Yet another month has come and gone and the Trick-or-Treaters have thankfully returned home. The weather here in Minnesota has been unseasonably warm (low 60s at the time of writing!). I don’t think you’ll hear many complaints about global warming in this part of the country over the next several months. Fortunately for us, the stock market was even hotter than the temperature outside and our net worth continued its climb. Check out the details below in our October 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
Here’s where our net worth ended up through October 2021:
| | BALANCE | CHANGE FROM PRIOR MONTH |
| ASSETS | | |
| Cash, Checking, Savings | $13,530 | $250 |
| Investments | $963,132 | $67,084 |
| Home Equity | $106,457 | $570 |
| LIABILITIES | | |
| Credit Cards | ($5,309) | $735 |
| Misc. Other Debts | $0 | $160 |
| NET WORTH | $1,077,810 | $68,799 |
Our net worth skyrocketed in October, riding the coattails of a 6.9% gain in the S&P 500. That’s absurd – considering I projected a 6% gain for the entire year. I’m definitely wary of the downside to this madness, but not complaining one bit.
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. As we get closer to our FI number, I anticipate building this up a bit in the coming months.
Investments
Several different accounts are included here, most of which are true “retirement” accounts. It also includes our taxable brokerage account at Schwab. On top of $8,000 of our own contributions, we accumulated $59,000 in market gains this month. A welcome return after September’s pullback.
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. Though the balance technically went down from the end of September, there was no shortage of spending this month.
Misc. Other Debts
Usually just my administrative accounting of who owes what for various fantasy sports leagues. I’m finally clear of all debts after the conclusion of baseball season.
Expenses
Here’s a look at our expenses for the month of October:
| EXPENSES | Budget | Actual | Over/Under |
| Home (mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) | $2,259.05 | $4,221.81 | ($1,962.77) |
| Utilities | $218.41 | $148.72 | $69.69 |
| Automotive | $480.21 | $312.24 | $167.97 |
| Groceries | $375.00 | $514.91 | ($139.91) |
| Dining Out | $116.67 | $235.78 | ($119.11) |
| Health & Beauty | $266.96 | $242.28 | $24.68 |
| Cell Phones | $16.67 | ($41.70) | $58.37 |
| Travel & Entertainment | $369.32 | $477.74 | ($108.42) |
| Pets | $119.17 | $23.62 | $95.55 |
| Work-related | $8.50 | ($50.00) | $58.50 |
| Merchandise (furniture, decorations, clothes, etc.) | $250.30 | $1,185.72 | ($935.42) |
| Other Expenses | $269.75 | $95.00 | $174.75 |
| Total Expenses | $4,750.00 | $7,366.12 | ($2,616.12) |
After going $1,900 over budget in September, it appears we doubled down on the spending trend. Let’s take a look at some individual categories:
Home Expenses & Utilities
The final installment of property taxes was due in October, so that accounts for $2,680 of this month’s spending. 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.
Groceries, Dining Out
Both of these categories were over budget – we just love food and drink. In hindsight, these categories probably need to be increased in next year’s budget. Most of the frivolous, “I forgot my lunch so I had to buy it” spending has gone away this year, so what we’ve spent is a pretty accurate reflection of what we value.
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. I receive reimbursement from my employer every few months as well, so my cell phone is basically free. I was reimbursed for 3 months of coverage in October, hence the negative amount.
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
The tail end of Mrs. FIby35’s girls trip to Cancun fell into the beginning of October, so there’s a bit of that included here.
I also took a trip in late October to Arizona. In the first (hopefully annual) rendition of a guys trip to see my beloved Packers play in a different city, we spent 3 days and 3 nights in the Phoenix area. There was a bit of travel hacking involved so the cost was relatively minimal – expect a Travel Hack Recap post on this trip in the future.
Merchandise
We knew this was coming, but it still hurts a bit to see the Spreadsheets tally up all the damage.
Given the trajectory of our net worth over the past year, we’re getting awfully close to our FI number. The decision was made to start buying things we know we will need in retirement – refreshing our wardrobes, useful items for travel, etc. – while we still have regular income from our W2 jobs.
Of course, we’re still trying to be somewhat thrifty with these buying decisions. Rakuten and Mr. Rebates have been extremely busy lately. It causes me a little bit of anxiety seeing the never-ending charges come through, but I know that it’s the right choice for timing our spending.
Conclusion
If you’re following along at home, you may have noticed our spending this year has already eclipsed our $57,000 budget. As much as I would have loved to come in under that number this year, there are a lot of moving parts as we prepare to depart the workforce in the near future, and some extra spending is a necessary part of those preparations. We’ve also more than covered the additional spending with unanticipated revenue sources (selling a car, stimulus checks, etc.), so it’s not a complete Spreadsheet travesty.
Some day, after we’ve ridden off into the early retirement sunset, I’ll probably have to write a post detailing these preparations. I’ll add that to one of the many To-Do lists we have running right now…
How did your October spending end up? Any newly-minted millionaires after the huge market run-up? Feel free to comment below!
