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Early Retirement Monthly Results
Retire By 35 – December 2011 Results
204 months ago
Each month I calculate my family’s cash flow and balance sheet to track my path to extreme early retirement. I do this to ensure we are spending our money on things we need and activities we enjoy. My intention with sharing it here with such transparency is not to show off my income or savings, but rather to show what can be done if you stay focused and deliberate. I strongly encourage everyone to create a similar report, even if you don’t share it with others. It takes me 2 hours (including this fancy report), and it’s the only time I look at my portfolio or expenses each month.
For those of you who follow this site closely, you know that I didn’t write up my standard report in November. During my monthly analysis at the end of More >
Retire by 35 November Progress or “The Doors of Perception”
125 months ago
I had some problems with Quicken in November, and because of this my accounting for the month wasn’t accurate. I could have spent several hours getting it all organized, but I’ve decided not to do that. Six months ago I would have put in the time to reconcile my expenses, but things have changed. Where as 6 months ago I was completely focused on getting my expenses down to achieve financial independence, I feel that I’ve transcended that to some extent. Sure, tracking my expenses is important, but it’s no longer the most important thing. Let me explain…
The more I continue my journey towards financial independence and an extreme early retirement, I’m coming closer and closer to the conclusion that the strict rigidity of the world is just More >
Retire By 35: October 2011 Results
206 months ago
Each month I calculate my family’s cash flow and balance sheet to track my path to extreme early retirement. I do this to ensure we are spending our money on things we need and activities we enjoy. My intention with sharing it here with such transparency is not to show off my income or savings, but rather to show what can be done if you stay focused and deliberate. I strongly encourage everyone to create a similar report, even if you don’t share it with others. It takes me 2 hours, and it’s the only time I look at my portfolio or expenses each month.
It was another stellar month on my path to extreme early retirement. In fact, for all intents and purposes I’d say that I’m there financially. The only reason I’ll continue working More >
Retire By 35: September 2011 Results
247 months ago
September was a great month for my overall extreme early retirement goals.
First, I had my lowest month of expenses despite having my mom staying with us for 2 weeks. Normally, having visitors drives expenses up because we spend more on food and entertainment. Although we did spend more in those two areas, the impact was minimal.
Second, I had good income due to a new income source writing Android apps. Unfortunately, I expect this income to go down next month since my best apps were suspended by Google due to trademark violations. Many of my app themes were based on cartoon characters, and Google started suspending these types of apps last week. I was surprised about this given that there were so many apps out there that were doing More >
Retire by 35: August Results
198 months ago
August was another successful month on my road to extremely early retirement. We have once again achieved our goal of keeping our family expenses below $3000 (well, close anyways). This, despite several large purchases. In fact, although I was a few dollars over, I’m encouraged because it included nearly $600 of one-time expenses that we could have done without. I’m not happy about those expenses, but it was a compromise with my wife who has been very open to our drastic life changes. I’m continuing to stick with my stretch goal of $2500/month as my next target. To do that, we need to step up on getting our grocery expenses down.
Here are August’s numbers:
Expenses: $3011
Mortgage: $871 Auto Sevice and Parts: $21 Fuel: $80 Auto More >
Retire by 35: July Results
119 months ago
July has been a roller coaster ride in many ways, especially with my ERE goals. As the month wrapped up, however, it was by far the most successful month I’ve ever had (despite losing a bunch of capital in the stock market).
In June I made a ton of life changes, including changing jobs, moving to a new state, and selling my car. It wasn’t until July that I started seeing those massive changes paying off.
As I said, it was a roller coaster ride. In July, my 18-month old daughter had a second bout of seizures. This is a life threatening problem, and it’s extremely stressful. It puts my ERE goals into question, to say the least. Besides the obvious costs associated with several days in the ICU, it also calls into question my life’s More >
Retire by 35: June Results
210 months ago
Sorry for the delay in providing these results. It’s been a busy month, but I’m happy to say that June was my best month yet!
It’s probably better to describe it qualitatively than quantitatively, since so much went on and the numbers may not accurately reflect my progress.
In June I sold my car, moved half-way across the country, and down-sized my house. No more McMansion with huge mortgage payments, huge electric bills, and that damned money-pit we called a pool. No more 15 mile drives to work to a job I had long outgrown.
Now we live in a beautiful part of Colorado, with a view of Pikes Peak from my back porch. We downsized significantly, from a $400K, 3100 square foot house to a $200K, 1800 square foot house. The house is 3.5 miles More >
ER/FI – March Results
01 year ago
I’ve decided to start documenting my monthly report regarding my progress (or sometimes lack of progress) towards an extremely early retirement.
Before I provide my March numbers, I feel obligated to admit freely that I really let my financial self go over the past 3 years. Before my first kid, I tracked everything and my savings were extremely high. As my kids started taking all of my free time and energy after work, and as my income continued to rise, I got lazy. I’m not proud of it, but my wife and I are taking steps to fix it.
Without further adieu, March info:
Income: $9520 (after taxes and 401K) (normalized, in actuality I make many times more than this)
Income was high this month given that March happened to have 3 More >
