October was a wild month crisscrossing Europe at a blistering pace – more details below. Did we blow the budget? Let’s dig into the October 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 October 2022:
| | BALANCE | CHANGE FROM PRIOR MONTH |
| ASSETS | | |
| Cash, Checking, Savings | $93,498 | ($4,773) |
| Investments | $1,048,273 | $79,076 |
| LIABILITIES | | |
| Credit Cards | ($3,613) | $828 |
| Misc. Other Debts | ($180) | ($40) |
| NET WORTH | $1,137,978 | $75,091 |
The roller coaster continued in October, as the S&P 500 reversed course and climbed 8%. 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 rose and so did our investment account balances. 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 will be paid out to the winners after the 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.) | $1,114.27 | $0.00 | $1,114.27 |
| Utilities | $122.50 | $0.00 | $122.50 |
| Automotive | $350.77 | $0.00 | $350.77 |
| Groceries | $300.00 | $6.78 | $293.22 |
| Dining Out | $116.67 | $0.00 | $116.67 |
| Health & Beauty | $337.50 | $447.36 | ($109.86) |
| Cell Phones | $41.67 | $0.00 | $41.67 |
| Travel & Entertainment | $1,386.67 | $3,469.99 | ($2,083.32) |
| Pets | $110.83 | $112.52 | ($1.69) |
| Merchandise | $141.12 | $27.76 | $113.36 |
| Other Expenses | $561.33 | $92.36 | $468.97 |
| Total Expenses | $4,583.33 | $4,156.77 | $426.56 |
Nothing too unexpected here. Another mint spent in Europe, but at least the exchange rate was in our favor. 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
It turns out cars are super inexpensive if you don’t actually use them.
Groceries & Dining Out
Minimal here since most of the food consumed is included in the travel category. The $6 here included items we would have bought whether we were traveling or not, like toothpaste.
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.
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
This was the fast-and-furious portion of our trip, hopping planes, trains, and buses every few days. We woke up several times wondering where exactly in the world we were at that particular moment. Stops included:
- Berlin, Germany (4 nights)
- Manchester, England (3 nights)
- London, England (2 nights)
- Prague, Czech Republic (3 nights)
- Vienna, Austria (2 nights)
- Budapest, Hungary (3 nights)
- Ljubljana, Slovenia (2 nights), including a day trip to Bled, Slovenia
- Venice, Italy (2 nights)
- Bologna, Italy (1 night)
- Florence, Italy (3 nights), including a day trip to the Tuscan countryside
- Rome, Italy (4 nights), including Vatican City and a day trip to Pompeii
- Barcelona, Spain (2 of our 5 total nights fell in October)
The big highlight of October for me was traveling back to England to see my beloved Packers play in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Unfortunately they lost, but it was still a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Also, Lake Bled was absolutely stunning! I’m not usually one to get too impressed by nature but this place was an exception. We ate delicious Bled cream cake, hiked around the lake, and took some amazing pictures.
Again, we were thrifty when possible this month. We capitalized on free breakfasts and bought a few groceries instead of eating out for each meal. At this point in the trip we were well under budget and decided to splurge on a few more experiences that we did not initially have planned: food tours in Prague, Vienna, Florence, Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid; taxis or Ubers instead of public transit where it was convenient, and tickets to the Vienna Opera. We didn’t even plan on going to Bled, Slovenia until about a week beforehand and that turned out to be one our favorite stops on the whole trip!
October included 16 cities in 8 different countries (5 new ones). I plan on posting more details on the specifics of our trip separately.
We also booked some future travel – $200 for a shore excursion during our 8-day Caribbean cruise aboard the Virgin Voyages Valiant Lady. More on that in December.
Pets
Grooming and a new leash this month while he stayed with Grandma.
Merchandise
Just a discount clothing purchase to replace worn out items.
Other Expenses
We paid $95 for a credit card annual fee, 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
October was even more of a blur than September. The football game in London was a favorite of mine, but what I remember more than anything in all of the places we visited was how nice the people were. Of course, the food in Italy especially was phenomenal. I’ll have to spend more time going through the photos of this portion of the trip because there was a lot going on that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.
How was your October? Have you ever been to any of the cities we visited, and what were your impressions? Leave a comment below!
