Root of Good

Living on Dividends in Early Retirement

January 19, 2016 JustinRoG Investing, Personal Finance

Dividends are a popular source of income in retirement. We rely on them for a part of our annual living expenses. Dividends provide a relatively steady stream of income regardless of the fluctuations in the stock market.

It’s worth stating that I’m not exclusively a dividend focused investor. Instead I focus on the total return of my portfolio. I’m an index fund investor with a fixed asset allocation that I use to periodically rebalance my portfolio. Right now I’m almost entirely invested in equities through mutual funds and ETFs. All of those investments pay dividends ranging from 1% to 4% per fund.

The Deception of a Billion Dollar Jackpot

January 11, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Personal Finance

I get it. It sucks you in. Dreaming of all the ways you would spend a sudden windfall. The lottery is this amazing chance to live on easy street for the millions that play it every week. It’s literally a ticket to a better life. Where else but the Powerball lottery can you invest $2 and turn it into $1.3 billion dollars overnight?

When you come forward, your name is public in most states. I hope you enjoy being a very popular third cousin once removed to everyone and their brother. And hey, if you do win, can I borrow some money because I’ve got a really great business idea and I’m willing to let you in as a partner on the ground floor? I’ll pay you back, I promise.

December 2015 Financial Update

January 4, 2016 JustinRoG Personal Finance

Goodbye, 2015! You were good to us all.

How did we do in the last month of 2015? During December we received over $18,000 in income while spending just $2,366. Our net worth dropped by $22,000 for the month, however we saw a modest bump in net worth for the year as a whole.

Looking in the Rearview Mirror

December 15, 2015 JustinRoG Awesome!, Blog Updates

Here we are at the tail end of 2015. I wanted to pause and reflect on where we are today and what we’ve been up to during the year.

I started out 2015 with a post asking Should We Conceal Our Wealth? This post got a lot of social media shares because it addresses a concern that faces those who are accumulating wealth while trying to fly under the radar undetected.

Then I explained Why We Chose The Worst School In The District.

November 2015 Financial Update

December 7, 2015 JustinRoG Personal Finance

November is over and Thanksgiving is done. Fall is here which means cool days and crisp nights in North Carolina. In November, our net worth remained mostly unchanged due to relatively flat stock market performance. A little slower pace is okay after enjoying a $93,000 increase in net worth in October. With $3,908 in income and $2,954 in expenses during November, we still managed to keep our expenses below our income for the month even though we spent a good bit of cash on travel.

How We Reached Financial Independence In Our 30’s

November 30, 2015 JustinRoG Awesome!, Financial Independence, Personal Finance

After posting the Zero to Millionaire in Ten Years post a few weeks ago, there’s been a huge amount of traffic visiting Root of Good (hello, new readers!). The article received top billing at Rockstar Finance (thanks, J Money!). Business Insider loved my story so much that they reprinted it and it’s received close to a million views in the last two weeks. My own article has been shared over 400 times (that I know of) on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, and the Business Insider article has probably been shared thousands or tens of thousands of times.

Along with great attention comes inane comments. It’s the Law of the Internet. Check out the comments at the Business Insider article if you don’t believe me! I put together a response to a few of the frequent questions and comments generated by the Business Insider article.

Tis the Season of Thankfulness

November 24, 2015 JustinRoG Awesome!

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving in the US, so I’d like to take a moment to briefly reflect on what I’m most thankful for.

We are days away from hosting almost 30 people for Thanksgiving at our house. I’m very thankful we have ample wealth to pay for all the food and fixings without putting a dent in our budget. I’m also thankful we don’t have to work so that we have plenty of time to cook all the good food we’ll be enjoying. I’m thankful that both of our immediate families live in town, making getting together a lot easier and less stressful for all.

How Early Retirement Affects Social Security

November 18, 2015 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

This week I’m jumping into the inner workings of Social Security to answer a question about the impact of early retirement on how much Social Security early retirees will qualify for.

The usual question is: “Yeah but if you retire early you won’t get hardly any social security and you’ll be poor when you’re older. You should keep working till a reasonable age like 67 so you can earn a good Social Security payment”. Okay, grammarians, I confess. That’s not really a question but rather a complaint in the form of a declarative sentence followed by another declarative sentence.

The short answer is that the complainant has no clue how Social Security works, because early retirees typically qualify for really great SS benefits given how little they work. The long answer involves bend points and understanding the progressive nature of the Social Security system. And math.

Zero To Millionaire in Ten Years

November 9, 2015 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

Financial voyeurs of the world, rejoice! I dug out all our old tax returns, pay stubs, and my net worth spreadsheet to pull together the story of our ten year journey from nearly zero net worth to millionaire status (and early retirement).

This post answers a lot of questions like: How much did we earn? Did we have six figure incomes all of our careers? Did we work for a start up and make a million when our employer went IPO? Did we get lucky picking stocks?

October 2015 Financial Update

November 2, 2015 JustinRoG Personal Finance

October is over and our investment portfolio decided to celebrate Halloween by giving us a treat after offering nothing but tricks the last couple of months. Our net worth rose by $93,000 fueled by a recovery in the stock market. With $7,715 in income and only $1,015 in expenses, we’re still making way more than we spend each month.

I’ll have to make this monthly financial update relatively short since my ten year old requested a pre-bedtime game of Monopoly and I’m running out time. How can I turn down the opportunity to teach my kids about buying assets, leveraging those assets to generate income, and trying to bankrupt the competition by building hotels that they can’t afford to rent?