July 2024 Early Retirement Replace – Second Month in Poland Version

Welcome again to Root of Good, people! After a really busy 9 weeks of summer time trip in Poland, we’re lastly again residence in Raleigh. We capped off our journey in Poland with 9 days in Gdansk close to the Baltic Sea earlier than flying again to america. 

After a summer time of exploring castles and cathedrals, slender alleys in previous villages, and tree-lined valley trails resulting in waterfalls on the mountainside, it’s nice to lastly be residence the place we are able to loosen up in consolation. Now we have a full month earlier than we hit the street once more for a two week Alaskan cruise in September. 

Proper now, we’re busy with the youngsters’ again to high school actions. Two children begin school the day this put up goes dwell, and the youngest child will begin seventh grade in a few week.

On to our monetary progress. July was a stupendous month for our funds. Our internet value shot up by $129,000 to finish the month at $3,249,000. Our earnings of $10,092 exceeded our spending of $3,735 for the month of July by a large margin.  

Let’s leap into the small print from final month.

Earnings

Funding earnings totaled $7,732 in July. Our fairness index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly on the finish of March, June, September, and December. Consequently, we had a bigger than regular quantity of funding earnings final month because the dividends spilled over from the top of June. Right here’s extra on our dividend investments.

Weblog earnings totaled $1,108 for the month. This represents a barely above common month of weblog earnings. 

My early retirement way of life consulting earnings (“consulting”) was $550 final month. That represents three hours of consulting work throughout the month. Summer time at all times appears to be sluggish so perhaps my consulting hours will improve heading into the autumn. I can’t complain concerning the slowdown although. 9 weeks of trip with hardly any work is nice! 

Tradeline gross sales earnings totaled $675 in July. One other nice 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. Most years I make round $4,000 to $6,000 in change for lending out my stellar credit score historical past from half a dozen bank cards. 

For final month, my “deposit earnings” was $27. The deposit earnings got here from money again and incentive bonuses from the Rakuten.com and Mrrebates.com on-line purchasing 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 $25 buy by way of Rakuten, you’ll get a $10 enroll bonus (or extra!). 

In case you’re fascinated by monitoring your earnings and bills like I do, then take a look at Empower Private Dashboard, previously often called 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. Now we have accounts all over, and Empower Private Dashboard makes it very easy to verify on every thing at one time.

Empower Private Dashboard can be a stable device for funding administration. Holding observe 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 as we speak (overview right here).

Monitoring spending was one of many crucial 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 $3,735 throughout the month of July which is about $400 greater than our recurrently budgeted $3,333 per thirty days (or $40,000 per yr). Journey and utilities have been the 2 largest classes from final month. 

Detailed breakdown of spending:

Journey – $3,078:

Our journey spending of $3,078 represents every thing we spent in Poland for the entire month of July plus a $400 deposit for our October 2024 cruise. The whole only for Poland trip spending was solely $2,678.  

I didn’t observe the journey spending in high quality element, however I’ve a tough estimate of the place that $2,678 journey spending went:

• $1,000 – a seven night time condo rental plus 3 nights in accommodations (2 rooms per night time)
• $550 – rental automobile and gasoline
• $50 – parking
• $28 – Ubers/transit in Wroclaw after we didn’t have a automobile
• $300 – eating places
• $500 – groceries
• $250 – tickets to sights, nationwide parks, museums, and castles

Most issues are cheaper in Poland than they’re within the USA. Fuel is about the one factor noticeably costlier due to added taxes.

However on a per-mile foundation, gasoline is barely cheaper in Poland as a result of the rental automobile was far more gas environment friendly than our automobiles in Raleigh. The rental automobile was a hybrid and it was smaller than our personal subcompact automobile in Raleigh. With our gas financial system working round 70 mpg, gasoline was very low-cost. Principally free. 

We drove about 2,000 miles round Poland throughout the summer time. From Krakow within the south, west alongside the border with Slovakia and Czech Republic to the western border with Germany after which north and east by way of the central elements of Poland till we ended up in Gdansk (and finally visited the northern coast of Poland and the Baltic Sea). We additionally took a number of day journeys with an hour or two of driving to discover the realm or go to a fortress or climbing path. 

Low cost-ish gasoline and a $18/day rental automobile is a unbelievable method to see a number of the countryside with out breaking the financial institution.

Get free journey like us

In case you are fascinated by getting free journey out of your bank card like I do, think about the Chase Ink Limitless or Chase Ink Money enterprise playing cards (my referral hyperlink). Proper now, the Chase Ink enterprise playing cards provide an above common $750 to $1000 value of Chase Final Rewards factors that may be redeemed immediately for $750 in money. I simply signed up for an additional new Ink card to snag considered one of these nice bonus affords.

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 often then you could have a enterprise and will get a bank card as a “sole proprietor”. 

I take advantage of the 75,000 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 automobiles by way of their journey portal. Or 1.25x worth by reimbursing myself for groceries. That turns the 75,000 factors into $1,125 of free journey or $937.50 of free groceries. 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 fall cruises. Or I can switch these Final rewards factors to over a dozen journey companions’ airline/resort packages like United, Southwest, or Hyatt. 

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 which you could redeem in opposition to any journey purchases from wherever. Then you definitely earn a stable 2 factors per greenback spent without end! The opposite huge perk is airport lounge entry. You will get your self plus limitless friends into Precedence Move lounges. And also you plus two 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 straightforward 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. One other profit value mentioning: you possibly can add as much as 4 licensed customers without spending a dime, and so they additionally get all the advantages of the Enterprise X card together with the precious airport lounge entry. We used this perk to “present” a pair of Enterprise X playing cards with airport lounge entry to my brother in legislation and his spouse to make use of on their household journey again residence to Cambodia final April with their two younger kids. 

For the reason that annual charge is offset in full by journey credit annually, I personally plan on protecting the Enterprise X card without end because the card advantages are so nice.

Utilities – $427:

We spent $33 on our water/sewer/trash invoice final month. The water consumption is way decrease when there is just one individual at residence. I additionally paid part of the invoice throughout June so the water invoice is even decrease than it sometimes can be throughout the summer time months.

The pure gasoline invoice was $18. 

The electrical energy invoice was $376 for July and August. I paid for 2 months throughout July. These are the height utilization months the place the AC runs loads, and future payments shall be decrease all through the cooler elements of the yr.

Groceries – $169:

Our oldest daughter stayed in Raleigh this summer time and we cowl her grocery payments, so this $169 is what she spent throughout July. 

I embody our abroad grocery spending within the “Journey” class of bills. We aren’t as cautious about searching for gross sales and getting offers whereas we’re shopping for groceries abroad. And we attempt a number of new issues. So I lump the groceries whereas touring into our total journey price range. 

Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $37:

Our present 2024 medical health insurance is free, because of very beneficiant Inexpensive Care Act subsidies that we obtain on account of our low ~$48,000 per yr Adjusted Gross Earnings. 

Our 2024 dental insurance coverage plan prices $37 in premiums per thirty days. We picked a plan from Truassure by way of the healthcare.gov change. The dental insurance coverage does job of masking routine cleanings, exams, and x-rays plus most of the price of fundamental procedures like fillings. 

Cable/Satellite tv for pc/Web – $25:

We pay $25 per thirty days for an area lowered charge bundle on account of having a decrease earnings and having children. 50 mbit/s obtain, 10 mbit/s add. 

Fuel – $0:

No regular gasoline spending for the month of July. I embody gasoline for our Poland rental automobile within the “journey” price range class. 

Spending for 2024 – Yr to Date

 
We spent $20,315 for the primary seven months of 2024. This annual spending is about $3,000 lower than the budgeted $23,333 for six 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. Thus far, so good! No want to offer ourselves a increase if we’re managing simply high quality throughout the present price range. 

As I discussed in April, our children’ school prices are utterly paid for by their monetary help to this point. So school spending ought to stay reasonably modest all through the remainder of 2024 into 2025. And it seems that each of our older kids are on observe to complete their bachelors levels in 2025

The wildcard spending for 2024 shall be some upcoming dental work for Mrs. Root of Good. We nonetheless don’t know what this can seem like however we’ll discover out extra within the fall as soon as we return residence from our summer time journey. At the least we’re working $3,000 beneath our price range, so any massive dental bills gained’t make our whole annual spending utterly out of line for the yr.

Now we have about six weeks of cruises arising throughout September, October, and November. They’re all paid for and all flights and pre-cruise accommodations are booked. So trip bills needs to be modest for the remainder of 2024, except we begin reserving elements of our huge summer time 2025 journey. Now we have no clue the place we’re headed in 2025 so we now have to determine that out first! 

Month-to-month Expense Abstract for 2024:

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 – $20,315 (by way of 7/31/2024)

Web Value: $3,249,000 (+$129,000)

Our internet value shot up by $129,000 to finish the month at $3,249,000. That’s a brand new all time excessive! 

We aren’t too removed from watching our internet value triple since retiring early nearly 11 years in the past. Who would have thought that doable after we stop working?! 

For the curious, our internet value 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 be aware that I don’t think about my residence 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.

Life replace

One other grand summer time journey is within the books. We’re again residence and settling in to our routine in Raleigh. The children are again in class, the climate is beginning to cool off, and every thing is returning to regular. 

Though I get a ton of enjoyment and enrichment from our travels abroad, it’s at all times nice to get again residence. Our home in Raleigh is so comfy and has every thing we would like.

I jokingly consult with vacationing in Europe as “tenting” as a result of we frequently miss the creature comforts we get pleasure from at residence comparable to air-con, window screens, bathe curtains, garments dryers, and enormous correctly functioning fridges. I’m okay with “roughing it” to a sure extent whereas touring as a result of I get pleasure from seeing all of the locations we go to. Creature consolation typically has to come back second to “exploring off the crushed path”. 

A interval away from residence the place you need to deal with the occasional little bit of adversity serves to focus on simply how good you could have it at residence. I feel we develop accustomed to all of the niceties in our lives and neglect simply how good we now have it till these good issues are quickly taken away. 

So we noticed a number of cool issues in Poland and in addition obtained a reminder of simply how lucky we’re to have the facilities we get pleasure from at our residence in Raleigh. 

Effectively people, that’s it for me this month. See you subsequent month! 

What do you consider the pics from Poland? A spot you would possibly need to go to? Or give it a move? 

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