Here we are, nearly in October, and I still haven’t posted our August financial update. Forgive me, we’ve been a little busy. Since our last monthly status report, I began full-time work again, we drove from Wisconsin down to Florida, moved into an apartment, and continue to accumulate more items to furnish said apartment by the day. I’ll save most of the financial impact of all that for next month. For now, check out the financial details of my August 2023 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 reach and exceed 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 2023:
| | BALANCE | CHANGE FROM PRIOR MONTH |
| ASSETS | | |
| Cash, Checking, Savings | $66,093 | ($472) |
| Investments | $1,229,356 | ($23,952) |
| LIABILITIES | | |
| Credit Cards | ($3,105) | $1,859 |
| Car Loan | ($28,597) | $269 |
| Misc. Other Debts | ($140) | $0 |
| NET WORTH | $1,263,607 | ($22,296) |
The overall stock market pulled back a bit in August. See what happens when I start working again? I think there’s a lesson here somewhere…
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 and Series I savings bonds. The rest is held in a “big bank” for depositing our paychecks(!) and paying bills. After the sale of our home in May 2022, we decided to keep about 2 years worth of living expenses in some form of savings. We’ve been spending out of that balance instead of selling investments.
We anticipated 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 in 2022. The Treasury announced I-Bond rates of 4.30% starting in May, which is roughly in line with what we could earn in a basic online savings account. We started redeeming these bonds in September and moved them to our more easily-accessible savings account, currently earning 4.25%.
Investments
Most of our investments track the S&P 500, which fell slightly in August. With our cash buffer and newly-found employment there’s no need to actually sell any investments any time soon, giving the market time to climb. 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.
Car Loan
We were hoping to run our 2009 Toyota RAV-4 into the ground someday in the distant future, but that day came sooner than expected. In January we purchased a shiny new Subaru Forester and *gasp* financed it all, with payments beginning in March. The plan is to likely pay off the loan in full during our next stage of employment before leaving the workforce again, whenever that may be.
Misc. Other Debts
Usually just my administrative accounting of who owes what for various fantasy sports leagues. Baseball season is nearly complete, upon which payouts will be made.
Expenses
Here’s a look at our expenses for the month of August:
| EXPENSES | Budget | Actual | (Over)/Under |
| Home (mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) | $1,128.25 | $0.00 | $1,128.25 |
| Utilities | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Automotive | $449.75 | $902.66 | ($452.91) |
| Groceries | $308.33 | $402.95 | ($94.62) |
| Dining Out | $135.42 | $200.75 | ($65.33) |
| Health & Beauty | $568.33 | $60.43 | $507.90 |
| Cell Phones | $33.33 | $0.00 | $33.33 |
| Travel & Entertainment | $1,235.00 | $469.87 | $765.13 |
| Pets | $87.50 | $56.94 | $30.56 |
| Merchandise | $135.67 | $249.52 | ($113.85) |
| Other Expenses | $293.42 | $94.01 | $199.41 |
| Total Expenses | $4,375.00 | $2,437.13 | $1,937.87 |
August was well under budget by design, as we said our goodbyes to the family and friends we had been spending so much time with this summer. In September we signed a 12-month lease on an apartment and moved in shortly after, hence the delay in this month’s post.
Let’s take a look at individual categories:
Home Expenses & Utilities
No home = no home expenses. It was fun while it lasted. September will show prorated rent and moving costs, though we were able to take advantage of a deal for 6 months of free rent starting in October.
Automotive
Payments on our new car began in March to the tune of $471/month. August also included an oil change and several tanks of gas between Central Wisconsin and Northeast Florida.
I budgeted conservatively for insurance this year and also had a pretty good chunk budgeted for maintenance. But with the new car, most of that budgeted maintenance will be shifted to paying the loan instead. All in all, the new car shouldn’t cost us much more out of pocket this year than the old one would have.
Groceries & Dining Out
We chipped in for groceries while staying with family and stocked the fridge upon our arrival in Florida late in the month. Dining out was relatively tame this month, though still slightly over budget.
Health & Beauty
This category no longer includes our monthly health insurance premium (~$435), as we joined my new employer’s insurance plan starting in September. I account for the cost of insurance in our budget when paying out of our own pocket; that cost just gets absorbed by my paycheck while working.
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 5GB of 4G LTE data (an increase from 4GB after they were bought out by T-Mobile).
We love Mint Mobile and highly recommend their services for a much more affordable option than some of the big names out there. I’d be thrilled if you used this referral link and signed up with them. Right now, you can sign up for 3 months of service just to try it out before committing to a full year. All of their plans are just $15 a month right now! Mr. Rebates is also running a $5 cash back deal that you could use to stack your savings, and Rakuten is offering $5 cash back as well if that’s more your style.
Travel & Entertainment
A good chunk of this category is due to a wedding we attended in Minneapolis (rental car, parking, etc.). Fortunately, the hotel was paid for using free night certificates ($499 value for two nights). The other half was for the hotel room in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on our way down to Florida.
Pets
A little bit of dog food and a nail trim this month.
Merchandise
Not much for ourselves this month, but we spent on wedding gifts, birthday gifts, and new baby gifts. Fair warning, this category absolutely EXPLODES in September.
Other Expenses
Just a credit card annual fee, as one of our keeper cards renewed for the year.
Conclusion
So in summary of the past 16 months: we sold our home and most of our possessions, quit our jobs, traveled the world, and reached the amount solidifying our financial independence. Then in August, we went back to work and decided to sign on for a semi-permanent home and re-accumulate a bunch of things.
Wait, what?
We came to a couple realizations during the past year:
- While the traveling we did was absolutely incredible and travel will always be a part of our lives, we realized we needed some sort of home base to come back to. We were fortunate to have family that allowed (and even encouraged!) us to stay with them for long periods of time, but at some point living in someone else’s space wears on you as well.
- We hit our FI number, which was based on annual spending of $50,000. Though we believe we could perpetuate that level of spending indefinitely, we longed for a bit more freedom from the budgetary constraints we’ve been putting on ourselves the past several years. We actually did an exercise where we attempted to put a cost to what our ideal (but reasonable – no private jets) life would look like. Surprisingly, Mrs. FIby35 and I each arrived in the same ballpark of $70,000-75,000 of spending per year. That’s maybe more of a rough guideline than a rule, as we still reserve the right to quit real life and travel spontaneously whenever we want.
So for the next 12 months, we will make our home in Florida and take side trips when possible. I’m already back in the swing of corporate accounting life and Mrs. FIby35 is hoping to join soon as well.
After that? Who knows. Maybe we won’t even like living in Florida. But having uprooted our lives once already, it’s not such a scary proposition to do it again in search of our ideal life.
Are we crazy for forfeiting our freedom and returning to work? Leave a comment below!
