At long last, we have returned from our 3 month blitz through Europe and the Thanksgiving holiday and returned to sunny Florida. We spent about half of August visiting family in Wisconsin and Minnesota before flying across the pond and embarking on the first leg of our European journey: a Baltic cruise. More details on that later…I’m way overdue on monthly financial updates! Let’s get into the August 2022 financial update!
In our inaugural blog post, I briefly introduced you to our goal of achieving financial independence (“FI”) by the age of 35 and shared that we are already over halfway to our target net worth of $1,250,000! Since that time, our net worth has climbed to over 90% of our goal. Here’s last month’s update in case you missed it, and here’s how we fared last year in total.
This post is the latest in a regular series of monthly financial updates to track our progress to FI and beyond. Bear with me – I’m a little obsessed with spreadsheets and track every penny we make and spend in excruciating detail. I’ll do my best to summarize that activity in a way that gives enough insight into our financial maneuverings without boring you to tears.
Net Worth
Here’s where our net worth ended up through August 2022:
| | BALANCE | CHANGE FROM PRIOR MONTH |
| ASSETS | | |
| Cash, Checking, Savings | $100,568 | ($5,021) |
| Investments | $1,067,757 | ($46,408) |
| LIABILITIES | | |
| Credit Cards | ($3,322) | $2,982 |
| Misc. Other Debts | ($170) | ($130) |
| NET WORTH | $1,164,833 | ($48,577) |
The S&P 500 decreased about 4% in August, so our net worth followed. Let’s check out each individual category:
Cash, Checking, Savings
This consists mostly of our emergency fund held in a high-yield online savings account at Ally Bank. The rest is held in a “big bank” for depositing our paychecks and paying bills. After the sale of our home, we decided to keep about 2 years worth of living expenses in some form of savings. We’re spending out of that balance now while the market is down instead of selling investments.
We anticipate having a baseline budget of about $50,000 for the next few years, so we stashed $80,000 in savings and purchased $10,000 each in Series I savings bonds. At a current interest rate of 9.62%, that was a no-brainer. The interest rate is tied to inflation, so as long as inflation stays high we will likely buy more of these when we are able to in 2023, building a sort of I-bond ladder.
Investments
The S&P 500 fell and so did our investment account balances. The market is still down from its early January high, but we won’t have to actually sell any investments any time soon, giving the market time to continue its recovery. The only real reason for me to track market performance is for these monthly updates.
Credit Cards
Just the balance on our various credit cards (we use these extensively to fund our travel hacking exploits) as of the end of the month. We pay these off on time and in full each month, so the change in this balance will usually manifest itself in the expenses below.
Misc. Other Debts
Usually just my administrative accounting of who owes what for various fantasy sports leagues. Most of this is entry fees for fantasy baseball, which will be paid out to the winners after the season.
Expenses
Here’s a look at our expenses for the month of August:
| EXPENSES | Budget | Actual | (Over)/Under |
| Home (mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) | $1,114.27 | $0.00 | $1,114.27 |
| Utilities | $122.50 | $0.00 | $122.50 |
| Automotive | $350.77 | $28.98 | $321.79 |
| Groceries | $300.00 | $159.43 | $140.57 |
| Dining Out | $116.67 | $88.55 | $28.12 |
| Health & Beauty | $337.50 | $548.69 | ($211.19) |
| Cell Phones | $41.67 | $0.00 | $41.67 |
| Travel & Entertainment | $1,386.67 | $1,396.28 | ($9.61) |
| Pets | $110.83 | $105.34 | $5.49 |
| Merchandise | $141.12 | $214.37 | ($73.25) |
| Other Expenses | $561.33 | $188.00 | $373.33 |
| Total Expenses | $4,583.33 | $2,729.64 | $1,853.69 |
Our lowest spending month of 2022 by far! No homeownership expenses for the foreseeable future and the bulk of our spending was on travel. Let’s take a look at individual categories:
Home Expenses & Utilities
This year’s budget was heavily front-loaded in anticipation of selling our house in Spring. No more home = no more home expenses.
Automotive
Just a top-off on gas and a car wash before storing our car with family for our time in Europe. Turns out cars are super inexpensive if you don’t use them.
Groceries & Dining Out
We chipped in for groceries while staying with family so we’re not total deadbeats. In a surprising development, we came in under budget in the Dining Out category for the first time since February.
Health & Beauty
This category now includes our monthly health insurance premium (~$415) and should therefore be a little over budget each month the rest of the year. The rest of our health & beauty needs in August consisted of some final stocking up before our upcoming trip.
Cell Phones
As I’ve explained previously, we both have cell phone plans through Mint Mobile that only cost about $15 each per month for unlimited talk, text, and 4GB of 4G LTE data.
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Travel & Entertainment
We spent a hefty amount of money in Europe, but kept it within range of our budget for the month. It helped for this leg of the trip to consist solely of a 2-week Carnival cruise. Our only expenses were usually a snack/lunch/drinks and the occasional entrance fee in port while eating breakfast and dinner on the ship.
After flying from Minneapolis-St Paul to London via Newark, we arrived one day before our cruise was to set sail from Dover, England. Railroad strikes resulted in having to pay $100 each for a coach bus transfer from London to Dover the morning of the cruise, but it was worth the peace of mind. After that, our ports included Copenhagen, Warnemuende (Germany), Tallinn, Helsinki, Kiel, and Gothenburg before returning to Dover.
Around $800 of the amount spent this month was was for items later on in the trip, with another decent chunk for ship gratuities. The remainder was spent on enjoying the local delicacies while in port.
Our entire Europe trip spanned 90 days/89 nights exploring 34 39 different cities in 18 19 countries (forgot about Vatican City). Needless to say, this was a dream vacation that we would not have been able to take without setting ourselves up financially to quit our jobs. I plan on posting more details on each particular leg of the trip.
Pets
Dog food and treats for his 3 months with Grandma while we were gone.
Merchandise & Other Expenses
Mostly last-minute items in preparation for Europe, along with two credit card annual fees.
Conclusion
Looking back, August seems like a lifetime ago. We spent more time with family and friends before embarking on our incredible European journey. While the ports we explored were not necessarily high on our list previously, the cruise was a good way to sample several cities for a few hours at a time. I’m partial to the German ones, but I think Copenhagen was our favorite overall.
Lots of adventures to chronicle, so that’s all for now.
How was your August? Any likes/dislikes about cruises? Leave a comment below!
