Beware the ides of March, unless you’re saving for your future!
The Numbers
22.9546%
This is our invested assets/target number. Our invested assets span across a variety of investment vehicles such as 401k, HSA, IRA, Roth IRA, ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Program) and standard taxable mutual funds.
113 months
The number of months until my 45th birthday and our finish date.
109.21 months
The number of expected months until we reach our target number based on our current expected monthly contributions, assuming a 10% annual return.
9.63 times annual spending
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.
38.51% to minimum FIRE
The minimum number to achieve FIRE is 25 times our annual spending. This number shows how close we are to the absolute minimum.
41.95 times annual spending at goal number
We have a goal amount that we’d like to reach. Given our current annual spending, this is how many times our annual spending we’ll have saved when we reach our goal number.
Where We Saved This Month
401k – $1846 total (employee and employer)
HSA – $430
Roth IRA – $1000
ESPP – $486
Taxable Investments – This will start after we’ve built up an extra cushion in our savings account, probably closer to the end of the year.
What’s Happened and What’s Happening
This was a relatively steady month in terms of just putting money away. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, we got hit with a pretty big federal tax bill. That’s going to delay our savings plan by about a month. The plus side is that we made more this last year in side work and investments.
We are getting a small refund back for our state income taxes that only marginally offsets what we owe the federal government. Hopefully, with some side work and an extra paycheck in March, we’ll be almost back to having our savings account padded again and can finally start putting more money into taxable investments.