for a decade. It was amazing to be there sailing through the midsection between North and South America.
Would I do it again? Maybe.
Now that the novelty is gone, I don’t know that I would get a lot more out of another transit of the canal. There are a lot of other interesting places to visit in the world! Although it is a nice way to leisurely get from the east coast to the west coast of the USA (if you have 16 days to spare). I would recommend passing through the canal at least once if you are interested. The scale of the canal locks are massive!
I always have a blast on these cruises. This ship had half a dozen bands performing throughout the day and night including a duo of Irish guys, one of which played the pipes. Endless food, endless sea views from our balcony, and half a dozen different ports of call to entertain us periodically throughout the voyage.
I have a really good time on these cruises. I also have a really good time back on land once we’re home. And I know I’m very fortunate to be able to take all these vacations during early retirement!
That’s it for me this month, folks. Thanks for tuning in to the latest monthly update. I’ll see you next month!
Who can believe Christmas is almost here and New Year’s isn’t much farther away?!
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Hey Justin!
I would love to see a graph of how your money went up since you retired at age 33 that would be really cool
Maybe since you have a few months before traveling, you could do a post about that?
🙏🙏🙏
Jonah
P.s. you are my financial hero.
What you have done is really amazing and thank you for keep posting it. It’s very inspiring.
We’ll see! the messy answer is one could pull up the 2013-2025 end of year posts (linked in the middle of this post under YTD spending) and take a look at those year by year. It’s not a chart/graph but would tell the YoY NW gain story.
Another great month, almost at $4million!
Can you share any more details on the tradeline credit card account closure to give a little guidance to others of how far they should push without getting shut down. What bank? Did they close other accounts? Can you open another account with your spouses name etc?
An bank/investment affinity card offered by Elan Financial Services. None of the accounts at that bank/investment company were impacted (so far!). That was my only credit card with them so no data on whether they would close other cards too. I assume my wife could open a new acct there as well, without any problem, even through she was an authorized user on the cancelled card.
Thank you for continuing to post monthly, Justin. Your life inspires! It’s a pleasure to read about it.
You’re welcome! Glad to share 🙂
Justin, who watches your house during your travels?
That’s what I have not worked out for longer travels.
It’s varied a lot over the years. Sometimes we’ve had family stay here for the 2 months when we are gone. Now that 2 of our kids are adults and working, one or both of them will stay here sometimes when we travel, and sometimes other family will stay here with them too for various reasons (convenience, to help out, to watch the house etc). Just depends. Also have 2-3 nice nosy neighbors that keep an eye on things for us. And lots of family/friends that drive by our house daily and report back if anything looks out of place. So lots of different eyes on the house at various times 🙂
If I remember right, you still have one kid at home? Does he come with you and homeschool/independent study? I’d love to be able to travel like you guys but still have kids in high school/ middle school. Thanks for all your information and sharing your tips. Merry Christmas!
Our youngest is in 8th grade and he attends traditional school. So we end up traveling during the summer mostly. During the school year he stays at home with his (adult) sisters or family and attends school.
It always blows me away to see how low you keep your expenses every month even with all the travel you do… truly amazing. I’m getting better, but you’re a master to aspire to be like! 😉
I’m with you on the Panama Canal. We didn’t do a cruise through it, but we, of course, checked it out while we lived in Panama for a few years. I thought it was cool to see everything, but, yeah – been there, done that.
Merry Christmas to you and your family, Justin!
Gotta see it once, right? The experience actually sailing through the canal was very awesome I thought. And I think the last minute rates on our cruise were under $1000 per person for a 16 nt cruise (inside guarantee cabin I assume) so it’s actually pretty affordable too.
Merry Christmas to you guys as well! Take care!
These cruises look like an easy way to see a lot of places with great views, prearranged land trips with minimal hassle, minimal planning, and safe. Good value. I’ve never been on one. Do you only do the “last minute deals”? What’s the longest one you ever went on? Are the other passengers typically friendly? How about noises during sleep – are there certain cabin locations to avoid?
I looked at their website and lots of the cruises are booking only for 2027 or 2028. Who knows what could happen that far ahead! But there are some with last minute deals, like Mexico, central America, etc.
Check out some old cruise articles I have for more info.
In general I am looking for the cheaper cruises, often last minute. This is a good time of year, in winter, to find cheap Caribbean cruises. Longest cruise was the 16 nt Panama Canal from Florida to LA that we just got back from. I’d suggest starting on a 5-7 night cruise. Relaxed enough but you’re not trapped on a ship if you dislike the experience.
I find almost all the passengers friendly and many are talkative. Especially if it’s a long cruise.
Noisy cabins – that is hit and miss. It is definitely more noisy than a hotel on land just because the ship is moving. Usually it’s not so bad. Areas to avoid – the lowest deck all the way in the back of the ship probably. Seems like we’ve been in that area a few times and there is always a lot of engine noise at various times of the day. A few decks higher up would be better. Generally I like middle of the ship bc you get the least rocking and rolling there.
And yes, in general I think it’s a great way to cover a lot of territory with relatively little hassle. Our Baltic Capitals cruise for example – that would take a TON of planning to get us to 8 different European cities (mostly capital cities) and we’d be off and on planes, ferries, and trains a ton. In contrast, on the cruise we just walk into the cities, see the sights, then get back on the ship and relax, hit the hot tub, hit a show or some live music, eat dinner, fall asleep. Then wake up in the next port on the next day and do it all over again. As the navigator/driver/coordinator in our family, it’s a nice change of pace for me 🙂
Yes, thanks for posting consistently. The posts are very inspiring. It amazes me how everyone thinks they have to do Geo Arbitrage to retire early and stay under an annual budget of $40k. I know that there are very HCL states in the US and every family is different, but you’ve managed to make it work, and with a family of five! Wow, simply fantastic.
I have noticed a trend of folks going immediately from HCOL cities like NYC or SF straight to “omg we have to relocate overseas to geoarbitrage”. When 80% of the USA is like half the cost of the HCOL cities (with higher quality of life for that 50% off price tag, in my opinion). We enjoying extended travel overseas but I’m not sure I want to relocate overseas permanently (yet!).
“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 started renting a room for my adult special needs child so I have a sole proprietor revenue generating business. Our Vantage score is consistently 820+. I applied for a business card and shared rent revenue and cited a need to pay for maintenance expenses using a business card. They denied my application. So maybe not so easy to get approved.
They won’t always approve but they aren’t too strict on the definition of “what is a business”. I’ve been denied many times over my hundreds (?) of credit card applications. Success rate is probably ~80% today but I still get several denials a year. I’d say give it a few months and try again. Or try a different card issuer other than Chase. They do vary their credit tightness over time. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard. Not sure where they are right now as I haven’t applied for anything for a couple months.
always impressed at your ability to use credit cards/points to your advantage. I’m old school on these, using points but keeping the same cards so no big bonuses.
We plan to visit Santa Fe from CT next year so I’ve considered getting a bonus from a new card to help with the expenses. We currently have three cards each with a different major Bank.
Can you share how many cards you have at the same time?
And what about churn, do you swap them out to achieve these new bonuses, how frequently?
And if you do swap them out, do you see any negative impact on your credit score?
Merry Christmas to you and your family thanks for your blog I always find it interesting and helpful
I almost always have a new card to put spending on. But I sometimes keep old cards if there is no annual fee or the annual fee provides good benefits. On average I’d say about 8 new cards for me and the same for my wife each year. That is pretty aggressive though. Credit score impact is negligible. A new credit application is like 5-6 negative points and cancelling the card after a year doesn’t seem to do anything. I am able to continuously churn and get new cards so my credit score is “good enough” to keep on getting new cards I guess.
Merry Christmas to you and yours too!
Santa Fe has many homeless, miserable people. Even Los Alamos does. Pretty much the whole state of New Mexico. Angry drug addicts in the plaza screaming randomly, in pain and in rage. Drug addiction is a symptom, not a problem or a cause of anything itself. I spent my summers in NM as a young person/child, 20-30 years ago. It’s nothing like it was when I went on a tour of NM in 2024. I wouldn’t bother, I wouldn’t waste money to be yelled at by random deprived people. Or, stick to places with hardly any people and nature only.
Thanks for your reply Andrew, Merry Christmas to you Ell Dee
” stick to places with hardly any people and nature only” – those are probably the most interesting parts of New Mexico anyway. Sad to hear about the decline there. I haven’t been to NM since I was a kid. Don’t remember much other than some national parks there.
Yes, I was very sad to see it decline, I have so many nice memories. The nature and parks of course are still beautiful. The food is still good, that unique New Mexican food. I still have relatives there, who are among the miserable poor of NM, but not addicted to drugs or homeless. They failed to follow the concept in your post a while ago about working the program for a decade to freedom, etc…failed to follow it decade, after decade, after decade!
Thanks also for the info about cruises. Merry Christmas to all.
That’s too bad. Hopefully they turn things around eventually but sometimes you just have to be self-motivated.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
The book “The Path Between the Seas” is an amazing story of the building of the Panama Canal. Easily one of the best books I have ever read and makes me appreciate it so much more than if I hadn’t read the book.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll check it out! My local library has it on ebook and physical book so I’m in luck!
I second that–an excellent read. While reading Justin’s impressions, I was thinking the same about the herculean effort those builders went through and the political/social complications associated with it all. Interesting even for non-civil engineers 😉
I enjoyed seeing it and touring the locks and visitor center on land. And we had a couple of presentations on the Canal construction/operation on board. One of the enrichment lecturers on board was narrating the passage through the canal too. I also researched the canal quite a bit beforehand. And went to a museum in Panama City where they showed some parts of construction and the political issues surrounding the canal and US involvement. Very interesting, all of it. I didn’t know much of the politics behind the original and new canal before this cruise.
Wonderful share as always. For a change can you try Disney vacation next year instead of cruises to see how you can make it a budget travel?
Ha ha! It’s very expensive these days from what I hear. I know there are dedicated forums and communities that share tips on Disney already so I would check out those existing resources. Now that my kids are older I think the odds I’ll visit Disney are much much lower today compared to 10-15 years ago.
Based on what people say ticket prices have nearly doubled over last few years. Very expensive. From cost perspective cruise is always the winner mainly carnival cruises. What do you think?
Probably cheaper to do a cruise vs Disney in general. It’s trivially easy to pay under $100/day per person if you’re somewhat flexible on the date, departure port, itinerary, ship, cruise line, etc. And that includes almost everything you need to have a good time on vacation. Whereas disney is $100+/day plus accommodations and meals.
Did they provide a lot of umbrellas on the bow for the Canal? That’s pretty cool. I would imagine it’s very hot and humid and potential for extreme sun burn.
I’m doing the canal at the end of February (San Diego to Miami), my parents took me on the canal in 1994, but I don’t remember much so it will be nice to see it again.
Early in the morning it wasn’t too bad hot or humid but the sun was extreme. I got sunburned in the shade somehow. I think they had umbrellas available at the bow. And some ships have umbrellas in the cabins (HAL does typically).
We honestly moved around a lot and saw the canal from different vantage points. And the middle section is several hours long so plenty of time to grab some lunch, cool off and relax inside and enjoy the scenery, then get back out for the transit through the second set of locks in the afternoon. Should be a neat experience to do as an adult, at least one time!
Another great post!
Did you (or do you, although seems like not actively at the moment), so maybe previously, did you ever feel pulled to try and go the small business owner route? Or look for other ways to have cash flow? What you’ve done seems to work so well… wondering if you ever tried or felt pulled to look at those options?
I had a very small business during college. Great earnings on an hourly basis. Sold off the assets and got a regular 40 hr/wk job when starting adult life and having kids. Lots of pros and cons to each. So not a ton of pull to start a small business but I can see the appeal. I am technically a small biz owner right now but don’t make nearly enough to support a family and also save for retirement (but I also don’t work more than a day a month!).
I’m retired now and giving up my home to travel nearly full time….so cruising is looking like my best path for that….I’ve learned about Vacations to Go, so will check that out for pricing.
If you have another place to look for cruise deals, would love to hear it.
Cruise lines don’t offer typical rewards programs like hotels and airlines?
Keep on keeping on – sounds good.
I’ve heard good things about Vacations To Go but never used them personally. Cruiseplum dot com is a good general search engine that could help you find cheap cruises that fit in. And I think they have a “back to back to back to etc etc” search function now that might appeal.
As far as cruise line rewards programs – yes and no. They have status tiers that generally mean the more nights/sailings you take on a certain cruise line, the higher the status you get. At the top 1-2 tiers the benefits are usually very good, with benefits like some free alcoholic drinks on board, fancy guest appreciation parties, free upcharge restaurants, free internet, free laundry, priority boarding/disembarkation etc. So there is some benefit to being loyal to one line or 1-2 lines. We do have status on several lines now and get some nice benefits from that status.
It’s also worth mentioning the shareholders benefits. Carnival Corp is the one that I am most familiar with. Basically $100 to $250 per cruise benefit for on board credit. Just for owning ~$3000 worth of the Carnival Cruise Line stock. Norwegian and Royal Caribbean have the same program but I know Royal’s stock is WAY more expensive ($26,000 for 100 shares approximately!).
I have been a reader for years (silent participant) and the small amount of money you spend per year amazes me! I’m a saver but also a bit of a spender. It helps to have a high income but with 3 kids, money goes on random things, like rain pants so they can play in the snow, extracurricular activities. It’d be good to hear your philosophy on spending for kids since we have the same number of children.
I guess a lot of our spending on the “fun supplies” for hobbies, kid-related spending etc end up in the “general merchandise” spending or just get lumped into “groceries” (like a walmart run where it’s half groceries, the other half random stuff, I might assign all $100 to “groceries” if I’m not careful).
As for kid expenses – it seems like cold weather gear so kids can play in the snow is a relatively low cost, high value expenditure. Hours and hours of fun for <$100? I'd maybe take a look at give and take on facebook to see if there are hand me down snow gear or look at thrift shops. Kids outgrow stuff in the blink of an eye so there's a ton of almost brand new stuff out there. Extracurriculars - lots of inexpensive ways to accomplish similar goals. Rec league sports versus $10k/yr travel sports for example. Or city parks and rec summer camp for <$100/week instead of expensive fancy summer camp for $500-1000/wk.