July 2025 Early Retirement Replace – British Isles Cruise Version

Welcome again to a different month-to-month replace from Root of Good! I’m again house in Raleigh for just a few days between journeys so I’ll give an replace on what we’re as much as. 

We simply returned from Europe the place we spent two and a half weeks in late July and early August cruising across the British Isles, Eire, Isle of Man, and northern Europe. We additionally had a full day in London earlier than our cruise to discover town. 

The itinerary for our July/August cruise had some overlap with our June British Isles cruise nevertheless we nonetheless made it to many new ports of name this time round. The climate was additionally a lot nicer in July and August. 

Within the subsequent couple of days we hit the street (skies? waves?) once more for a week-long Caribbean cruise with two of our children. Our center youngster simply graduated faculty and doesn’t have a job but, so we’re squeezing in a brief household trip along with her earlier than she will get busy with work. After we return to Raleigh, it’s again to high school for our son who will start his final 12 months of center faculty. 

On to our monetary progress. July was a terrific month for our funds in each regard. Our web value elevated by $41,000 to finish the month at $3,638,000. Our July revenue of $7,163 was far more than sufficient to cowl our spending of $1,992 for the month.

Let’s bounce into the main points from final month.

 

Revenue

Funding revenue totaled $5,414 final month. Our fairness index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly on the finish of March, June, September, and December. In consequence, we had a bigger than regular quantity of funding revenue paid on the very starting of July. Right here’s extra on our dividend investments.

Weblog revenue totaled $548 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. I don’t know if people are much less thinking about early retirement or if it’s only a summertime slowdown. I’ve been fairly busy touring anyway so reserving zero hours final month labored out effectively given my schedule. 

Tradeline gross sales revenue totaled $625 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 publish and in my July 2021 month-to-month publish. 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 $21. 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). 

For those who 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 $555 final month. Of the entire, $300 got here from some Chase spending bonuses. The opposite $255 was from the Pay Your self Again characteristic on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I reimbursed myself for $255 of grocery purchases throughout July. 

 

 

For those who’re thinking about monitoring your revenue and bills like I do, then try Empower Private Dashboard, previously referred to 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 now have accounts in all places, and Empower Private Dashboard makes it very easy to verify on every part at one time.

Empower Private Dashboard can be a strong instrument for funding administration. Conserving observe of our total funding portfolio takes two clicks. For those who haven’t signed up for the free Empower Private Dashboard service, test it out at the moment (overview 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 July bills:

 

 

In whole, we spent $1,992 final month which is about $1,300 lower than our recurrently budgeted $3,333 monthly (or $40,000 per 12 months). Groceries and journey have been the highest two spending classes from final month.

 

Detailed breakdown of spending:

 

Groceries – $836:

Mrs. Root of Good and I have been on the town for 3 and a half weeks of July. And our children have been right here the complete month. Our grocery spending totaled $836 throughout that point interval. It was a reasonably typical month of grocery spending. 

 

 

Journey – $528:

The largest little bit of journey spending in July was paying the taxes, charges, and gratuities for our daughter’s ticket for our August cruise. We held off paying for her ticket till the final minute since we didn’t know if she would be capable to make the cruise given uncertainties along with her potential work schedule. She doesn’t have a job but so she’s free to affix us on the cruise subsequent week. $323 was the entire for her cruise prices. 

I booked some flights on Frontier to get us house after the cruise nevertheless it solely price $3 out of pocket. I used up the remaining $209 of my annual Capital One Enterprise X journey credit score to pay for the majority of the flight house for the 4 of us. 

The remaining $201 of July journey spending was for our Europe cruise that included:

• a bunch of ubers/taxis
• a pair of spherical journey intercity practice tickets for London to Dover, UK
• native transit fares all through the UK and Eire
• admission charges
• two mild meals in London (together with fish and chips in a pub!)

 

We usually skip the dear excursions provided by the cruise ship and as a substitute depend on some mixture of strolling, transit, or uber/taxis. In most ports this prices us $5-25 whole to get round for the day.

One visitor informed us that the ship was charging $209 per individual for an “tour” on a steam practice throughout the Isle of Man that we booked ourselves for $16. Nevertheless we did must stroll 10 minutes from the port to get to the practice station. I don’t thoughts getting paid $195 for a ten minute stroll! 

 

 

 

 

Get free journey like us

If you’re thinking about getting free journey out of your bank card like I do, contemplate the Chase Ink Most well-liked enterprise card (my referral hyperlink). Proper now, the Chase Ink Most well-liked enterprise card 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 terms of “what’s a enterprise”. For those who promote stuff on eBay or Craigslist or do some odd jobs often then you’ve got 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, accommodations, or rental vehicles 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/resort applications like United, Southwest, or Hyatt. 

Or contemplate the revamped Chase Sapphire Reserve card with the best enroll bonus ever of 100,000 Final Reward factors plus $500 in journey credit score. The upper annual charge of $795 comes with some added journey advantages that may greater than offset the annual charge when you journey an honest quantity. Plus the enroll bonus is value $1500-2000 relying on how you employ the bonus! ***This larger enroll provide ends August 21, 2025!!***

 

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Capital One VentureX card

One other favourite journey card in my pockets is the Capital One Enterprise X card. The Enterprise X card is a “keeper” for me. First off, it comes with a $750 enroll bonus after spending $4,000 within the first three months. The bonus is paid within the type of 75,000 bonus factors you can redeem towards any journey purchases from anyplace. Then you definately earn a strong 2 factors per greenback spent ceaselessly! The opposite huge perk is airport lounge entry. You may get your self plus limitless friends into Precedence Cross lounges. And also you and two of your friends can get into Plaza Premium community lounges and Capital One Lounges. 

The Capital One Enterprise X card does have one catch – a $395 annual charge. However they reward you yearly with a simple to make use of $300 journey low cost plus $100 value of factors. Collectively, that makes $400 they provide you yearly which utterly offsets the annual charge. Because the annual charge is offset in full by journey credit annually, I personally plan on holding the Enterprise X card ceaselessly for the reason that card advantages are so nice.

 

 

 

 

Utilities – $426:

We spent $121 on our water/sewer/trash invoice final month.

The electrical invoice was $283 for July. That’s principally air conditioner utilization. It was extremely sizzling and humid final month. Luckily the payments drop fairly a bit by September. 

The pure fuel invoice for final month totaled $22. Most of that’s the month-to-month connection cost. Just some {dollars} for the precise fuel consumed by the water heater.

 

Fuel – $61:

A tank of fuel for our Hyundai Accent and a tank of fuel for our minivan.

 

 

Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $56:

Our 2025 medical insurance is free because of very beneficiant Inexpensive Care Act subsidies that we obtain as a consequence of our low ~$51,000 per 12 months 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 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. Truassure has majorly screwed up my invoice they usually wouldn’t take lower than 3 months of premium funds on-line. Irritating firm to take care of however the insurance coverage itself is an efficient worth (however is it definitely worth the headache?).

 

Eating places – $47:

We acquired takeout two occasions throughout July totaling $47. For a kind of purchases I used up some reward playing cards and Doordash credit from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

 

 

House Enchancment – $41:

$41 for a number of orders from House Depot. They’ve free delivery on virtually every part together with small $1-2 objects. I acquired some heavy responsibility staples, a 100 pack of cable staples, a storage container, a bucket, and a 3 pack of furnace filters. 

 

Cable/Satellite tv for pc/Web – $0:

We pay $25 monthly for an area diminished price package deal as a consequence of having a decrease revenue and having children. 50 mbit/s obtain, 10 mbit/s add. I pay as you go the web invoice in June so the entire spent in July was $0. 

 

 

 

Spending for 2025 – Yr to Date

 

 

We spent $24,132 throughout the first seven months of 2025. This annual spending is about $800 over our budgeted $23,333 for the primary seven months of the 12 months per our $40,000 annual early retirement price range. I haven’t elevated our annual price range for inflation in a decade, so sooner or later I must revisit the price range numbers. 

We don’t have many main deliberate bills all through the remainder of 2025, so we’d get again on price range sooner or later. I plan to ebook much more journey for 2025 and 2026 however most of that must be free from the bank card factors and frequent flyer miles I’ve accrued.  

 

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 – $24,132 (by way of 7/31/2025)

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Web Price: $3,638,000 (+$41,000)

Our web value elevated by $41,000 throughout final month to finish July at $3,638,000. 

Certainly one of my favourite components of the FIRE way of life is happening a cruise round Europe for 2 weeks whereas my portfolio passively makes $41,000 for me. I do know I received’t make that a lot each month from my investments, nevertheless it’s not too far off from what I count on on common. 

At a 9% price of return I count on round $25,000 monthly of portfolio beneficial properties on common. In fact there may be at all times month-to-month volatility so it’s extra like $50,000 up or down most months. With the long run pattern being upwards. 

 

 

For the curious, our web value reported above consists of our house worth (which is absolutely paid off). I worth the home at $300,000, which might be what we’d web after gross sales bills. Nevertheless, please word that I don’t contemplate my house 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.

 

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Closing ideas

Life is nice. Our oldest daughter is absolutely employed after graduating faculty earlier within the 12 months. Our center youngster simply graduated faculty just a few weeks in the past at age 18, and can hopefully land a job quickly. Our son is about to return to high school in every week the place he’ll end up center faculty this 12 months. 

Monetary freedom has granted us the enjoyment of touring wherever our hearts need, with out obsessing over the worth tag. The previous few months have been a whirlwind of adventures, however as the varsity 12 months resumes, we’ll savor extra time at house. That stated, we’re already planning a number of thrilling journeys over the subsequent six months.

 

 

As summer season winds down, I’m reflecting on one other fulfilling 12 months of early retirement. This August marks 12 years since I stepped away from my engineering profession in 2013, a profession that spanned simply 9 years. It’s exceptional to suppose that my retirement has outlasted my working years. Over these 12 years, we’ve watched our web value triple, explored dozens of nations with our youngsters, and celebrated as two of them graduated faculty. Our children are thriving, and I’m full of gratitude for the journey.

Right here’s to many extra many years of retirement full of the liberty to “do nothing” in probably the most pleasant means attainable whereas embracing no matter adventures come subsequent!

Okay people, that’s it for me for this replace! 

 

Prepared for fall to reach? Did you’ve got summer season?

 

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