Financial Independence Update- August 2021

We spent almost the entire month of August exploring the other major Hawaiian islands. After Whitney finished her travel PT contract on the Big Island, her mom flew out to meet us on the Big Island to spend a few days there before going with us to Oahu and Maui. After a couple weeks of traveling with us, she left to head back home but we continued on to Kauai and finally back to Oahu to spend some more time hiking and to visit one of Whitney’s friends from college who lives there. In total we spent 10 days on Oahu, 7 days on Maui, and 5 days on Kauai. We really enjoyed seeing what the other islands had to offer after spending a solid two months on the Big Island. After seeing the amazing pictures that others have taken, especially of the mountains on Oahu and Kauai, we couldn’t wait to do a ton of hiking to see those views ourselves. After spending so much time at the beaches on the Big Island, we decided that for this portion of the trip we’d mostly focus on hiking with much less time lounging around in the sun. With limited time and a lot of highly recommended hikes to check out, we stayed pretty busy during these 3 weeks of traveling!

August was almost certainly my most active month ever in terms of hiking. All said and done, we did about 11 pretty difficult hikes (4 of which were very difficult and took pretty much the whole day) along with some other shorter and easier trails. Despite being a lot of activity and pretty tough at times, all of the hikes were well worth it for the absolutely beautiful views we saw on each of the islands. I can confidently say that of all the places we’ve traveled in the world, the Hawaiian islands have been the most spectacular. The views from the ridge trails and from the water on the Na Pali coast of Kauai were the best of the best and something I will never forget.

Income

Income from our websites (FifthWheelPT and Travel Therapy Mentor) broke an all time monthly high in August, and not by a small amount. Total revenue was almost 40% higher than the previous highest earning month. We knew this would be a big month due to some overdue payments that we followed up on at the end of July and finally paid out in August, but it ended up being much more than expected in total. Course sales are staying steady; affiliates are going well; sponsored posts, articles, and videos are bringing in a decent amount of income; and above all else, the travel therapy market is booming, and a lot of people that we’ve mentored are getting placed in travel contracts. It’s been surreal watching my “side hustles” that I never expected to produce any real income suddenly start earning more than my prior full time job as a travel therapist. I’m actually expecting the remaining months of this year to be as good or better than August too. For that, I’m very grateful.

Expenses

In addition to the all time high in monthly income, August was also the most expensive month I’ve ever had due to the high costs in Hawaii. Short term housing and car rentals are ridiculously expensive right now, and on the other islands we were often paying 2-3 times as much on a daily basis as what we were spending on the Big Island for longer term rentals. For example, it cost almost $200/day to rent the very cheapest car we could find on Kauai. We used hotel points for 5 free nights in Oahu and stayed another 5 nights for free with Whitney’s friend from college, but even so the 12 days of Airbnbs along with rental cars on each island alone cost more than my normal spending for an entire month ,and that’s not including flights, food, and activities. It was a very expensive month, but well worth it for the experience.

Investments

The S&P 500 was up about 2.9% in August. Meanwhile, Bitcoin was up over 13% on the month with some of the alt coins that I own up even more than that. Jumps like that are crazy but exhilarating for me with a large percentage of my net worth in crypto. I continue to be optimistic about crypto performance for the the rest of 2021 and into 2022. I added slightly to my BTC holdings during the down months this year which makes the recent price increase even better.

Financial Independence Progress

My net assets increased by about 10.1% in August, mostly due to the continued recovery in crypto prices. This is the largest monthly increase since March when crypto was going crazy. After this 10% increase and the 9% increase last month, I just barely squeezed out a new all time high in my net assets and net worth in August! My net assets are now at 49.7x my annual expenses as you can see on the chart. All in all August, was a crazy month financially with new all time highs in income, expenses, net assets, and net worth. I can’t wait to see what is in store for the rest of this year.

Next Month

After a very busy three months in Hawaii, you’d think that in September we might rest for a while, but that’s not the case. We planned only about a week at home to get caught up on business stuff we’ve been neglecting, see family and get a quick reset, and then we’re off on our next adventure. We’re going to be embarking on another long road trip around the country in September which we’re planning to be about 6 weeks in total. Check out the road trip itinerary here! We plan to meet up with people all over the country again this year, visit a ton of National Parks, and go to our 47-49th states! It should be another awesome time!

How was August for you financially? Let me know in the comments!