October 2025 Early Retirement Replace – Fall Version

Welcome again to a different month-to-month replace from Root of Good! We’re again house in Raleigh after spending many of the month on a cruise by means of the Panama Canal. Because of this this month-to-month replace is nearly a month late. Higher late than by no means, I suppose. 

After being very busy touring all through 2025, we’re lastly house for an extended time period. Up to now, we have now nothing deliberate for greater than two months. The plan is to stay round Raleigh throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas to have a good time with our prolonged households. I’m additionally hoping to work on a couple of deferred upkeep initiatives round the home. By no means worry, I even have an inventory of enjoyable “deferred hobbies” that I’ve uncared for for a lot of the previous yr.

Our older two children are busy with their full time jobs whereas our son is nearly half method by means of his final yr of center college. Since we’re house for 2 months straight, we’ll have much more time to spend with the youngsters as nicely. 

On to our monetary progress. October was one other nice month for our funds. Our internet value elevated by $23,000 to finish the month at $3,850,000. Our October revenue of $3,943 was far more than sufficient to cowl our spending of $2,003 for the month.

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

 

Revenue

Funding revenue totaled $1,458 final month. Our fairness index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly on the finish of March, June, September, and December. Because of this, we had a bigger than regular quantity of funding revenue paid within the early days of October because the funds flowed in. Right here’s extra on our dividend investments.

Weblog revenue totaled $1,114 for final month. This represents above common weblog revenue. A few affiliate promoting hyperlinks paid off nicely final month nevertheless it’s largely a one-time factor. 

My early retirement life-style consulting revenue (“consulting”) was $213 throughout final month. That represents one hour of consulting. After a really gradual summer season season of principally zero consulting revenue, it appears like I’m again to a low however constant stage of consulting revenue proper now. 

Tradeline gross sales revenue totaled $700 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 remodeled $6,000 in alternate for lending out my stellar credit score historical past from half a dozen bank cards. 2025 is on the trail to exceed the $6,000 mark. 

My “deposit revenue” totaled $11. 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 means of these hyperlinks). 

In case you join Rakuten by means of this hyperlink and make a qualifying $30 buy by means of Rakuten, you’ll get a $30 join bonus. 

My financial institution and bank card bonuses totaled $444 final month. This bonus cash got here from the Chase Sapphire Reserve Pay Your self Again characteristic the place I reimburse myself for grocery purchases paid for with my Sapphire Reserve card. 

 

 

In case you’re considering monitoring your revenue 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 by means of Empower Private Dashboard. Now we have accounts in every single place, and Empower Private Dashboard makes it very easy to verify on every little thing at one time.

Empower Private Dashboard can also be a strong instrument for funding administration. Protecting 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 (overview right here).

Monitoring spending was one of many vital steps I took that allowed me to retire at 33. And it’s now simpler than ever with Empower Private Dashboard.

 

Pics from our go to to Tallinn, Estonia in October:

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Bills

Now let’s check out October bills:

 

 

In complete, we spent $2,003 final month which is about $1,300 lower than our often budgeted $3,333 per 30 days (or $40,000 per yr). Utilities and normal merchandise have been the highest two spending classes from final month.

 

Detailed breakdown of spending:

 

Utilities – $513:

We spent $145 on our water/sewer/trash invoice final month.

I paid two months of electrical payments in October which totaled $310. The September invoice included a number of air conditioner utilization. Nonetheless, the October electrical invoice dropped fairly a bit now that we’re within the winter heating season. 

The pure gasoline invoice for final month and this month totaled $58. I paid two payments in October since we have been out of city for many of November. We’re within the winter heating season now, so we’ll be utilizing much more pure gasoline going ahead. 

 

Normal Merchandise – $477:

I often let small random non-food “factor” purchases at Walmart or Amazon get lumped into the “grocery” class (out of laziness) however I broke out a couple of prices this month to the “normal merchandise class.

The massive information is that I purchased a brand new bike! My outdated bike was stolen a few years in the past. I purchased a special “new” bike a few yr in the past, then determined I didn’t prefer it so I offered it for a revenue. I’ve been busy touring the final yr and haven’t discovered a lot time to commit to bike procuring. Throughout October I lastly made time to purchase a motorcycle. I’ve taken a check experience, tweaked a couple of issues, and began shopping for some equipment to package up the bike like I need it. At $427 my new bike wasn’t tremendous low-cost but in addition not a budget-buster. I believe there’s about $100 value of inflation and/or tariffs constructed into it (the identical bike was $100 cheaper all through 2024).

In different “normal merchandise” purchases, Mrs. Root of Good purchased some colourful metallic windmills for the yard from Amazon for $50 complete for 3 of them.

 

Pics from our go to to Helsinki, Finland:

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Groceries – $467:

We have been on the town for many of October however didn’t spend that a lot on groceries. I’m additionally getting an honest quantity of groceries without spending a dime or very low-cost from the dozen or so Doordash and Instacart credit that include the handful of Chase bank cards that provide these month-to-month advantages. 

 

Journey – $343:

Journey spending throughout October was in every single place. At first of the month, we have been in Europe ending up our two week Baltic Capitals cruise. We spent about $60 on varied transit and practice tickets to get across the ports we visited and to get from the Rotterdam cruise port again to the Amsterdam Schipol Airport. 

Different journey spending included $200 for the taxes on two British Airways flights house from London for subsequent yr. We booked the tickets with British Airways Avios factors and acquired a decrease than regular price on the taxes of $100 per ticket. 

The remaining $83 of journey spending lined the gasoline in our minivan for a brief two day highway journey to the mountains of Virginia. With the youngsters’ college and work schedules, we may solely get away for 2 full days so we made essentially the most of it. We packed some meals from house and grazed plentifully on the free breakfast buffet on the lodge, so our meals price ended up being zero.

I paid for one night time within the Hyatt lodge in Roanoke, Virginia with 6,500 Hyatt factors (funded by 6,500 Final Rewards factors transferred from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card). 

 

Blue Ridge Mountains trip alongside the Virginia part of the Blue Ridge Parkway:

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Get free journey like us

If you’re considering getting free journey out of your bank card like I do, take into account the Chase Ink enterprise playing cards (my referral hyperlink). Proper now, the Chase Ink playing cards presents an above common $750-900 value 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 will 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 125,000 level join bonus proper now). I can switch these Final rewards factors to over a dozen journey companions’ airline/lodge packages like United, Southwest, or Hyatt. For instance, I transferred 6,500 Final Rewards factors to Hyatt and used them to ebook a $300/night time room that sleeps 5 in the course of the peak season within the Virginia mountains. 

One other wonderful selection 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 when you store rigorously. 

 

Clothes/Footwear – $54:

A pre-cruise go to to the thrift store for some new garments. We purchased about 15-20 gadgets and the entire was $54. That they had a 25% off every little thing sale and likewise gave us a $5 off coupon as we walked within the door. They clearly knew I used to be coming and cranked the reductions up because of this! 

I’m fairly positive a number of of the articles of clothes I purchased have been model new though none of them had the tags nonetheless hooked up. 

 

Phone – $44:

We renewed Mrs. Root of Good’s cellphone plan by means of Redpocket. The one yr plan is $44 for a month-to-month allotment of 200 MB knowledge, a couple of hundred minutes of discuss time, and some hundred texts.

These days, we’ve been utilizing Gigsky free 1 GB or 3 GB eSim chips which can be a Visa cardholder perk for our worldwide cell knowledge wants whereas touring. 

 

Fuel – $39:

A tank of gasoline for our minivan for driving round city. I included the $83 value of highway journey gasoline underneath the “journey” class of spending. 

 

Eating places – $26:

Mrs. Root of Good went out to lunch together with her buddies for $16. 

I spent one other $10 plus two $5 credit from my Chase Sapphire Reserve playing cards at Taco Bell. To sweeten the deal I added a 50% off coupon to the order. I consider we ended up with one thing like $40 value of Taco Bell that night time for $10 out of pocket. 

 

Cable/Satellite tv for pc/Web – $25:

We pay $25 per 30 days for a neighborhood diminished price package deal attributable to having a decrease revenue and having children. 50 mbit/s obtain, 10 mbit/s add. 

 

Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $19:

Our 2025 medical insurance is free because of very beneficiant Reasonably priced 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 per 30 days. We picked a plan from Truassure by means of the healthcare.gov alternate. The dental insurance coverage does a very good job of masking most of our routine cleanings, exams, and x-rays plus most of the price of fundamental procedures like fillings.

Mrs. Root of Good’s dental insurance coverage was $19 complete for one month. I ended paying my dental insurance coverage as a result of I believed it was already paid by means of the tip of October however apparently the dental insurance coverage firm disagreed with me and cancelled my protection. We’ll see who wins this battle within the coming months. Wouldn’t or not it’s good if issues simply labored like they have been presupposed to?

 

Pics from our go to to Warnemunde and Rostock, Germany:

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Spending for 2025 – 12 months to Date

 

 

We spent $31,295 in the course of the first ten months of 2025. This annual spending is about $2,000 under our budgeted $33,333 for the primary ten 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 in some unspecified time in the future I have to revisit the price range numbers. 

Because the yr attracts to an in depth I believe we’ll finish the yr very near our $40,000 price range. I nonetheless must pay our roughly $3,000 annual property tax invoice so that can add fairly a bit to our annual spending. Nonetheless we solely have about 5 weeks of 2025 remaining so we in all probability received’t spend a ton extra this yr except some sudden expense pops up final minute. 

 

Month-to-month Expense Abstract for 2025:

• January – $5,091
• February – $2,462
• March – $2,136
• April – $4,261
• Might – $4,097 (common of Might and June)
• June – $4,097 (common of Might and June)
• July – $1,992
• August – $2,452
• September – $2,694
• October – $2,003

 

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 – $31,295 (by means of 10/31/2025)

 

Pics from our go to to Kiel, Germany:

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Web Price: $3,850,000 (+$23,000)

Our internet value shot up by one other $23,000 to finish the month of October at $3,850,000. We proceed to method the $4 million mark however we aren’t there but. 

Since I’m touring half the time, I don’t actually take note of my accounts on a routine foundation. These month-to-month updates are usually after I tune in to my funds and see how I’m doing. So long as my bank cards work and the payments receives a commission on time, I suppose it doesn’t make a lot distinction if I’ve $1 million or $4 million. Apart from the psychological peace of thoughts of figuring out I’ve method method far more than I ever want as a substitute of simply barely sufficient if every little thing goes proper. 

 

 

For the curious, our internet value reported above contains our house worth (which is totally paid off). I worth the home at $300,000, which might be what we’d internet after gross sales bills. Nonetheless, please word that I don’t take into account my house worth as a part of my portfolio for “4% rule” calculation functions. I understand of us ask me about that each month so I simply needed to state that right here for readability.

 

Closing ideas

It’s arduous to consider we’re simply over a month away from wrapping up 2025! This yr has been an amazing yr for us personally, financially, and as a household. We’re very lucky and have so much to be grateful for in the course of the upcoming vacation season. 

Proper now we’re gearing as much as host each of our prolonged households for Thanksgiving at our home within the coming days. Mrs. Root of Good’s aspect of the household is coming over on Thanksgiving day and my aspect of the household is coming over in the course of the weekend. We deliberately took a break from journey in order that we’d be house throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas so we are able to spend time with household.

Throughout our downtime in December and January, we’ll end up the planning for a half dozen journeys throughout 2026 and probably ebook a couple of extra adventures for 2026 and 2027 as nicely. 

I at all times look ahead to this time of yr when it’s cool sufficient to have campfires. I simply invited over a couple of buddies that I haven’t seen in particular person shortly and it was nice to meet up with them. I at all times have a blast and I believe my company do, too. 

 

 

 

Joyful Thanksgiving to these in america, and I’ll see you subsequent month!

 

Turkey or one thing else? What’s the perfect Thanksgiving meals?

 

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