Let’s dive right into the October 2018 FIRE progress report.

The Numbers

22.3716%

This is our invested assets/target number. Our invested assets span across a variety of investment vehicles such as 401k, HSA, IRA, Roth IRA, and standard taxable mutual funds.

118

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

112.38

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

Where We Saved This Month

401k – $1754 total (employee and employer)

HSA – $420

Roth IRA – This will show up on November’s report since the transactions will occur in October.

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

Since we paid off the house, we’ve been working on building our savings account up a bit. We didn’t have to touch our emergency fund to pay it off, but did pull some money from savings. It’s been slow going, but should be done by the end of the year even with our increased investing.

Recently, we got a nail in the tire of our Toyota Prius that wasn’t repairable. The two places we would normally go didn’t have the same tire in stock and weren’t sure they could get it. Our Costco membership came to the rescue as they had the same one in stock and could install it right then. Since the tires had 44k miles on them, we replaced a pair of them.

I learned about a couple of other Costco membership discounts.

• We were already getting a good price on the tires, but to make the deal even better, they include a road hazard warranty, which if I recall correctly, normally costs around $16-20 per tire at other places.
• They suggested I get an alignment, but they don’t do them there. However, I was given a card with a website where I could enter in my membership number and zip code to get a 15% off coupon to few different places that offer auto services. One of them was the place we normally go for oil changes. From now on, we’ll be getting 15% off of oil changes, which adds even more to the membership savings!

All that to say, it’s great to be able to use things that we already have to save extra money, but a disappointment that we had this unexpected expense pop up that will slow down our savings.