Progress to Financial Independence- October 2018

Whew, October was a rough month for equities and a bit of a scary month for me financially! The S&P 500 index was down about 7% on the month and international and emerging markets didn’t fair very well either. My portfolio definitely took a hit, but I didn’t lose any sleep over it since the economy still seems to be strong, making the likelihood of the correction turning into a real bear market pretty low. This is the first month since I started tracking my net worth in 2015 that it went down though, which is never a fun thing to see!

The big drop in my portfolio value was partially offset by my highest earning month, since I received my last paycheck from work before leaving the country in July. Income from the blog has been very good lately and is more than covering all of my costs on this trip and even more than doubled my expenses in October! I’m not sure how long that will continue, but I’m very happy that it has lasted this long and I will just take it a month at a time and see what happens. I’ve been writing a lot more which has led to more traffic lately, which will hopefully lead to more income as well. I’m still on track to hit my goal of spending less than $6,000 for this entire 5 month trip around the world which I’m excited about as well. Check out the latest published expense report for Hanoi and Ha Long, Vietnam if you’re interested!

On a more personal note, I turned 30 years old in October and couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful place to celebrate. We were in Hoi An, Vietnam, and Whitney made it a wonderful day for me including a sunset dinner by the beach, a cake from a local Vietnamese bakery, and a party at our AirBnB! Although it feels really weird to no longer be in my 20s, I’m looking forward to all the adventures to come in this next decade, which will hopefully include a lot more international and domestic travel, more free time, and maybe even kids? :O

As I’m writing this, we are currently in Siem Reap, Cambodia and really enjoying our time here. It’s hard to believe that we have already been out of the country for over 3.5 months and that we haven’t worked at all in the past 4 months! We have had a wonderful time on this trip and are already starting to plan a similar length trip next year to more new countries.

November should be another low expense month as we continue to travel in Southeast Asia, and hopefully the increased blog income will continue! Thanks for following along and supporting the blog!

How are you doing on your progress to financial independence? Let me know in the comments!