Welcome again to a different month-to-month replace from Root of Good! We’ve been at residence for a few month since wrapping up our Panama Canal cruise in November. We deliberately blocked off Thanksgiving and Christmas from our journey calendar so we might be at residence throughout the holidays.
We shall be at residence for roughly two full months, with no extra journey deliberate till the tip of January after we depart on our subsequent cruise journey. During the last month, I’ve been catching up on loads of year-end duties, checking issues off my to-do record, and having fun with time simply being at residence. A trip from holidays.
We capped off November with an enormous Thanksgiving household gathering at our home. Numerous turkey, stuffing, gravy, and eggrolls for everybody!
On to our monetary progress. November was one other nice month for our funds. Our internet price elevated by $64,000 to finish the month at $3,914,000. Our November earnings of $2,534 was greater than sufficient to cowl our spending of $1,927 for the month.
Let’s bounce into the main points from final month.
Earnings
Funding earnings totaled $632 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 smaller than regular quantity of funding earnings. Right here’s extra on our dividend investments.
Weblog earnings totaled $522 for final month. This represents a mean month of weblog earnings.
My early retirement way of life consulting earnings (“consulting”) was $420 throughout final month. That represents two hours of consulting. The consulting earnings stays regular for now, with a couple of hours booked every month.
Tradeline gross sales earnings totaled $925 throughout final month. I ramped up my tradeline gross sales a couple of 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 alternate for lending out my stellar credit score historical past from half a dozen bank cards.
2025 tradeline earnings is greater than 2024 thus far. However the “worst case” consequence lastly struck! I had a bank card closed on account of “threat” in response to the bank card issuer. I don’t know with certainty that my card was closed on account of including licensed customers however it’s definitely potential. 5 years of tradeline gross sales, and tens of hundreds of {dollars} later, I’d say the chance was greater than offset by the beneficial properties. One other reminder that the tradeline gross sales sport is just not with out threat.
My “deposit earnings” totaled $34. Out of the overall, $30 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 via these hyperlinks).
In case you join Rakuten via this hyperlink and make a qualifying $30 buy via Rakuten, you’ll get a $30 join bonus.
The opposite $4 of deposit earnings was a small class motion lawsuit payout.
In case you’re serious about monitoring your earnings and bills like I do, then take a look at 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 via Empower Private Dashboard. We now have accounts in every single place, and Empower Private Dashboard makes it very easy to verify on every part at one time.
Empower Private Dashboard can be a stable instrument for funding administration. Preserving monitor of our whole funding portfolio takes two clicks. In case you haven’t signed up for the free Empower Private Dashboard service, test it out at this time (assessment 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 November bills:
In complete, we spent $1,927 final month which is about $1,400 lower than our repeatedly budgeted $3,333 per 30 days (or $40,000 per yr). Insurance coverage and groceries had been the highest two spending classes from final month.
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Insurance coverage – $936:
Our six-month auto insurance coverage renewal simply got here due on the finish of November. There are 4 drivers on the coverage, two of that are inexperienced drivers with beneath three years of driving historical past. A type of inexperienced drivers will hit the “3 yr of driving” mark in a couple of extra months so we should always see decrease insurance coverage payments sooner or later.
Groceries – $331:
We had been residence for per week and a half in November however didn’t do a ton of grocery procuring. We prepped for our large Thanksgiving meal by searching for some staples earlier than we went out of city for our Panama Canal cruise.
I believe costs on the grocery retailer have principally stabilized, and we’re even seeing some costs drop on staples like milk and eggs. Nonetheless, different gadgets are nonetheless actually costly. Anybody purchased espresso and chocolate currently?
Utilities – $248:
We spent $167 on our water/sewer/trash invoice final month.
The electrical energy invoice was $82 for final month. That represents a really low month-to-month electrical invoice for us.
I didn’t pay the pure fuel invoice throughout November, as a result of I paid it early in October earlier than leaving for our Panama Canal cruise. We use pure fuel for heating the home and for our water heater so the fuel invoice often will increase fairly a bit throughout the winter months when it’s cooooold.
Journey – $237:
We spent an incredibly low $68 in complete on our 18 day cruise trip in November. Of that complete, $46 was uber or lyft rides to/from the cruise port or round city in Panama Metropolis, Panama. We additionally rented a automotive in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. I paid for the $30 rental automotive with Chase Final Reward factors and spent $16 on fuel driving across the mountains and coastal area of western Costa Rica.
One other journey expense was $76 for seat reservations for our roundtrip flights to Spain in March. We paid $15-20 for every seat on the lengthy transatlantic flights. We often guide the row of two seats within the very again of the airplane so now we have the entire row to ourselves. A really good improve. We’ll take no matter seats they assign us for the shorter 1-2 hour connecting flights to get to/from our ultimate vacation spot.
The remaining $95 of journey spending is the annual price on the Barclay Wyndham Enterprise card. In alternate for the annual price, we get 15,000 Wyndham factors which we often redeem earlier than a cruise for a free resort evening that might price $200-300 per evening if we paid money.
Having fun with the Casco Viejo historic part of Panama Metropolis.
Get free journey like us
In case you are serious 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 presents an above common $750-900 price of Chase Final Rewards factors that may be redeemed immediately for $750-900 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’ve gotten a enterprise and will get a bank card as a “sole proprietor”.
I take advantage of the 90,000 Chase Final Rewards factors by transferring them to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card (additionally providing a 125,000 level join bonus proper now). I can switch these Final rewards factors to over a dozen journey companions’ airline/resort applications like United, Southwest, or Hyatt. For instance, I transferred 6,500 Final Rewards factors to Hyatt and used them to guide a $300/evening room that sleeps 5 throughout the peak season within the Virginia mountains.
One other wonderful alternative is the 85,000 level provide for one of many Chase Southwest Private playing cards. These are sufficient factors for 4 spherical journey flights within the USA should you store fastidiously.
Basic Merchandise – $119:
I’m making an attempt to separate out all of the miscellaneous purchases and maintain them separate from my “grocery” spending. These are all of the random issues we purchase at Amazon or Walmart that get lumped into groceries if I’m not very intentional about splitting receipts fastidiously.
We spent $119 on numerous non-food gadgets all through the month. Included in that complete are a couple of new upgrades for my new bike, akin to a $30 exxtra extensive bike seat type of like this one. I purchased the very same type of seat I had on my previous bike a number of years in the past. Problematically, they not manufactured the very same seat so I had to purchase a model new one from ebay for $30. That is the enterprise class bike seat. No approach can I ever return to driving in financial system class!
Cable/Satellite tv for pc/Web – $25:
We pay $25 per 30 days for a neighborhood diminished charge bundle on account of having a decrease earnings and having youngsters. 50 mbit/s obtain, 10 mbit/s add.
Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $19:
Our 2025 medical health insurance is free due to very beneficiant Inexpensive Care Act subsidies that we obtain on account of our low ~$51,000 per yr Adjusted Gross Earnings. In 2026 our premiums will go as much as about $142 per 30 days.
Our 2025 dental insurance coverage plan usually prices $32 in premiums per 30 days. We picked a plan from Truassure via the healthcare.gov alternate. The dental insurance coverage does job of overlaying most of our routine cleanings, exams, and x-rays plus most of the price of primary procedures like fillings.
Mrs. Root of Good’s dental insurance coverage was $19 complete for November. I didn’t pay my dental insurance coverage invoice throughout November however I did make amends for the invoice cost in December.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica port of name. This place was actually wonderful. First we visited the mountains then headed to the seaside for the afternoon.
Electronics – $11:
Greatest Purchase despatched me a $10 off coupon, so I purchased two $10 bluetooth mice to have available. Between the 5 of us in the home, we appear to undergo a pretty big variety of mice on an annual foundation. Okay, perhaps it’s only one or two replacements per yr however it looks like that’s typically sufficient to have a spare mouse or two available. Simply in case.
House Upkeep – $4:
A bathroom tank flush valve seal substitute from House Depot. Tremendous simple to swap out simply the seal and it did the trick to get the visitor bathroom flushing once more. After all the flush valve needed to fail mere days earlier than we invited 30 visitors over to our home for Thanksgiving. Fortuitously this one small half saved the day!
Eating places – $1:
I spent a greenback so as to add onto some Taco Bell orders to make use of up my two $5 Doordash credit from my Chase Sapphire Reserve playing cards.
Fuel – $0:
No fuel expense this month for us. Our youngsters pay for their very own fuel for driving to work.
Spending for 2025 – 12 months to Date
We spent $33,221 throughout the first eleven months of 2025. This annual spending is about $3,500 under our budgeted $36,667 for the primary eleven months of the yr 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 have to revisit the price range numbers.
We’ll find yourself fairly near our $40,000 budgeted spending as soon as once more in 2025. Nonetheless it’s wanting like we’ll find yourself a couple of thousand {dollars} over price range. We now have had some huge spending throughout December already. I wish to maintain a part of the spending a secret till subsequent month (no spoilers, sorry!). The opposite large spending is our $3,000 annual property tax invoice that’s due within the subsequent few weeks. I’ll in all probability go forward and pay it throughout December which is able to push us excessive price range sensible.
All in all, I’m very pleased with the place our spending is at for the yr. I do know I might spend a complete lot extra however I’m additionally pleased with my present way of life.
Month-to-month Expense Abstract for 2025:
- January – $5,091
- February – $2,462
- March – $2,136
- April – $4,261
- Could – $4,097 (common of Could and June)
- June – $4,097 (common of Could and June)
- July – $1,992
- August – $2,452
- September – $2,694
- October – $2,003
- November – $1,927
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 – $33,221 (via 11/30/2025)
A fast port of name to Puerto Chiapas, Mexico. We didn’t depart the port complicated however loved the native music and dancers placing on a present for us proper exterior the ship.
Web Value: $3,914,000 (+$64,000)
One other large enhance to our internet price final month! Our internet price shot up by one other $64,000 to finish the month of November at $3,914,000. We got here very near hitting the $4 million greenback mark final month however we didn’t fairly get there. Perhaps in one other month or two?
I’m simply letting the portfolio do it’s factor. We go on cruises or different holidays for weeks at a time and I don’t even peek on the portfolio until I get again residence and log in to do these month-to-month updates. Aren’t index funds nice? Finally we’ll have an enormous downturn. Subsequent month or subsequent yr or subsequent decade? Who is aware of!
For the curious, our internet price reported above contains our residence worth (which is absolutely paid off). I worth the home at $300,000, which might be what we’d internet after gross sales bills. Nonetheless, please notice that I don’t think about my residence worth as a part of my portfolio for “4% rule” calculation functions. I notice of us ask me about that each month so I simply needed to state that right here for readability.
Closing ideas
Retirement is a time to verify issues off your bucket record. The Panama Canal was undoubtedly on my bucket record. We managed to go to the Canal on land a couple of years in the past after we had been docked at Colon, Panama. That was an superior expertise to see the large cargo ships passing via the canal on their transit towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Final month we obtained the total canal expertise. Whereas onboard the Emerald Princess, we loved the 16 evening journey from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Los Angeles. Alongside the best way we stopped at a number of ports of name together with Aruba, Panama Metropolis inPanama, Puntarenas in Costa Rica, and the ports of Puerto Chiapas, Huatulco, and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.
The spotlight by far was the transit via the canal. That’s what we got here for, in spite of everything. We obtained up early within the morning and not using a clearly outlined sport plan, not understanding precisely after we would get an opportunity to enter the canal. Round 7:30 am, we entered the channel resulting in the primary set of locks on the Atlantic facet. We stood exterior on the bow of the ship watching our grand entrance.
We ran across the ship fairly a bit to catch the canal infrastructure from a number of vantage factors. By lunchtime, we had been in the course of Panama traversing Lake Gatun.
The canal is definitely two units of locks about 30 miles aside. Lake Gatun and the Chagres River span the central part of Panama and join the 2 units of locks collectively.
After passing via Lake Gatun and the Chagres River, we entered the slim channel of the Culebra Lower. Upon reaching the tip of that channel, we approached the Pacific set of locks that might decrease us again all the way down to sea stage.
The entire expertise fascinated me as a retired civil engineer that labored on transportation infrastructure initiatives for a decade. It was wonderful to be there crusing via the midsection between North and South America.
Would I do it once more? Perhaps.
Now that the novelty is gone, I don’t know that I’d get much more out of one other transit of the canal. There are loads of different fascinating locations to go to on the planet! Though it’s a good solution to leisurely get from the east coast to the west coast of the USA (in case you have 16 days to spare). I’d suggest passing via the canal at the very least as soon as if you’re . The dimensions of the canal locks are huge!
I all the time have a blast on these cruises. This ship had half a dozen bands performing all through the day and evening together with a duo of Irish guys, one in all which performed the pipes. Countless meals, countless sea views from our balcony, and half a dozen totally different ports of name to entertain us periodically all through the voyage.
I’ve a extremely good time on these cruises. I even have a extremely good time again on land as soon as we’re residence. And I do know I’m very lucky to have the ability to take all these holidays throughout early retirement!
That’s it for me this month, of us. Thanks for tuning in to the newest month-to-month replace. I’ll see you subsequent month!
Who can consider Christmas is sort of right here and New 12 months’s isn’t a lot farther away?!
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