Back to FI! Financial Independence Update- June 2019

June was a blur! We spent the majority of the month traveling around Spain with Whitney’s mom, followed by exploring a few other cities in western Europe as part of our 4 month Eurotrip. This trip has been amazing so far, and we’ve seen so much history and wonderful architecture in all of these places. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that my spending has been more reasonable than I anticipated despite such high costs in the big cities of Europe.

Back to FI in June! 

As I mentioned in my update last month, I reached my FI goal net worth for all of 3 days in May before a tough month for investment returns dragged me back down. Luckily, in June the market completely recovered and was near all time highs by the end of the month! This means that in early June I crossed back over my goal threshold again… hopefully this time for good!

Income

Despite not having any income coming in from work as a physical therapist in June due to our international travels, my overall income was still really good for the month. June was one of the top two highest earning months ever between our two websites (this one and Travel Therapy Mentor)! Both websites continue to grow, and along with that they are gradually bringing in more and more income. Although it can be hit or miss on a month to month basis.

Expenses

I had my highest monthly expenses for this year so far in June. This was expected since the entire month was spent traveling around western Europe where things are much more costly. We also used only one free hotel night during the entire month, so every other night’s accommodation was paid for at the (relatively) more expensive nightly rates of the Airbnbs where we stayed. Housing was by far my highest expense category of June, but food/restaurants and transportation were both much more expensive than usual as well.

Investments

According to my investment tracking on Personal Capital (a great free resource for tracking your net worth and investments) my portfolio was up about 4.5% in June! This was a huge relief for me after the rough performance of my investments in May. Even though I rationally know that drops are to be expected and are likely just temporary, it’s always hard to watch my investment account balance decrease, especially when not working. Volatility becomes a little harder to stomach when not contributing to investment accounts regularly. Hopefully the good times in the market continue despite us being almost 10 years into a bull market now! 🙂

Financial Independence Target Date

As you can see on the graph above, my assets are now at 25x my future projected yearly expenses, meaning I’ve reached my financial independence goal based on the 4% rule!

I decided that I’ll keep doing these monthly updates with just a slight name change now that the “path to 4%” is over. I’ll now keep tracking as the percentage dips below 4% going forward.

Next Month

We’ll be continuing to travel throughout Europe in July, moving from Western Europe to Eastern Europe around the middle of the month. I anticipate my expenses being lower from this point on since we’ll be using more free hotel nights to reduce our accommodation costs, and because we will also be in lower cost areas once we get out of the expensive cities of Western Europe. July should be a good month for income from the websites as well. I doubt it will be as high as June was, but I do anticipate that the income will more than cover my monthly expenses, which is always a big relief! It’s impossible to know what will happen with my investment accounts in July, but I’m just hoping things stay fairly stable.