An increase in NW after a few months of sliding.

We crossed a thin red line last month ….we have over $100k in bank accounts laying around! That’s unpardonable 😠

W got a nice bonus paid out in March. We have some plans to burn through some of that cash.

First, there is some amount earmarked for “donations” to Uncle Sam in April 😜

Second, when you look at our spending for March below, there are some eye popping numbers that we spent (on credit cards). This is planned and we will pay off the balance.

Third, the rate reset on I Bonds will happen on 1st May, and it’s increasing to 9.62%. Though some commentators are urging to lock in the blended rate of 8.54% for the next 12 months, we’re going to wait for the new rate and purchase some at the higher rate.

Here is spending for March.

We spent a sh*t ton on “Household” last month. The two biggest culprit was 1) Home insurance premium of $1,500, 2) An absurdly big TV (I promise, the viewing is a pleasure!) we got for $1,300. I’ve been following the prices of TV for a few months and a few weeks after the Super Bowl, a lot of one-time-use TVs are returned. For obvious reasons. I got this one for about $600 off. That’s a steal in my books!

The next biggest category was “Activities/Sports” which included fees paid for D’s various sporting and cultural activities, subscription for the family for a community based group, and concert tickets.

The April showers are in full swing where we are. Outdoor activities which were already supposed to have started have been postponed by a week. We are all geared up for the fun.

Hope you, readers, are keeping well. Cheers!

Mar 19. Nineteen days since February ended. Better than close to the end of the month, though still couldn’t get this out before half the month is done! Baby steps …

Net worth tumbled by another ~$20k in February, following January’s massive fall. All good. We see this as an opportunity for a fire-sale.

We really should be updating the current value of our home as the county/city assessed it at almost $100k more than the number we have here. But we probably won’t.

Weather in our part of the world has turned into an unseasonable, unanticipated, and wondrously mild spring. We’ve hit 50s already and about to hit 60 tomorrow! We had our first grill out tonight.

Life has been good for us. The busy spring season with activities are poised to start so we are savoring the last few days of low key days.

Hope that all of you reading this have a blessed spring. Cheers!

I have no clue where the month of February went. And here we stand on the penultimate day of the second month of the year 2022, trying to get the update of January in! If we were to get grades on posting updates on time, we’d end up with a big, fat F 😒

Anyway, January was a month to forget, in terms of how the markets performed, which directly correlates to how our NW is trending. More of that in February, and by the looks of the impending WWIII, for the foreseeable future. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

We started off the year with a loss of $55k which brings our NW down to the level from last October. I’m not complaining, just bench marking.

Here are our expenses from January.

Mostly expected numbers but for the Car category. We had the double whammy of paying our 6-month insurance premium for both our vehicles and we got a new set of winter wheels and tires for one of the cars. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten this sooner based on where we live – we average 50″ of snow and bitter cold every winter. Driving with this new wheels has been a dream!

I don’t remember a lot from January but our days were full – learning, doing things we like, which include a lot of (indoor) sports. The events of the last week or so is looming overwhelmingly in our minds. Our hearts go to to people of Ukraine.

Hope the next update is not too late in March and the world is a better place than it is right now.

Cheers!

And we’re done with the year that was known as 2021.

Another high water mark for Net Worth and FI funds. The markets rebounded nicely from the November drop.

We’ve been slowly buying I Bonds from the Treasury. Currently they have a yield of 7.12%. The Physician on Fire has a detailed post how to buy them.

Weather in our part of the world have been a bit crazy with multiple days of below 0 highs. All par for the course though 🙂 We have been able to spend some time with family and that is always nice. The holidays at the end of year were mostly uneventful and relaxing, with lots of movie and football watching.

I’ll try to get the year end post in a couple of days …one can have wishful thinking, right?

Whew, managed to get this out before the middle of the next month!

Markets are trending downwards and is reflected in our investments.

Spending for November is right about the “average”. It seems that $3.5k to $4k is our sweet spot.

We had triple whammy expenses for vehicles last month: yearly car tab, semi-yearly regular maintenance, and a battery replacement.

Winter activities, though not as time and resource consuming but fun nevertheless, are in full swing. So are the festivities centered around this time of the year. Thanksgiving gave us an opportunity to spend quality time with extended family after a gap of one year. The end of the year will possibly yield more such days.

We are all doing well. Adults have had booster shots and child is fully vaxxed. We wish well upon others.

Cheers!

Last month, we had our second largest MoM increase ever: $65k (the highest being $91k in Nov ’20). Things are humming along nicely. Oh, and we hit another milestone: our combined retirement fund is north of a million dollars! We were close in August, got derailed a bit in September, but the markets came roaring back in October.

October closed off with some mild weather. 50-60 degrees F days and low 40s nights and early mornings. We’ll gladly take this abundance of sunshine and heat! Fall sports have started but they are nowhere close to the level of summer sports.

Life is, mostly, good. One of our parents have had some potentially serious medical issues diagnosed. We’re waiting for some test results – fingers crossed.

Cheers!

Yes, we’ve finally had a red month this year 😀

Markets were down about 4.8% in September, and the trend is continuing the first few days of October. A correction is way overdue but we are still not within that territory – we’ll need to get down about 10% from the most recent highs. This gives us a chance to invest some of that extra cash we have just lying around.

We had a very busy September, with school opening and then chugging along full speed. Sporting and other extra curricular activities had taken over our entire lives in September (in a good way, not complaining!) and it’s cooling off now that we are in October. The rest of this month should be relaxing.

Months such as September really makes us think how M retiring from the humdrum of corporate life has been such a blessing for us. We are able to fit in all kinds of practices and games schedule without W having to feel rushed to get office work done and then worrying about running about or dinner. We are grateful to be in the position that we are.

For for our expenses for the month ….

Had quite an unexpected major expense last month. We suddenly found the a small portion of the basement carpet damp. Upon investigation it turned out that the water heater was leaking and some water had seeped in under the carpet. Got the plumber/heating guys immediately the next day, and the verdict was: we need a new water heater. They were able to get it replaced the same day. Sticker price: $5,345.

If we take that out, expenses this month was about average. Though our spending on eating out/takeout is creeping up.

Weather here has been fabulous. We’re still experiencing 70 degrees days. We’ll take it as long as we get it!

Here’s hoping your fall is shaping up nicely. Cheers!

We’re so far into September that I’m not even going to pretend I remember updates from August! School started. Extra-curricular activities started in full swing even before school started. Some days it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get all the stuff that is happening crammed into a 24-hour period. In a good way. We’ve been spending a LOT of time outside in the sun.

Here is a challenge wish: that September’s update will be within the 5th of the month with some updates!

Two thirds of summer is now gone! That should be enough to light a fire (pun intended) under anyone who values …you know, life.

A very busy July for us. Sporting activities continued in full swing for the first three weeks of July and then started to wrap up for the early summer (Spring/Summer) season and the pace will pick up back again after the second week of August. We took a long – over 2,000 miles – road trip for a week and then chilled out the last week in July. Temperatures have somewhat returned to their averages and we’re enjoying probably the perfect time right now.

Oh, and the valuation of our assets crossed $1.5M and Net Worth rose by almost $23k.

Here is our spending for July. This is on the higher end of variable/discretionary spending for any given month.

The biggest category of expense was our vehicles, where the mid-year insurance premium was due. We also had to renew the tabs on one of the cars. Because of the road trip, gas expenses was almost double the monthly average; as was eating out. When compared to our May expenses, which was one of the lowest, July was almost $2k more. August should be somewhere in between.

But all’s well. Most of these expenses were anticipated. And we do have close to a $100k just laying around 🙂

Here’s wishing all of you have a splendid August to close out the summer. Live life. Cheers!

June was hot. The weather, I mean 🥵 We scored the hottest start – first 11 days – to June, since temperatures started being recorded, over a hundred years ago.

The markets weren’t bad. We tacked on over $25k to our NW. The next milestone is to see our retirement accounts, in aggregate, cross the million-dollar mark threshold.

We’re not publishing spending report for this month but it was over $2.6k, almost a full $1k more than May. The report for July will be interesting – stay tuned.

Summer is going well. Sporting activities from spring and early summer are wrapping up. We are reclaiming some of the evenings of the week, a great many of which were spent on the fields 🙂

So long, cheers!