September Update
If you haven’t been keeping up with our trip to this point, check out the international travel section and read about what we’ve been up to for the past 11 weeks as well as all of my expenses from each place we’ve traveled so far.
It’s very hard for us to believe… but October 1st is the halfway point of our trip! The time has flown by, and we’ve been having a blast with sightseeing and exploring, as well as plenty of relaxing and writing. We’ve found that we both feel better if we get some “work” done during the day and also if we keep a consistent routine of going to the gym every other day. There are no shortages of coffee shops in the places we’ve been so far, so it’s easy to spend a couple of hours there a few times a week to get some writing done. Day passes for the gyms are cheap, and the gyms have been surprisingly nice for the most part, which has been wonderful. Since we’ve been working out more consistently, I’m feeling better about myself already.
We spent the beginning of September in Chiang Mai, Thailand before traveling to Luang Prabang, Laos for a week. We then took a short flight to southern Laos to visit the capital city, Vientiane. After four days in Vientiane, we flew back to northern Thailand to Chiang Rai, where we are currently. Originally we did not plan to visit Chiang Rai on this trip, but we heard great things about it and didn’t want to pass it up while being so close, so we made a slight alteration to the trip itinerary.
Southeast Asia continues to be very cheap, even in the bigger cities, which is very helpful to my budget and expenses. We definitely have not skimped on activities, and even so I’m still on track to spend less than $6,000 on this 22 week trip around the world!
In September we launched a new website, along with a fellow travel PT, called Travel Therapy Mentor. The plan for the site is to help those interested in pursuing travel therapy to get started and succeed by answering questions and offering free mentorship. This site and that site will probably be my primary source of “work” and income for the next several years, as we are now planning on only working three months or less per year for the foreseeable future.
Financially, my net worth increased again this month, although not nearly as much as last month. I brought in more than enough income from this blog in September to cover all of my expenses while traveling, and even though the market didn’t do as well as it did in August, it remained fairly stable with no significant losses. The increase in net worth during September was enough to keep my projected financial independence date at April 2019. That means I’m now only six months of travel PT assignments away from full FI at the most which is amazing! The date is so close now that I had to zoom the graph in a little because it was getting hard to see when the line actually crossed 4%.
Even though I anticipate blog income outpacing my expenses again next month, it’s unlikely that it will be enough to keep the FIRE date from slipping to May 2019, but I expected that of course since I’m not working right now.
Looking Ahead
I turn 30 years old in October! I’m both excited and sad about that at the same time, but it will be awesome to celebrate it on the beach in Vietnam, even though it would be nice to be with family for the big day.
Even though we decided to take this trip before reaching financial independence, I couldn’t be more happy with how things have worked out. We’re having a wonderful time; we’ve met some amazing people; my perspective on the world and what’s important has changed significantly; I realize much more now how fortunate I am to be in the position that I am; and my net worth is steadily chugging upward even though I haven’t worked in almost three months now! Life is good.
Thank you guys for reading and following along on our journey. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions, comments, or suggestions as I love connecting with you all. Also, follow the Facebook business page where I’m doing my best to update things often and post pictures!
Fifth Wheel Physical Therapist 