Rubber band month

What happened this last month?

April was a relatively quiet month. I call it the rubber band month because while our investment balance went down quite a bit in March, it shot back up to the highest number yet this month. It just goes to show that you can’t predict these things, all you can know is the general direction things will go over a long period of time.

We’ve been very fortunate and blessed over the years. It feels as though when we started to do the “right” things with money, financial stuff started falling into place in different ways. We don’t really do anything fancy with our investments. Generally speaking, we’re mostly in broad based index funds.

We don’t take on debt payments. We don’t generally buy something unless we’ve got the money for it. We keep an emergency fund. In fact, when we’ve found that we spend everything we have towards something, that’s generally when things fall apart. For example, last July when we spent most of what we had in our savings to get a vehicle, several other things started going wrong, like with the horse trailer. It felt like we were getting hit from all sides. We had a plan to replenish the savings quickly, but during that period of time, stress levels were high.

All that to say is that we’re not that unique. I’ve been blessed in my career up until this point, but even if I didn’t make what I did, the financial practices we’ve used would still be a good idea and leave us in a much better position than we would have been otherwise.

Where did we spend the most?

Our monthly expenses were down considerably compared to last last month. Annually, they’re still down considerably from last April.

• $327 Barn bleachers
  • I decided to take on a project to build some bleachers for the barn that our horse is at. I sit in front of a computer all day, so I enjoy getting to build things with my hands.
• $265 Electrical work
  • When I was down in the crawlspace for another project, I found that had a wire that was down there that was capped, but still had power running to it. I figured it was time to do something with it. We had an electrician put a junction box on it with an outlet, and then run it so we have an outlet on both side of the houses now.
• $258 Weekend away
  • We decided to do a quick overnight trip to a tiny house in Amish country. It was a really nice place, we had a great dinner, and good times were had.

The Money Related Numbers

Completed! – 136.40% to target number (previously 123.71%)

This is our invested assets (401k, HSA, IRA, brokerage, etc.) divided by our target goal number.

27 months until original FI date (previously 28)

The number of months until my 45th birthday and our Financial Independence date.

Completed! – 0 months until calculated FI date (previously 0)

The number of expected months until we reach our target number. This is based on our current expected monthly contributions, assuming a 10% annual return.

The Expense Related Numbers

17.74 times annual spending (previously 15.81)

This is how many multiples of our annual spending we have saved up towards our goal. For example, if this value was 9.1 and we spent $10,000 annually, we would have $91,000 saved up.

70.96% to minimum FIRE (previously 63.24%)

The minimum number to achieve FIRE is 25 times our annual spending. This number shows how close we are to the absolute minimum.

13.00 times annual spending at goal number (previously 12.78)

We’d like to save 25 times our annual spending. This is how many times our annual spending we’ll have saved when we reach our goal number. If it’s 25 or greater, than our goal number will be enough to cover our expenses. If it’s lower than 25, we’ll need to either cut our expenses or increase our goal number.

How Much We Invested

-34.15% Month to Month Change In How Much Saved (previously -46.71%)

This number shows the change in what we saved in our investment accounts this month compared to the prior month.

-40.18% Month to Month Change in How Much Saved With Employer Contributions (previously -38.19%)

Same as the prior number, but with employer contributions counted.

0.27% Month to Month Change in 12 Month Savings Average (previously 2.25%)

This number shows the change in our 12 month rolling average. This helps to smooth out months over time.

0.19% of 12 Month Average Net Income Invested With Employer Contributions (previously 2.99%)

Same as the prior number, but with employer contributions counted.

How we track the numbers

I’ve been using Empower (referral link) to track our numbers. I put them into a spreadsheet that calculates the numbers you see above.