June Highlights and Lowlights
- Vacation! – We took a 2 week road trip vacation to California. It was a ton of fun, but we also spent quite a bit of money. We paid for the trip in May and June so it’s spread out over two months.
- Net worth – It’s mid year so I thought it would be a good time to update the value of our properties. The real estate market has been going up this year so our net worth got a nice boost this month. The stock market and bonds didn’t do well and we dropped a bit there, but it looks to be recovering a bit now.
- Online Income – We had another great month in the online income category. Thanks everyone for supporting Retire By 40!
- Rental Income is a small negative (-$75) this month. Our tenants in the rental home could only pay part of the rent. They have been good tenants for 3 years though, so I’m working with them to catch up on back rent.
- P2P income from Prosper is a little low at $56. The ROI is currently at 8.43% and we should be seeing around $75/month on average.
Net Worth (+12.9% YTD, 4.9% MTM)
As I mentioned above, I updated our home and rental properties value this month. The most notable change came from the 4plex at +$50,000 in value since late last year. I also added a small pension I had from my old job into the net worth calculation as well. This wasn’t on my spreadsheet previously.
The stock market and bonds were a bit crazy in June. We ended up about even by the end of the month. I cashed out some positions in April so I was able to get in when the market dipped. It was hard buying on the fall though. Both stocks and bonds kept falling in price and it was only at the end of the month that we came back to even. After the ups and downs, I think I’ll go back to buy and hold. It’s much easier for me to deal with. All of this buying and selling is too stressful.
If you need help keeping track of your finances, try using Personal Capital to manage your budget and net worth. It can help you keep track of your income, expenses, and net worth, all in one place. Personal Capital is geared for investors and has many great tools. See my review of Personal Capital and how they helped me reduce what I’m paying in investment fees.
Our asset allocation is still a little out of whack. I’ll keep working on it for the rest of 2013.
Saving (+$10,432 YTD)
We are doing quite well at mid year. I contributed $10,000 to our kid’s 529 account in June when the market was down so at least we don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Our saving this month is +$2,653.
Piggy Bank 2013
- earmarked for the 529: $0. We had $2,500 in this fund and I added $2,500 from our saving this month. That’s $5,000 toward the $10,000 contribution. We’ll make up the rest from our saving account and the travel fund below.
- Travel fund: $0. We had $1,800 here and since we already traveled, I’ll just move this to help pay for the 529 contribution.
- Fun money: $840
- Investment/Slush Fund: +$153 = $2,793
- Taxes: $2,666. We are done with taxes until next April. From my estimate, we probably need to send in around $1,000 next year.
Cash Flow
Income (target > $4,500)
On the income side, we did about as well as May (quite well.) Over the last 2 months we have been doing much better than our $4,500 target.
- Rentals: If it’s not one thing, it’s another with the rentals… As I mentioned above, the tenants in our rental home could only pay partially in June. They are planning to catch up in July. There are a few more repairs coming from the rental home too, so I don’t think things are going improve much for the rest of 2013. At least the 4 plex didn’t have any problems in June.
- P2P lending: Our ROI dropped a bit from 8.8% to 8.43%. This isn’t great news and hopefully we can bring it up to around 9% at some point. Here is an update I wrote recently – Peer to Peer lending isn’t as passive as I thought.
- Dividend and interest: We had another very good month on this front. Dividend income is great and require minimum work. It’s the best passive income avenue for me so far.
- Online income was great in June. My goal was to make $18,000 online in 2013. At the half way mark, we already hit $15,000 so I’m very happy with our progress. It would be great if we can keep this up. Thank you for supporting us and signing up for products I wrote about. I will break down the income in the monthly Retire By 40 Newsletter, so sign up now if you haven’t yet (at the top of this post.)
- Misc income: We had quite a bit of extra income this month. $100 from my brother to help with grandma’s living expense, $45 from credit card reward, $200 from grandpa to help with the vacation rental (he came to stay with us for a couple of days in Santa Barbara), and $100 from a focus group I participated in. Being part of a focus group is a pretty good gig. I wouldn’t mind doing it about once a month or so. The extra $100 income is nice.
Expense (target < $4,000, not including tax)
Our expense was higher than usual again due to the summer vacation expenses (entertainment). Luckily, we paid for the vacation rental last month so the expense was spread out over two months.
Summer Fun and Vacation
Santa Barbara and Bay Area trip. I guess that’s not too bad for a two week vacation. We stayed with my brother when we were in the Bay Area.
- Gasoline and parking – $253. This is equivalent to about 6 months of normal driving for us.
- Food – $418
- Entertainment – $150. Zoo and wine tasting.
- Rental home for a week in Santa Barbara – $1,287 (paid in May)
Wrap Up June
I was afraid we would have a negative month in June due to the two week vacation, but things worked out pretty well. We spent a lot of time with family and friends so we didn’t spend a huge amount of money. We also ate at home many times and that saved a lot of money too.
Overall, the first half of 2013 has been very good so far. The only negative is the rental income. We are on track or better for everything else. If we can keep it up for the rest of this year, then 2013 will be a pretty good year. 🙂
How about you? Did you have a good month? Any progress on your New Year Goals and Resolutions?
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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I can’t complaint, we had an awesome vacation! We already paid for it! Yep, food, food,food is a problem…and if there is no food the husband gets cranky. Let’s see, I can’t figure out exactly how much our vacation was because we were gone for 3 weeks, part of the expense will be in the next billing cycle but I already have that cash saved, I just wanted to charge it to my american express to get the cash reward. But here it is in a nutshell: From L.A. to Disney Orlando, From Orlando drove to Miami to visit my husband’s family, From Miami to Punta Cana all inclusive (food included the best!) (the worse a lot of smoking in open areas only), from Punta Cana back to Florida to visit my family, from Florida to Chicago to visit relatives from both sides (his and mine), from Chicago to Las Vegas to “debrief” and to see a couple of shows (Jersey Boys and KA (cancelled due to accident so instead we saw Donny and Marie. both shows were great)(worse part, difficult to get away from smokers in Vegas, I hate that) Oh I forgot, the New York, New York hotel was only $59 per night and gave us two complimentary buffets at the hotel of our choice (had a list and we chose MGM Grand Buffet,mmm). The last day in Vegas we called our relatives living there and had lunch together. Now we are back in Los Angeles, back to reality with a few more pounds and ready to just juice, juice diet. Hmmm sadly…my son’s best friend, who is only 25, is in Ciity of Hope hospital fighting cancer. That is another wake up call for us. Appreciate what we have without complaining and think that life is beautiful and if you have any problems just think “Life could be worse”. Amen!
Welcome back! It sounds like you had a great time. Yeah, life is beautiful and we need to enjoy every day.
so i noticed that you stash your extra into savings, travel, etc. so you dont really set a budget on these things? where do you put your investment money? sorry, im still working on setting up a monthly budget for us too, and id like to learn how youre doing it, im too scared of doing it like this though coz extra will end up going somewhere else, id like to pay myself first with a fixed amount every month.
We don’t really have a budget. We spend frugally on things we value and that works for us.
As long as we spend less than we earn, then we’re doing well. Mrs. RB40 contribute to her 401k automatically. For me, I’ll transfer money to our investment accounts opportunistically.
For budgeting, try this one. Maybe his spreadsheet can help you.
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/02/07/a-free-and-simple-budget-planner/
Thanks Joe 😀
How much do you set aside for fun money and travel per month?
For travel, this year it’s $2-300. If we plan to travel internationally, then we’d have to increase that.
Fun money – not really set. We have our cash allowance and that’s mostly enough.
Wow, it looks like you did really well in June! Your vacation wasn’t that bad. I went on a weekend road trip and spent more on food than you did in two weeks! Then again, we ate at sit down restaurants for EVERY meal. Bad idea.
We also ate at my brother’s house a lot. It was a great experience and we really needed the break. I hope you had a nice trip too. 🙂
My June wasn’t notable in either a positive or negative way. Pretty much stuck to budget, went a little bit over on food which I always seem to do lol. July is a different story. I get furloughed starting on Monday, so that’ll have a big impact on the budget and income
Sorry to hear about the furlough. At least you’ll have more time to work on your blog. 🙂
Slow and steady wins the race but I am moving so slowly towards my goal of financial independence that even a 100 year old tortoise would blow past me.
The man who invented the computer mouse has died. What a brilliant idea he came up with. Too bad I am not clever enough to invent something that the world would find so essential.
Great idea on sharing your income breakdown with email readers only! I might have to steal that one.
My year is going great. Just waiting to find out if my tenant is going to stick around when her lease expires in September.
Nice job! Did the 4plex increase because of increased income or market conditions? Typically, small properties rely more on market conditions than income for real estate values. You low rental income reinforces the reason for reserves.
It’s market condition. The real estate market made a big U turn over the last 12 months and it’s a seller’s market again.
Both May and June we were negative. We paid our assistant 3 times in May and bought 10 football game tickets for the entire family (granted, will get the money for their tickets back but don’t expect until August) so we were negative for over $2000. We had vet bill, replaced the leaky coil of the A/C and the car rotor in June and that’s another $2000. Ouch. (Overall we are negative about $1000 each month. Could be worse.) like you we try to do more in Summer, especially we don’t get to travel this year so money also went to entertainment like going to Concert, symphony; we are going to East Texas for a train ride on 4th of July and a Broadway show the weekend after. We do our best but sometime we can’t control when things break! Hopefully July will be a better month!
Yikes, when it rains it pours. Hope the rest of the year improves.
Nice work Joe! Our June was good overall, especially as I was able to take some gains before the crazy month in the market. I am just a bit envious of your trip to California. 😉 We’re planning on going back to San Diego next summer, so we’re definitely looking forward to that.
Great job taking some gain off the table! It’s so hard for me to sell at the right time.
My June sucked. It’s been costing me a fortune to sell my fourplex, much more than I anticipated. Frustrating! I can see the light at the end, though!
I’m looking forward to reading about your experience. It’s making me dread selling the place now…
I have been debating if we should buy or not in Vegas, we live in Los Angeles. I am hesitant because of the distance. It means that we would have to pay to manage a rental, ugh. Maybe because it is in Vegas I should just rent it myself to short term/weekly? It is so difficult to manage long distance rentals. I even see how difficult is to manage a rental period!
Nick, my June sucked as well. It actually destroyed everything I built over the previous months. But I look at it positively. My investments are down, but income from those investments actually increased. I bet over time this one month drop will be insignificant.
Love reading all of your blog – it helps me plan for my retirement. Thanks!
Good luck and thanks for reading!