Welcome again to a different month-to-month replace from Root of Good! We’ve been again at dwelling in Raleigh for a few weeks after spending most of August on two totally different cruises. We’ve had loads of time to relaxation and recuperate earlier than our subsequent large journey that commences in just a few extra days. Quickly we cross the pond for an additional two week cruise round Europe.
A little bit of household information – after graduating school, our center little one accepted a full time job supply final month. She is scheduled to begin subsequent week. One other employee to maintain the financial system booming and one other taxpayer to maintain the federal government revenues flowing!
On to our monetary progress. August was an unbelievable month for our funds. Our web value elevated by $122,000 to finish the month at $3,760,000. Our August revenue of $1,862 was virtually sufficient to cowl our spending of $2,452 for the month.
Let’s bounce into the main points from final month.
Revenue
Funding revenue totaled $648 final month. Our fairness index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly on the finish of March, June, September, and December. Consequently, we had a smaller than regular quantity of funding revenue paid in August. Right here’s extra on our dividend investments.
Weblog revenue totaled $553 for final month. This represents pretty common weblog revenue.
My early retirement way of life consulting revenue (“consulting”) was $0 throughout final month. Issues have positively slowed down in my consulting enterprise. Summer time is over now, and the consulting biz is beginning to decide again up. We’ll see how September finally ends up.
Tradeline gross sales revenue totaled $350 throughout final month. I ramped up my tradeline gross sales just a few years in the past and mentioned it in a bit extra element in my October 2020 month-to-month put up and in my July 2021 month-to-month put up. Throughout 2024 I revamped $6,000 in trade for lending out my stellar credit score historical past from half a dozen bank cards.
My “deposit revenue” totaled $10. This got here from money again and incentive bonuses from the Rakuten.com and Mrrebates.com on-line procuring portals (a few of which was earned from you readers signing up by way of these hyperlinks).
In case you join Rakuten by way of this hyperlink and make a qualifying $30 buy by way of Rakuten, you’ll get a $30 enroll bonus.
My financial institution and bank card bonuses totaled $300 final month. These bonuses got here from some Chase bank card spending bonuses.
In case you’re curious about monitoring your revenue and bills like I do, then try Empower Private Dashboard, previously generally known as Private Capital (it’s free!). All of our financial savings and spending accounts (together with checking, cash market, and greater than half a dozen bank cards) are all linked and up to date in actual time by way of Empower Private Dashboard. We’ve got accounts everywhere, and Empower Private Dashboard makes it very easy to test on all the things at one time.
Empower Private Dashboard can be a strong instrument for funding administration. Protecting monitor of our complete funding portfolio takes two clicks. In case you haven’t signed up for the free Empower Private Dashboard service, test it out right now (evaluate right here).
Monitoring spending was one of many important steps I took that allowed me to retire at 33. And it’s now simpler than ever with Empower Private Dashboard.
Bills
Now let’s check out August bills:
In whole, we spent $2,452 final month which is about $900 lower than our repeatedly budgeted $3,333 monthly (or $40,000 per yr). Items and journey had been the highest two spending classes from final month.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Items – $1,100:
Our daughter completed her bachelor’s diploma and graduated school on the finish of July. We had a small celebration at dwelling the place we gave her $1,000 as a commencement reward. A couple of days later we gave her one other $100 for her nineteenth birthday. Then we took her on a cruise to the Caribbean! Not a foul summer season for her in any respect!
Journey – $568:
Nearly all of our $568 in journey spending throughout August got here from our European cruise round the UK and Eire. The gratuities on the 2 week cruise totaled $476, and we spent $10-20 right here and there on native transportation whereas in varied ports throughout the British Isles.
We additionally took a weeklong cruise to the Caribbean with two of our youngsters. Every little thing was pay as you go on that cruise together with the flights, lodge, and cruise fare and gratuities. The one factor we paid for was just a few {dollars} for a few Ubers. I used my Chase bank cards’ rideshare credit to offset a lot of the Uber/Lyft fees. We sailed out of Tampa and the rideshare fares had been extremely low there.
Get free journey like us
In case you are curious about getting free journey out of your bank card like I do, think about the Chase Ink enterprise playing cards (my referral hyperlink). Proper now, the Chase Ink playing cards affords an above common $900 value of Chase Final Rewards factors that may be redeemed immediately for $900 in money (or much more for journey!).
Chase is fairly liberal in the case of “what’s a enterprise”. In case you promote stuff on eBay or Craigslist or do some odd jobs sometimes then you may have a enterprise and will get a bank card as a “sole proprietor”.
I exploit the 90,000 Chase Final Rewards factors by transferring them to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card (additionally providing a 60,000 level enroll bonus proper now). With the Sapphire Reserve card, I can get 1.5x the factors worth by reserving cruises, flights, inns, or rental automobiles by way of their journey portal. For instance, I used 165,000 Chase Final Reward factors to pay for the $2,475 in taxes, charges, and gratuities on two of my cruises. Or I can switch these Final rewards factors to over a dozen journey companions’ airline/lodge applications like United, Southwest, or Hyatt.
One other glorious selection by way of the tip of the day on September seventeenth, 2025 is the 100,000 level supply for one of many Chase Southwest playing cards. These are sufficient factors for half a dozen spherical journey flights within the USA if you happen to store rigorously. Mrs. Root of Good simply acquired that card. Hopefully she will get the enterprise Southwest card earlier than the tip of the yr in order that she will earn a complete of 135,000+ Southwest factors and thereby earn a Southwest companion move for 2026 and 2027. It might be nice to get purchase one get one free fares for 2 extra years!
Utilities – $425:
We spent $161 on our water/sewer/trash invoice final month.
The electrical invoice was $244 for August. That’s principally air conditioner utilization. It was sizzling and humid final month. Luckily the payments drop fairly a bit by September.
The pure gasoline invoice for final month totaled $20. Most of that’s the month-to-month connection cost. Only a few {dollars} for the precise gasoline consumed by the water heater.
Groceries – $236:
We had been solely on the town about 12 days throughout August and didn’t go grocery procuring very a lot. Consequently our whole grocery spend was solely $236 throughout the month. We ate fairly properly on our cruises, nevertheless.
Cable/Satellite tv for pc/Web – $50:
We pay $25 monthly for a neighborhood lowered fee bundle attributable to having a decrease revenue and having children. 50 mbit/s obtain, 10 mbit/s add. I paid two months of web payments throughout August.
Phone – $44:
The annual renewal for our son’s cell phone service got here due in August. $44 for 12 months of 200 MB/month plus just a few hundred discuss minutes and texts. We use Redpocket for the cell service. He’s on wifi whereas in school and doesn’t want a ton of information proper now, so this plan works.
Gasoline – $19:
A tank of gasoline for our Hyundai Accent.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $7:
Our 2025 medical insurance is free due to very beneficiant Inexpensive Care Act subsidies that we obtain attributable to our low ~$51,000 per yr Adjusted Gross Revenue.
Our 2025 dental insurance coverage plan usually prices $32 in premiums monthly. We picked a plan from Truassure by way of the healthcare.gov trade. The dental insurance coverage does a superb job of masking most of our routine cleanings, exams, and x-rays plus most of the price of primary procedures like fillings.
I pay as you go an additional $24 for my dental insurance coverage in July to cowl two additional months so I didn’t pay something for my plan in August. Mrs. Root of Good’s insurance coverage premium didn’t put up till September so we’ll have two months of funds subsequent month.
The $7 spent on medical bills in August was a co-insurance invoice for some routine lab work.
House Upkeep – $4:
$4 for simply over a gallon of gasoline for our lawnmower.
Eating places – $3:
I used the $5 Doordash credit score from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card at Taco Bell and paid $3 additional to improve to a combo meal.
Spending for 2025 – Yr to Date
We spent $26,583 throughout the first eight months of 2025. This annual spending is inside $100 of our budgeted $26,667 for the primary eight months of the yr per our $40,000 annual early retirement finances. I haven’t elevated our annual finances for inflation in a decade, so in some unspecified time in the future I must revisit the finances numbers.
And identical to that, we’re again on finances for the yr! We weren’t actually making an attempt to chop spending and would possibly find yourself spending extra on issues all through the remaining 4 months of the yr. Who is aware of! However we’re additionally busy touring, researching, planning, and reserving extra journey.
At this level, journey is generally free from the thousands and thousands of factors and miles that I’ve collected through the years. Mockingly, if we decelerate on touring we would truly spend more cash whereas we’re at dwelling in america.
Both approach, we’re doing very properly financially. It doesn’t actually matter if we’re spending $40,000 per yr or $100,000 per yr since our portfolio is properly over $3,000,000 now.
Month-to-month Expense Abstract for 2025:
Abstract of annual spending from greater than a decade of my early retirement:
- 2014 – $34,352
- 2015 – $23,802
- 2016 – $38,991
- 2017 – $31,708
- 2018 – $29,058
- 2019 – $25,630
- 2020 – $28,466
- 2021 – $31,740
- 2022 – $29,449
- 2023 – $37,865
- 2024 – $40,286
- 2025 – $26,583 (by way of 8/31/2025)
Web Price: $3,760,000 (+$122,000)
Our web value elevated by a whopping $122,000 throughout final month to finish August at $3,760,000.
We’re are shortly approaching the $4 million milestone. We’d hit the following milestone earlier than the tip of 2025 or it’d take many extra months or years if the market goes sideways.
(That chart title ought to learn “Root of Good Web Price $3,760,000”; we’re firing the photoshop man, don’t fear!)
For the curious, our web value reported above contains our dwelling worth (which is absolutely paid off). I worth the home at $300,000, which might be what we might web after gross sales bills. Nevertheless, please notice that I don’t think about my dwelling worth as a part of my portfolio for “4% rule” calculation functions. I notice people ask me about that each month so I simply needed to state that right here for readability.
Closing ideas
One other nice month of early retirement is within the books! I spent slightly below a decade working full time after school. And now I’ve been retired greater than 12 years. The 9 years I spent working felt WAY longer than the final 12 years of early retirement. “Time flies once you’re having enjoyable” is definitely true!
After I began on my early retirement journey my oldest two children had been in 2nd and third grade. Now they’re each executed with school and dealing full time. Fairly laborious to consider.
Since they’re each working full time jobs, they’re paying for many of their bills. Garments, cell service, healthcare and dental, tech toys and computer systems, eating places, social actions, and gasoline for the automotive are all their duty. They’re each nonetheless dwelling at dwelling, so we cowl housing, utilities, and groceries.
Ultimately one of many children might want to purchase a brand new(er) automotive since we solely have two automobiles to share between 4 drivers. The brand new(er) automotive will probably be their expense. Luckily they’ll pay for it out of their new paychecks.
Our oldest little one already enrolled within the 401k at work and is maxing it out. She’s properly on her strategy to early retirement in one other decade or two. Our different child will in all probability enroll and max out the 401k as soon as she’s eligible to contribute to her 401k.
Thrilling instances over right here! Two out of our three children are gainfully employed and us mother and father are holding busy “working” a rigorous journey schedule. Talking of journey, it’s time for me to go pack!
See you subsequent time!
Prepared for fall to reach? Did you may have a superb summer season? Take any large journeys?
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