Can you believe 2016 is already half over? Time really flies, so don’t put off saving and investing. Everyone needs to start investing as young as possible since compound interest needs time to really take off. Speaking of investing, Brexit gave investors a scare for a few days at the end of June. The market seems to have recovered nicely, though. Our international funds are still down, but our US funds are doing pretty well. I guess investors are flocking to the US for more stability. We picked up a few shares of value index fund during the dip, so that was nice.
All in all, June was a good month and our net worth reached a new high. That’s great because we are still doing well in spite of the recent stock market gyrations. Let’s see how I’m doing with my 2016 goals and then check our cash flow for June.
2016 Goals
Non Financial Goals
Improve Fitness (June result = Pass)
I got a Garmin Vivofit 2 for Christmas and I’m using it to track my activity level. June was a pretty good month. The weather is nicer and we are spending more time outdoors. I had 188,891 steps in May. That’s 6,296 steps per day which exceeded my 6,000 steps per day goal. On the other hand, I also gained about 4 pounds since the beginning of the year. We need to modify our diet as we get older and our metabolism slows down. I’ll spend the rest of this year trying to lose a few pounds…
Control my triglyceride level (WIP)
I’m trying to eat better to control my hypertriglyceridemia. My doctor recently increased the dosage of my medication and I will go in for a blood test soon. It has been really tough to change our diet. We already eat relatively healthy, but still need to increase the amount of fish and vegetables in our diet, while reducing carbs.
Try 6 new great restaurants (50%)
Alright, we found a great place in June. Pine Street Market is like an upscale food court. You can choose from Ramen, sandwiches, gourmet hot dogs, Israeli street food, and more. I had a beef cheek sandwich. It sounded a bit weird, but the sandwich was great. We’ll be back to try the other places.
Take an extended trip to Thailand ($2,427)3,187
I’m planning a 3 week trip to Thailand in November. I want my family to experience the Loy Kratong festival in Chiang Mai. It was a big deal when I was a kid and I had fun with the various activities around the holiday. Saving for this trip is made easy by Digit. Digit deducts a small amount from my account every few days and I don’t notice the “stealth” saving at all. Check out my Digit review if you don’t know about them. The current balance is at $3,187, an increase of $760 in June. This is a great way to save for a trip.
Attend a conference – (WIP)
I got a ticket to FinCon 2016 in San Diego! I booked the hotel room and now just need to find a cheap flight. Mrs. RB40 and Jr will take the opportunity to visit her parents while I’m in SD.
Visit a national park – (WIP)
We are going camping at Crater Lake in a few weeks. It is a long drive from Portland, but it should be nice to get out of town for a while. The trip is coming up soon and I can’t wait.
Start a non-finance website – (WIP)
I will start this project after kindergarten begins in the fall. This will probably kick off very slowly because I have all sorts of stuff to catch up on.
Financial Goals (50% of the year is gone..)
Invest $50,000 in our tax advantaged accounts (49%) $24,298
In June, we saved $3,632 in our tax advantaged accounts. That increased our total to $24,298 so far in 2016. We are right on schedule for 2016. I’m still contributing $1,500 per month to my i401k, but I’ll hold off on our Roth IRA and the employer contribution for my 401k. I still think we could see a big drop in 2016, so I’m waiting for a good deal.
Increase Dividends to $11,500 (50%)
We received $1,374 in dividends last month. That’s $5,730 so far in 2016. We’re right on schedule with this one. I’m hoarding cash and holding off on reinvesting for now.
Surpass $50,000 in RB40 Junior’s 529 account (97%)
The stock market is volatile this year, so I don’t know if we’ll meet this goal. We will continue to contribute $400 per month. The account is now worth $48,445.
Increase Net worth by 3x risk free rate (currently +6.5%)
The 10-year US government bond yields about 2%. So my target net worth increase for 2016 is 6%. Brexit gave us a rollercoaster ride at the end of June, but we rode it out without losing any sleep. The US market recovered in just a few days, but the international markets are still reeling. Our net worth did pretty well in June, though. The energy sector is recovering nicely and gave our portfolio a nice boost. Our net worth is up 6.5% for the year and we met our goal! The rest of this year will still be a bumpy ride and I’m sure we’ll be up and down for the rest of 2016.
If you need help keeping track of your finances, try using Personal Capital to manage your portfolio. We have many accounts and Personal Capital helps us see the big picture. Also check out their fantastic retirement calculator. You can read my review here – The Best Free Retirement Calculator.
Cash Flow
Take Home Income (target > $5,000)
Take Home Income (target > $5,000)Our take home income was higher than usual in June, at $6,791. Mrs. RB40 had a little bonus so that’s really nice. Our dividend income was also pretty good last month.
Mrs. RB40’s Paychecks: $6,252. Mrs. RB40 got a nice little bonus from work.
Rental income: $703. We had a great month with our rentals. It’s nice to have a good month once in a while.
Online income: $2,223. Our online income in June was good for a summer month. Summer months are usually slower because a lot of people are on vacation. I will break down the online income and expenses in our monthly newsletter so if you’re curious, sign up with our email list.
Dividend: $1,374. Our dividend income reached a new high in June! The 3rd month of the quarter is great. You can see my dividend portfolio if you want to see my investment.
Interest: $1. Ugh, I didn’t use my debit card enough and missed out on the bonus interest rate. It’s not a big deal, but I still don’t like passing up free money. I’ll pay more attention next month.
P2P lending: -$130. I had more defaults than usual and it was not a good month for P2P lending. I’m seriously considering pulling the investment and putting them in real estate crowdfunding instead. Real estate seems like a better way to invest than unsecure lending. Currently, NSR Invest manages my P2P lending account at Prosper. These defaults are from loans made prior to signing up with NSR.
Misc income: $0. No side income this month.
Expense (target < $4,500)
Our expense was within budget in June at $3,930. That’s our best month so far in 2016. I think a big reason is the reduction in our childcare expense. RB40Jr is going to summer day-camp every other week and that cost much less than preschool.
Housing: $2,256. Mortgage, HOA, and property tax.
Cash Allowance: $200.
Groceries: $400. Our grocery bill was great in June at $400. I think we stocked up the previous month so the bill was lower than usual in June.
Child/Dependent: $238. Woo hoo! Our childcare cost is going down. It will be around $250 for the summer, then plummet once kindergarten starts. Nice.
Healthcare/Medical: $220.
Bills: $225. Electricity and insurance (auto, home, my term life, and umbrella.)
Entertainment: $77. Gym membership fee and eating out.
Misc: $372. I got a used cargo carrier for our car. I also got 2 air mattresses for our camping trip. From Amazon, I got a headphone, batteries, ukulele strings, and lemon oil.
Transportation: $28. We filled up only once in June.
Saving
Extra Saving ($12,509 so far in 2016)
Our extra saving was $2,775 in June. That’s really awesome. Most of this will go into our Roth IRA and my i401k later this year.
All in all, we did very well in June. Our income was higher than usual and our expense was lower than expected. Our net worth hit an all time high. We are healthy and the weather is great, what else can you ask for? Life is good.
Did you have a good month in June?
Passive income is the key to early retirement. This year, Joe is investing in commercial real estate with CrowdStreet. They have many projects across the USA so check them out!
Joe also highly recommends Personal Capital for DIY investors. They have many useful tools that will help you reach financial independence.
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Wow! What an awesome month you had.
I thought about investing with P2P lending, but then I see that investment isn’t doing so great for a lot of people. I think I’ll stay away and just keep investing in VTSAX!
That is a great result!
6.5% increase is awesome, I’m a mere 2% for the half year. I’m too conservative at the moment, expecting a recession.
For your trip to Chiang Mai, you might find useful reading the blog about two American living there and giving useful info about tours in Chiang Mai; http://tielandtothailand.com
Cheers
Thanks for the link. I have families there so I’m not too worried. 🙂
2% is not bad in this environment. It’s tough when the market is thrashing around so much.
Great progress! I’m hoping to reach around $12000 dividend income milestone this year as well (still working on my plan on my spreadsheet). When you mention you’re hoarding cash, what kind of volatility are you anticipating? I’m also hesitant but still optimistic in the oil and gas sector. At this time, I’m occasionally putting money in, but I’m also concerned something ‘big’ is coming.
Btw, I’ve just visited Portland, and liked it quite a bit, because of the lower cost of living, food and diversity. However I’ve heard the cost of living is rising, traffic is starting to worsen and more ‘tech’ is flooding in here.
Good luck with your dividend. It seems like the market is very nervous. We have been in a very long bull market and we are overdue for a big correction. I still invest monthly, but I’m nervous about adding a big chunk.
Portland is still nice, but the cost of living is rising quickly. Traffic has been bad for a long time now…
Do you like fish on the grill? Grilled salmon and rainbow trout, or lemon baked cod, are favorites ’round here! Or almond-pecan crusted trout or cod. Nom nom nom.
Your progress is inspiring! We had some setbacks this month, including some unfortunate spending on my part, but we’re headed into July with a clean slate!
You’ve got some hefty goals there, RB40. I like your style. I also place a ton of goals for each year and my wife loves to watch as I track them on our home white board (posted up in a hallway that we walk through to get to and from the bedroom – can’t miss it!). It’s good to have goals that aren’t just financial – like your restaurant goal. Make sure to let us know how these go for you. I’ll be visiting Oregon sometime in the fall.
-Dividend Reaper
I like the non financial goals too. Life isn’t all about money, right? We need other kind of goals too. 🙂 Oregon is great in the early fall. Late fall can be pretty rainy.
Congrats on your online income! that’s a lot to me anyway hehe. I too use a Fitbit to track my steps and it actually pays for our medical expenses since my wife’s company sponsors it as part of our medical plan so it rocks! Wow that extra money you have must be really nice to have.
Thanks! I’m pretty happy with my online income as well. I’m still jealous of blogger who makes crazy money – $100k/month. 🙂
Nice with the Fitbit. Companies need to help keep their workers healthy.
Wow, Amazing June Joe! A all-time high dividend income, and a great increase in net worth too!
Well done!
Thanks! I love our dividend portfolio. Hopefully, we don’t see any major dividend cut in the future.
Congrats on a great month, Joe. So excited you guys are going to Crater Lake. I love that park. If you can, try to get out really early in the morning to see the lake with that wonderful early morning light… And also ahead of the crowds! 😉
Thanks! I’m excited to visit Crater Lake too. I haven’t been there in over 10 years. It is so out of the way. 🙂 I’ll try to get up early. Thanks for the tip.
2016 looks like it’s been a good year so far for you, Joe. I’m interested in what the non-finance blog will be about, any clues?
I’m thinking about a travel blog or maybe something about inventions. I haven’t had a chance to think about it much yet. It’s just a stretch goal so I can do something outside of personal finance.
Thanks Joe I read all your updates. I started my FI journey on your site.
Just back from a biz trip to Thailand. Always good to visit the land of smiles.
regards,
Christian
Good luck! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed Thailand. I haven’t been back for 6 years and it’s time for a visit.
Are you an active trader with Junior’s college account? If not, I think you should jettison your goal about reaching a certain dollar amount in the account. Unless you are trying to trade in and out, the daily (or yearly) value of the account is just “noise” at this point. The child isn’t even in kindergarten, yet! In fact, you are better off if the stocks and funds remain “on sale” for as long as you are making regular contributions to the account. I think a better goal would be to make regular contributions. You might also do some back-of-the-envelope calculations to see how much will be in the account when Junior is ready to draw on it, in order to see whether or not to increase the contributions. (With compounding, I think you may have more than you expect in the account when it is time for him to go to college.) I really appreciate the opportunity to read your blog; thanks for all of your hard work, and for your openness.
No, I am not actively trading Jr’s account. We just add $400 every month. It’s been stuck below $50k for 2 years now. I’m thinking about transferring it to Utah to minimize cost. I’m hoping for around $150k by the time he’s 18. At this pace, I don’t know if we’ll meet that goal. It largely depends on the market.
Starting from $50k, with 6% interest and $400 a month contributions, would be over $200,000 in 13 years, according to an online calculator.
Congrats on meeting your goals! We unfortunately won’t be reducing child care costs this year as we live in a district with half-day kindergarten, and we’re still paying her daycare to take her before/after school. There is a bit of a reduction: $30/day vs $35/day, but not much. She got put into afternoon kinder, which is almost the worst possible, but she’ll be with other kiddos on our street, so she’ll know a lot of folks.
Our school is 8 am to 2 pm. That’s not exactly full day, but pretty good. Afternoon kinder sounds dreadful… Morning is best for little kids.
Keep up the good work, it looks like you are pretty much on track to meet or surpass every one of your goals!
Speaking of, I think I am now going to look back and evaluate my 2016 goals.
The health goal is really tough for me. It gets harder and harder as you get older.
Congrats on a fine month and for beating your monthly dividend income total. $1,374 in a single month is very impressive.
Thanks! We’ll keep working on our dividend. I’m sure it will reach $2,000/month in a few years.
A 6.5% increase YTD is damn good! I think I may be down or flat. I haven’t checked. Maybe I should do a semi-annual financial report too. But I don’t like talking income or net worth amount.
Do you ever get commenters who hate on you for revealing your income? I notice you don’t reveal your net worth. Is there a reason why revealing income is easier than revealing net worth? What if your income was like $50,000 a month, would things be different?
Summers are slow, so I’m taking advantage and am currently on a 10 day business trip in Hawaii for some team building and 2H2016 strategy sessions w/ my editor. So far so good!
Sam
Joe, the 3x net free is an investment target, correct? Looks to me like you are using it as a net worth target. Which isn’t the same with inclusion of a working spouse income, right?
Hi, the 3x net free is our net worth target. That target would be very difficult to hit in a bear market year. We are adding about $50-60k per year, but that doesn’t make a big dent. Less than 3%. Maybe I should modify the target to 2-4X net free depending on whether the market is bull or bear. It’s tough to figure out the right target.
Yes, I’m very happy with 6.5% increase net worth in this environment. I didn’t even update our properties for the year yet.
I don’t get any haters. Probably because our income is pretty low. If our income is $50k per month, I probably get more negative comments. I reveal our net worth just once a year for the regular readers. 🙂
Enjoy your business trip! Our Thailand trip will be a business trip too. I need to do an in-dept on location research with my editor.
Wow – only filling up the car once is awesome. I have noticed our cost in that area go down dramatically now that I gave up my full-time job. I think people really underestimate vehicle expenses. Really interested to find out more about your new website venture too! I remember the day that we didn’t have to pay daycare anymore. It was like a huge raise!
Yes, filling up once is great. I think we filled up right before June so that carry over. We usually need to fill up tiwce a month. Working has a lot of cost – gas, clothing, commute time, etc… It’s nice to not work full time anymore and save on all that. Of course, money is better with a full-time job.
Thanks for the updates, Joe. Good to hear things have been going well.
Earlier in the year I was doing good eating fish every week, but in the last month or two I was getting tired of the same old recipes. I’ll have to try to mix it up a bit to get fish back in my diet.
I really look forward to hearing about your trip to Thailand!
Fish is one of my cooking weak spot. I don’t know many recipes. The Fish cookbook doesn’t help much because most of the dishes aren’t very appetizing… I’m looking forward to my trip to Thailand too. 🙂