October 2024 Early Retirement Update – On the Water Edition

Welcome back to another monthly update from Root of Good! We are at home in Raleigh for a brief stay before we head back out for another two week cruise for most of the rest of November. 

This is the busiest stretch of travel we’ve ever had. The last time we were at home for the entire month was nine months ago in February. It’s almost like our home in Raleigh is our vacation home and we just stop in for a couple weeks here and there before heading out the door again. 

We’re enjoying the cooler weather in Raleigh during the fall. I am glad we have the chance to take all these fun trips but I do miss being at home during the nicest parts of the year. Fortunately, we will have almost two months in Raleigh between late November and early January, so there should still be some beautiful days ahead. 

On to our financial progress. October was a mixed month for our finances. Our net worth declined by $92,000 to end the month at $3,274,000. Our income of $6,239 was substantially higher than our modest spending of $1,570 for the month of October.  

Let’s jump into the details from last month.

Income

Investment income totaled $3,169 in October. Our equity index funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly at the end of March, June, September, and December. A portion of the September dividends were paid in the first few days of October. As a result, we had a larger than normal amount of investment income last month. Here’s more on our dividend investments.

Blog income totaled $611 for the month. This represents an average month of blog income. 

My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) was $190 last month. This represents one hour of consulting work. I’m trying to squeeze in consulting sessions while I’m at home in Raleigh in between cruises. 

Tradeline sales income totaled $200 in October. Another decent month but not quite as high as August’s almost $1,000 tradeline sales. I ramped up my tradeline sales a few years ago and discussed it in a bit more detail in my October 2020 monthly post and in my July 2021 monthly post. Most years I make around $4,000 to $6,000 in exchange for lending out my stellar credit history from half a dozen credit cards. 

For last month, my “deposit income” was $7. During most months I get $10 or $20 from cash back and incentive bonuses from the Rakuten.com and Mrrebates.com online shopping portals (some of which was earned from you readers signing up through these links). I included this “deposit” income in the “consulting” income category for this month because I forgot to break it out in the Empower tracking dashboard I use to track my spending.

If you sign up for Rakuten through this link and make a qualifying $25 purchase through Rakuten, you’ll get a $10 sign up bonus (or more!). 

My bank and credit card bonuses totaled $2,060 last month. Of the total, $1,887 comes from the sign up bonus for two new cards. The other $172 in credit card bonuses comes from the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s “Pay Yourself Back” feature. I get a 25% bonus when I redeem the Chase Ultimate Rewards points to reimburse for my purchases in select categories like utilities and insurance. Since I have a TON of Chase points, I have started cashing them out by placing my utility and insurance payments on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card and using the 25% bonus Pay Yourself Back redemptions.

If you’re interested in tracking your income and expenses like I do, then check out Empower Personal Dashboard, formerly known as Personal Capital (it’s free!). All of our savings and spending accounts (including checking, money market, and more than half a dozen credit cards) are all linked and updated in real time through Empower Personal Dashboard. We have accounts all over the place, and Empower Personal Dashboard makes it really easy to check on everything at one time.

Empower Personal Dashboard is also a solid tool for investment management. Keeping track of our entire investment portfolio takes two clicks. If you haven’t signed up for the free Empower Personal Dashboard service, check it out today (review here).

Tracking spending was one of the critical steps I took that allowed me to retire at 33. And it’s now easier than ever with Empower Personal Dashboard.

Expenses

Now let’s take a look at October expenses:

In total, we spent $1,570 during the month of October which is about $1,700 less than our regularly budgeted $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). Groceries and utilities were the two largest categories from last month. 

Detailed breakdown of spending:

Groceries – $837:

The total we spent on groceries for October was $837 which included quite a bit of bulk purchases. We came back home from the September cruise and immediately restocked our fridge, freezer, and pantry in very early October. As a result, the October total was roughly as high as the months where we are all at home for the entire month. 

Utilities – $535:

We spent $157 on our water/sewer/trash bill last month.

I paid the natural gas bill twice in October for a total of $54. We did have to turn the heat on for several days during a cold period earlier in the month. 

We paid the electric bill twice during October as well. The total was $325 for two months. Since it was cooler on most days in October we were able to use the air conditioning sparingly for most of the month, which helped to keep the bill down. 

Cable/Satellite/Internet – $50:

We usually pay $25 per month for a local reduced rate package due to having a lower income and having kids. 50 mbit/s download, 10 mbit/s upload. I paid for two months of internet in October for $50 total.

Gas – $45:

Two tanks of gas for our Hyundai Accent for $45. Cheap gas is great! 

Healthcare/Medical/Dental – $37:

Our current 2024 health insurance is free, thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies that we receive due to our low ~$48,000 per year Adjusted Gross Income. 

Our 2024 dental insurance plan costs $37 in premiums per month. We picked a plan from Truassure through the healthcare.gov exchange. The dental insurance does a good job of covering routine cleanings, exams, and x-rays plus most of the cost of basic procedures like fillings. 

Travel – $35:

Our travel spending of $35 during October came from two Uber rides in Miami to get to and from the cruise port. I am still shocked by how cheap the Ubers are in Miami. 

That’s all the spending we did on the cruise. Everything was prepaid many months ago. I used points for the hotel and flights and paid the taxes on the plane tickets using some old Southwest vouchers. 

Our original October cruise out of Port Canaveral was cancelled due to Hurricane Milton that swept across the state of Florida on the day we were supposed to land in Orlando. As a result we had to pivot quickly and switched our booking to a different cruise ship sailing out of Miami. We extended the cruise by 4 days by booking a second sailing so we technically did a “back to back” sailing. The added cruise was also free thanks to a casino matching offer we obtained back in March of this year. 

We did buy some edible souvenirs while in Cozumel, Mexico during the cruise. We bought candy, snacks, and tequila for $29 from a grocery store right next to the cruise terminal. I included that spending in our “grocery” spending instead of treating it like a travel expense. 

 

Get free travel like us

If you are interested in getting free travel from your credit card like I do, consider the Chase Ink Unlimited business cards (my referral link). Right now, the Chase Ink Unlimited business card offers an above average $900 worth of Chase Ultimate Rewards points that can be redeemed instantly for $900 in cash (or even more for travel!). I just signed up for another new Ink card to snag one of these great bonus offers.

Chase is pretty liberal when it comes to “what is a business”. If you sell stuff on eBay or Craigslist or do some odd jobs occasionally then you have a business and could get a credit card as a “sole proprietor”. 

I use the 90,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points by transferring them to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card (also offering a 60,000 point sign up bonus right now). With the Sapphire Reserve card, I can get 1.5x the points value by booking cruises, flights, hotels, or rental cars through their travel portal. For example, I used 165,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points to pay for the $2,475 in taxes, fees, and gratuities on two of my cruises. Or I can transfer those Ultimate rewards points to over a dozen travel partners’ airline/hotel programs like United, Southwest, or Hyatt. 

Capital One VentureX card

Another favorite travel card in my wallet is the Capital One Venture X card. The Venture X card is a “keeper” for me. First off, it comes with a $750 sign up bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months. The bonus is paid in the form of 75,000 bonus points that you can redeem against any travel purchases from anywhere. Then you earn a solid 2 points per dollar spent forever! The other big perk is airport lounge access. You can get yourself plus unlimited guests into Priority Pass lounges. And you and two of your guests can get into Plaza Premium network lounges and Capital One Lounges. 

The Capital One Venture X card does have one catch – a $395 annual fee. But they reward you every year with an easy to use $300 travel discount plus $100 worth of points. Together, that makes $400 they give you annually which completely offsets the annual fee. Another benefit worth mentioning: you can add up to four authorized users for free, and they also get all the benefits of the Venture X card including the valuable airport lounge access. We used this perk to “gift” a pair of Venture X cards with airport lounge access to my brother in law and his wife to use on their family trip back home to Cambodia last April with their two young children. 

Since the annual fee is offset in full by travel credits each year, I personally plan on keeping the Venture X card forever since the card benefits are so great.

Restaurants – $20:

We bought two takeout pizzas from Sam’s Club cafe for $20. 

Home improvement – $13:

A light switch in our living room broke last month. Our house is 52 years old. I guess some electrical components like light switches eventually wear out and need replacement. I bought a replacement 4-way switch for $13 and I am pretty confident I can swap it out myself once I’m back in town for a while.

Spending for 2024 – Year to Date

 
We spent $27,001 for the first ten months of 2024. This annual spending is about $6,000 less than the budgeted $33,333 for ten months per our $40,000 annual early retirement budget. I haven’t increased our annual budget for inflation in a decade, so at some point I need to revisit the budget numbers. So far, so good! No need to give ourselves a raise if we’re managing just fine within the current budget. 

We’re running under budget for the year so far. However we have some upcoming dental expenses that could increase our expenses up to or beyond our annual spending target. The good news is that our HSA has grown over the years to a present value just over $100,000. So if we need to, we can cover a large dental or medical bill out of the HSA account without paying any taxes on the withdrawal.

The rest of 2024 will see relatively modest baseline spending. However, we do have the year-end property tax bill of roughly $3,000 plus our semi-annual auto insurance bill of $1,300, both due in the December time frame. 

All things considered, I think we’ll end the year very close to $40,000 in total spending. Not bad for being more than a decade into early retirement! 

Monthly Expense Summary for 2024:

• January – $1,828
• February – $1,746
• March – $3,525
• April – $1,719
• May – $1,875
• June – $5,889
• July – $3,735
• August – $3,348
• September – $1,768
• October – $1,570

Summary of annual spending from more 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 – $27,001 (through 10/31/2024)

Net Worth: $3,274,000 (-$92,000)

Our net worth dropped (crashed?!) by $92,000 to end the month at $3,274,000. After hitting an all time high net worth in September, this net worth number still looks really really good. 

The October portfolio drop surprised me a bit. I guess I have been scrambling around between cruises, trying to get caught up on unpacking, packing again, and restocking the house between trips. I didn’t realize the stock market was down during October. Further exacerbating my ignorance is the fact that we don’t have internet on most days while on the cruise.

It doesn’t really matter because the portfolio is there for the long term and watching the day to day fluctuations is pointless. 

For the curious, our net worth reported above includes our home value (which is fully paid off). I value the house at $300,000, which is probably what we would net after sales expenses. However, please note that I don’t consider my home value as part of my portfolio for “4% rule” calculation purposes. I realize folks ask me about that every month so I just wanted to state that here for clarity.

Closing thoughts

This fall is a busy time for us. During September, October, and November we’ll spend a bit over half of each month on a cruise or traveling to get to the cruise. This means we only have a week and a half or two weeks at home between cruises. 

During the short periods we are at home, we have to squeeze in doctor and dentist appointments, shopping trips, paying the bills, running errands, visiting family and friends, and all the other normal parts of life at home. I’m not saying it’s a full time job but it must be at least a half time job! 

We’ll get back home in late November just in time for Thanksgiving festivities with family here in Raleigh. We decided to turn down a free cruise for December and spend the whole month at home to relax here. It’s been a while since we were home during Christmastime. And we will be hosting Christmas at our house this year. Something to look forward to! 

This busy period of travel is a nice test run for what kind of travel we want to do in the future. And how much travel we want to do in the future. I’m fine with the pacing so far, but I think Mrs. Root of Good is ready for a vacation from vacations. 

So far we have three months of spring with nothing planned, along with some vague outline for a few weeks of travel during summer. Our summertime travel schedule is dependent on what our kids end up doing in the next year with school, graduation, and finding a job. 

And speaking of jobs, if you have any leads on jobs or internships for college graduates with business degrees, let me know. Both of my daughters are wrapping up their bachelors degrees in 2025 and have started to look for internships and full time work. One kid is studying a general business program and the other is concentrating in Information Technology. We are in Raleigh so local opportunities are ideal, as are remote work options. Both daughters have good grades and a bit of business savvy, common sense, and global perspective given all of our world travels. 

Well folks, that wraps things up for me. I’m about to hop on this cruise in a couple of days and go offline for a bit. I wish you all a safe and cozy remainder of November. See you in December! 

Who’s ready for some Thanksgiving Turkey?!

Want to get the latest posts from Root of Good? Make sure to subscribe on Facebook, Twitter, or by email (in the box at the top of the page) or RSS feed reader.