Something BIG happened in our household in July. In the midst of a drought, long work days, sleepless nights full of thunderstorms and fireworks (our dog is not a fan), we managed to break through another major milestone: the FIby35 household joined the Two Comma Club. That’s right – the Spreadsheets calculated our net worth to be over $1,000,000 for the first time ever. Check out the details below in our July 2021 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! 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
With that, here’s where our net worth is at through July 2021:
| | BALANCE | CHANGE FROM PRIOR MONTH |
| ASSETS | | |
| Cash, Checking, Savings | $16,345 | $2,941 |
| Investments | $885,293 | $28,932 |
| Home Equity | $104,753 | $565 |
| LIABILITIES | | |
| Credit Cards | ($2,091) | $236 |
| Misc. Other Debts | ($120) | ($20) |
| NET WORTH | $1,004,180 | $32,654 |
It was a rocky ride in July, with large swings up and down in the S&P 500, which most of our investments track. Overall, a modest gain results in yet another move in a positive direction for The Spreadsheets. At this point, relatively large investment balances beget relatively large changes each month.
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. A three-paycheck month for Mrs. FIby35 is the reason this balance is a little more bloated than I’d prefer.
Investments
Several different accounts are included here, most of which are true “retirement” accounts. It also includes our taxable brokerage account at Schwab. We were able to sock away $12,400 in contributions this month, with another $16,500 coming from market gains. It’s pretty exciting in the months where our investment returns outpace our paychecks, which they did again in July.
Home Equity
Purchase price of our home, less the outstanding mortgage balance. I don’t worry about adjusting the value to whatever our Zestimate is on a particular day because it doesn’t matter until we sell. Having said that, new homes are being built and others are being sold in our neighborhood for well over what we paid for ours, so this is likely a conservative number.
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.
Expenses
Here’s a look at our expenses for the month of July:
| EXPENSES | Budget | Actual | Over/Under |
| Home (mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) | $2,259.05 | $1,554.92 | $704.13 |
| Utilities | $218.41 | $96.37 | $122.04 |
| Automotive | $480.21 | $276.83 | $203.38 |
| Groceries | $375.00 | $428.68 | ($53.68) |
| Dining Out | $116.67 | $133.98 | ($17.31) |
| Health & Beauty | $266.96 | $448.71 | ($181.75) |
| Cell Phones | $16.67 | ($41.70) | $58.37 |
| Travel & Entertainment | $369.32 | $507.18 | ($137.86) |
| Pets | $119.17 | ($0.77) | $119.94 |
| Work-related | $8.50 | ($41.94) | $50.44 |
| Merchandise (furniture, decorations, clothes, etc.) | $250.30 | $68.17 | $182.13 |
| Other Expenses | $269.75 | $0.00 | $269.75 |
| Total Expenses | $4,750.00 | $3,430.43 | $1,319.57 |
In addition to July’s investment gains, we we came in well under budget. No big, lumpy expenses for the first month seemingly all year, so that definitely helps.
Some analysis on individual categories:
Home Expenses & Utilities
No property taxes, insurance, association dues, or major repairs this month. The budget is built to average the cost of property taxes over the year, so in all months other than May and October, we should be under budget.
Health & Beauty
We both lightened our loads with summer haircuts and some other small cosmetic appointments. Tack on replenishing our stock of beauty items, and this area exceeded budget by a bit. But can you really put a price on your health?
Cell Phones
As I’ve explained previously, we both have cell phone plans through Mint Mobile that only cost about $15 each per month. In July, I received reimbursement from my employer for the previous 3 months of coverage, thus the negative number.
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 – you won’t regret it!
Travel & Entertainment
We began the month at the cabin, which I consider to be travel expenses even though it’s still in Minnesota. As brewery enthusiasts, we got a little carried away one afternoon and loosened the purse strings a bit more than we probably should have. It happens.
We also booked flights (using Southwest points) and a deeply discounted hotel room for yet another trip to Las Vegas with some friends.
Lastly, a bachelor party in Wisconsin Dells was a bit spendy but still a good time.
Conclusion
As I noted in the intro, the million dollar mark is a big milestone in our path to financial independence. Not only is it fun to say we’re millionaires, but it’s also the 80% mark on our journey to a net worth of $1,250,000. Just one year ago, we crossed the 50% threshold. It was also totally unexpected, as I didn’t track the overall market performance during the month.
I said the same thing last month – while exciting, the progress also a bit scary…our plan is coming together, but at a much faster rate than we anticipated. We’ve started throwing around ideas and putting together some actual logistics of what our potential early retirement will look like, at least for the first few months after calling it quits.
How did your July spending end up? Any other newly-minted millionaires? Feel free to comment below!
