My Journey

With the holiday season upon us and Thanksgiving having arrived, many Americans take the day to at least temporarily sit and reflect on what they are thankful for. While 2020 has been bad for many of us, I think it is important to sit and reflect just the same. I have been reflecting since I woke up this morning, and it turns out I have a lot to be grateful for... First, I am thankful for a physically healthy family. We have had our share of COVID scares because of day care and have been through a series of day care shut downs because of positive COVID cases, but our children have always tested negative. To a certain extent being healthy is being happy. If you spend an entire year in good health, especially as you start getting older, that is something worth celebrating. Second, I am thankful for the love and support of my family. If you have been reading through my blog posts you know that both my wife and I are in the military and we are stationed in different places. This provides ...

Hello all. Today I am writing about my proposed December budget. I have a lot of different things I have to take into account for December that I don’t normally have to account for. As you may have already read, my wife and I are both military but unfortunately stationed in different places. For my December budget my wife and son will be visiting so that changes my budget. I will need to add money to my grocery budget and fuel budget. Also, the holiday’s are upon us so I need to add money to my discretionary budget for gifts. So let’s get started...   I will start with savings since I am committed to paying myself first. I contribute $962 monthly to my Thrift Savings Plan straight out of my pay check. That does not max my annual contributions but I plan to get there in 2021 since I apparently have sufficient room in my budget. Next, I normally contribute $500 per month to my Roth IRA but I already maxed out my allowed contributions for the year so that will be $0 this month. Final...

This has been a complicated question for me. On the one hand, I am turning 40 in a few months, have a net worth of $1.3 million and owe at least 3.5 more years to the Army. I am debt free and I have three streams of income in you count my salary, rental properties, and dividends. I can carry these three salary streams into retirement because I have a pension, although my pension is less than my income.  On the other hand, my pension and my rental properties make up the majority of my net worth. Even though they pay me monthly and my pension is reliable income I do not have a sufficient amount saved in my TSP, Roth IRA, or taxable brokerage account. I am trying to rectify that problem over the next eight years and then I will reevaluate. My eight year plan includes having living expenses below my three streams of income when I decide to stop working. In fact, I want enough wiggle room so even though I am retired I can keep saving. I am currently debt free so I need approximately ...

One of the best ways I have been able to reduce costs is to not dine out and to buy and cook in bulk. Typically, I on Saturday morning, I plan what I am going to eat for the week and go to the store to get the needed food. This plan involves taking a good inventory of what I already have and determining as I look at my recipes what I need to get versus what I already have or can use as a substitute in my weekly meals. At the store I typically purchase store brand items to save on cost and buy bulk for this I use frequently, like pasta. Of course living in a small RV I am always careful about not getting too much and cluttering our lives.  T his week my daughter told me she wanted pot roast so I picked out a 2.5 pound roast, some small potatoes, baby carrots, an onion, and a pot roast seasoning pack. This feeds the two of us about four days, so that is what we will have for dinner Monday-Thursday. We made this on Saturday and it was a great activity for my daughter and I to prep thi...

 For me this all starts with education and a budget. But Mike, if your journey is about values then why start with a budget. Great question. A budget helps see where my spending does not align with my values. A budget gives me a great deal of insight into my habits that I may not have otherwise noticed. So let’s begin by cracking open those bank statements and credit card statements and looking where our money is going.  I personally like to bucket my spending. I record it in an numbers (excel) document by bucket. When I started I was very specific, a bucket for groceries, a bucket for fuel, a bucket for rent, one for insurance, one for dining out, one for entertainment, phone, day care, taxes, and investing. As I got better at budgeting and controlling my spending, I reduced the specificity in my budget. Now that I have fairly good control over my spending I use larger buckets. I use staples for things like fuel, groceries, phone, and haircuts. Discretionary spending for ent...

I have been a journey since my late 20’s. A journey that at times I have been very successful and at other times I have failed miserably. This journey has been partly one of minimalism towards achieving financial independence. I am not part of the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) Movement, but some of those concepts do resonate with me. I began this journey because I wanted to focus on those things in my life that were important to me, to include those potentially expensive things. I wanted to be able to do and purchase what I wanted when I wanted. I also wanted to impart certain values onto my young children. I did not want them to be overtaken by the hyper consumerism of American culture. I wanted to demonstrate that living simply with those you love was where they would find the most happiness and meaning in life. People enrich the human experience, not things. So where am I currently at along this journey? I am about to turn 40. I have served in the military for 22 years...