Progress to Financial Independence- November 2018

The last five months have really flown by! At the time of writing this, we have only two days left in our 5-month around the world trip before heading back to the States, enjoying the holidays with family, and getting on the job search for January. This trip has been wonderful, but Whitney and I are both happy to be heading home soon to get back to a more normal routine. Constant travel sure is hard work :D.

It looks like I will definitely meet my goal of spending $6,000 or less on the entire 23 week trip. I’ve averaged less than $1,000 spent per month for the last four months while in Asia without really putting in much effort. It’s pretty easy to keep spending low when lodging and food costs are so affordable in southeast Asia.

In November, my income generated from the blog (mostly referrals and affiliates) surpassed my expenses once again. This was the case for every month of the trip, and in some months income was almost double what my expenses were. I wasn’t expecting that at all when planning this trip. I’m not sure exactly how much money I’ve brought in over the course of the trip, but it has been at least $8,000 in total. I thought for sure I would have to withdraw some money from my nest egg to cover all of the expenses, but fortunately that wasn’t the case. Especially since the market has been so volatile lately.

November was actually a pretty decent month for investment returns, with my portfolio up about 1% from a slight market recovery. This means that my projected FI date is back to being only 6 months of full time work away now.

December is shaping up to be a tough month for the stock market, so we’ll see how next month goes. My income from the blog should be well over my expenses for the month again, so hopefully that can partially make up for a potential equity draw down, but only time will tell.

Thanks for reading! How was November for you on your path to FI?