Our European extravaganza finally came to an end, as we returned back to the US in the middle of November – just in time to go to another football game, Thanksgiving, and a big family birthday party! The chaos never stops. What did that do to our budget? Let’s dig into the November 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 November 2022:
| | BALANCE | CHANGE FROM PRIOR MONTH |
| ASSETS | | |
| Cash, Checking, Savings | $92,932 | ($566) |
| Investments | $1,105,205 | $56,932 |
| LIABILITIES | | |
| Credit Cards | ($7,688) | ($4,075) |
| Misc. Other Debts | $0 | $180 |
| NET WORTH | $1,190,448 | $52,471 |
Another modest climb in our investment balance in November. It sure feels good to make money without working! 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. The Treasury announced new I-Bond rates of 6.89% in November, still well above what we would get with a savings account. 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 rose another 5% in November and our investment account balances rose in tandem. With our cash buffer there’s no need 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 was paid out to the winners in November.
Expenses
Here’s a look at our expenses for the month of November:
| EXPENSES | Budget | Actual | (Over)/Under |
| Home (mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) | $1,114.27 | $101.00 | $1,013.27 |
| Utilities | $122.50 | ($5.33) | $127.83 |
| Automotive | $350.77 | $248.32 | $102.45 |
| Groceries | $300.00 | $163.71 | $136.29 |
| Dining Out | $116.67 | $77.41 | $39.26 |
| Health & Beauty | $337.50 | $489.12 | ($151.62) |
| Cell Phones | $41.67 | $0.00 | $41.67 |
| Travel & Entertainment | $1,386.67 | $2,217.40 | ($830.73) |
| Pets | $110.83 | $157.55 | ($46.72) |
| Merchandise | $141.12 | $955.90 | ($814.78) |
| Other Expenses | $561.33 | $190.49 | $370.84 |
| Total Expenses | $4,583.33 | $4,595.57 | ($12.24) |
Back to reality, as we returned to the US in the middle of the month. Although we’re still not working and just kind of hanging out with family, so is that really reality…? 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. The exception this month was a renewal of our personal articles insurance, which I happened to lump into home expenses. The $5 credit in utilities should be our last little account true-up from our home sale.
Automotive
Back to regular car use. We drove from Wisconsin to Florida during the last days of November, so this is mostly gas.
Groceries & Dining Out
We chipped in for groceries now that we’re living with family for the foreseeable future. Dining out included a few meetups with friends upon returning stateside.
Health & Beauty
This category includes our monthly health insurance premium (~$415) and should therefore be a little over budget each month the rest of the year. We also had to reload on some beauty items and get a desperately needed haircut this month.
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.
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 can try the service for 3 months before committing to a full year plan. Mr. Rebates is also running a $10 cash back deal that you could use to stack your savings, and Rakuten is offering $5 cash back if that’s more your style.
Travel & Entertainment
Much slower pace this month at the tail end of our trip. My mom met us in Barcelona and traveled with us for the final two weeks. Stops included:
- Barcelona, Spain (3 of our 5 total nights fell in November)
- Lisbon, Portugal (4 nights), including a day trip to Sintra, Cabo da Roca, and Cascais
- Porto, Portugal (3 nights), including a day trip to the Douro Valley
- Madrid, Spain (4 nights), including a day trip to Toledo
- Return flight from Madrid to Minneapolis through Dallas, then drove to Central Wisconsin
Lots of day trips and guided tours, as we used some of our budget surplus to lighten our decision-making load. It was nice to be able to just show up at a meeting point in the morning and be guided around all day instead of having to figure out each little transportation maneuver and meal ourselves, as we did on most of the rest of the trip.
November included 9 cities in 2 different countries (1 new one), not including our return to the US. I plan on posting more details on the specifics of our trip separately.
We also booked some future travel in November:
- ~$300 for flights to/from Southeast Asia, where we are headed for a month in early 2023
- $53 for parking in Miami during our 8-day Caribbean cruise
Pets
Black Friday is usually a big day for our dog, as we scour for deals on food and treats. This year was no different.
Merchandise
We went a little crazy on Black Friday deals, placing a myriad of clothing orders. These are either to replace worn out items or new pieces that will be useful for our upcoming warm-weather trips.
This category also includes gifts and a set of noise-cancelling headphones for Mrs. FIby35…a necessity for all the flights we have in our future.
Other Expenses
A total of $190 for two more credit card annual fees, minus the net reimbursement for ATM fees from our Schwab Investor Checking account. When withdrawing cash from ATMs in Europe, I usually rounded to the nearest dollar in the Spreadsheets (the Euro was nearly 1:1 with USD for a good portion of our trip). The actual exchange rate and subsequent fee reimbursement was more precise resulting in a net credit this month.
Conclusion
Though we’ve been home for only a month, the Europe trip seems like a lifetime ago. It was such an incredible experience for so many reasons that I probably can’t fully appreciate just yet as we try to settle into a little more relaxed lifestyle for a while. Lots of lessons learned on international travel, that’s for sure.
It was nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving and my Grandma’s 90th birthday with my family and catch up with friends we hadn’t seen in months. December will be spent mostly in Florida with Mrs. FIby35’s parents. With the exception of a cruise, there should be far less running around and far more snuggling with our dog and a library book.
How was your November? Any suggestions for future travel destinations? Leave a comment below!
