We spent the month of July continuing on our 10 week European honeymoon.
After leaving Switzerland at the end of June, we headed to Slovenia next — but not without some complications along the way.
To get to Slovenia, we had a flight connection in Belgrade, Serbia. Unfortunately, our flight from Zurich to Belgrade was delayed, which caused us to miss our connection to Ljubljana. Normally that wouldn’t be a huge deal, but there were no more flights to Slovenia that evening, so we were stuck in Serbia for the night along with about 100 other people that missed connections there. Getting a hotel room and a ride to a hotel turned into an ordeal that lasted about 5 hours. The airline staff were very disorganized, and there were protests blocking the highway causing cars and buses to be unable to get to the airport. We finally got to a hotel after midnight and then were told that we had to be back on a shuttle to the airport at 3 AM for our rescheduled flight, so we got a total of 2.5 hours at the hotel before going back to the airport. So we got back to the airport and thought the excitement was over and we’d be in Ljubljana shortly, but we were met with disappointment yet again.
It turned out that there were no direct flights, so we had to take a flight to Frankfurt, Germany for a connection to Ljubljana. The Serbian airline agent that booked this new flight said we only had one option and it involved a 45 minute connection in Frankfurt. Again, our flight was delayed causing us to miss the connection in Frankfurt, which left us waiting around in the Frankfurt airport for 10 hours before we were finally able to board a flight to Ljubljana. After sleeping for only about 30 minutes the night before, this made for a very long and tiring travel day.
We loved Slovenia and hated that our time there was cut short by a day and a half due to the airline mishaps.
After Slovenia, we headed to Riga, Latvia — but again, the flights were a nightmare. This time we had a connection in Paris and our first flight was delayed causing us again to miss our connection. After an unexpected night spent at a Paris airport hotel, we were back at the airport hoping to make it to Riga and put all of our travel woes behind us. But not so fast. We boarded our plane and headed to the runway, only to sit there for about 30 minutes before the pilot said we had to return to the gate due to a flat tire on the landing gear. We were hopeful that a flat tire wouldn’t take long to change, but that wasn’t the case. We ended up spending 11 hours at the Paris airport waiting for the tire to be replaced. By the time our flight took off, we arrived in Riga over 24 hours later than anticipated.
Air travel seems to be in really bad shape lately. We’ve had more issues in the past year with flights than in all of the rest of our lives combined.
Once we arrived in Riga, we enjoyed our time there. Next we headed to Tallinn, Estonia — but this time by bus to avoid any further airline issues. Tallinn was also a pretty cool stop. After Tallinn, we went to Helsinki, Finland by ferry, again to try to avoid more flight delays. We enjoyed Helsinki but were greeted with a lot higher costs on our trip from this point forward.
After Helsinki, we had to plan how we were going to visit Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. We seriously considered very long ferry, train and/or bus rides to avoid any further flight issues. However, we didn’t want to cut too much into our time in these places, so we ultimately decided on taking a few short, direct flights to get to each place. We reasoned that the majority of our flight issues were due to connections/layovers. So with direct flights we figured we had less chance of having issues. This ended up being pretty correct and the next few flights went smoothly.
After Helsinki, we flew to Oslo, Norway for 5 days, and then flew to the Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway. We finished the month in Bergen, Norway. All of these stops were great, but the Lofoten Islands were especially incredible. We did several hard hikes there with some of the best views we’ve ever seen. Lofoten rivaled Switzerland in terms of beauty.
The Nordic countries are expensive like Switzerland though, so it definitely wasn’t a low cost month. Fortunately, we were able to redeem hotel points for 20 free nights in Ljubljana, Riga, Helsinki, and Oslo which really helped with expenses.
Income
Income from our websites (FifthWheelPT and Travel Therapy Mentor) for July was a new low for the year. We earned just slightly less than in May, which was a bit of a disappointment especially considering that July of last year was a really high earning month. There are a variety of reasons why I think we earned less this month, but the biggest was that we were very busy and didn’t follow up with payments like we normally would. Hopefully August will be a really good month to make up for the lower earning month in July though.
Expenses
My July expenses were higher than normal while traveling, but not nearly as high as June where when we spent the majority of the month in Switzerland. Option for Switzerland hotel point redemptions were very limited and cost a lot of points, so I waited to use points for later in the trip, which meant paying out of pocket for all of our lodging in June. Luckily, the hotel points really came in handy in July though where we redeemed for 5 nights each in four different cities. 15 of the nights were booked using Marriott points and 5 nights were booked with Hilton points. For each of these reservations, we got our fifth night free, which saved us some points as well due to hotel status with both of the chains. We did our best to keep food and drinks costs low when possible, but that often wasn’t a option, so we were normally spending $30-$50/day each. I’m not exactly sure what my savings rate for the month was, but it was definitely over 50%, so not bad overall for a relatively low earning month.
Investments
The S&P 500 was up by about 3.4% in July. The market rally continues, now closing in on all time highs despite a lot of continued economic uncertainty. Economic indicators are mixed right now, but most are pointing toward recession at some point in the next 6-9 months. Inflation has been moderating lately largely due to drops in oil and car prices in addition to the Fed rate hikes beginning to suppress credit markets. I have been bearish on the market for quite a while now and have been wrong, but I continue to believe that I am just early on my predictions and that the market is likely to head lower into the end of the year. We’ll see if that happens or if we continue past the old all time highs of late 2021.
Bitcoin was down by about 4.1% in July. After an extremely strong start to the year, a correction in prices was not a surprise. I think there’s a decent probability that prices stay around this level or slightly lower in the mid to upper 20k region for the remainder of the year prior to moving higher in 2024. That could get really derailed if there is a recession at the end of the year or beginning of 2024 and equity prices drop significantly though. It’s possible there is another big drop prior to the halving next year, but I remain convicted that the lows are in and that in 18-24 months Bitcoin prices will be much higher than they are today, so I’m not so focused on trying to time short term fluctuations. I have a large Bitcoin position that I’ve continued to add to throughout 2022 and the beginning of 2023 after taking a good amount of profits at the end of 2021.
Financial Independence Progress
My net assets increased by 2.7% in July, which puts me at another new all time high for both net assets and net worth. At this point, my net assets have increased by almost 30% this year, which feels good after a pretty tough 2022. I would be up a lot more than I am if I didn’t have such a conservative asset allocation, but I’ve really enjoyed the security of holding extra cash, especially since a yield of over 4% is possible in a savings account now. Despite buying Bitcoin each month, I still have nearly 50% of my assets in cash right now and plan to keep it around that level until at least the end of the year.
With this increase in my net asset value, my assets are now equal to approximately 72.2 times my annual expenses.
Next Month
In August we’ll still be in Europe for the majority of the month, but we return to the US near the end of the month. I have mixed emotions on only having three weeks of the trip left. This trip has been my favorite yet, so I’m a little sad that it will be over in August, but I’m also excited to get back home and settle into a routine again. Even though we’ve done a lot of hiking and activity while in Europe, eating well has been difficult at times, so it will be nice to be back to cooking all of our meals and going to the gym again. As far as finances go, I think income will be better in August, but expenses will also be higher since we don’t have any free hotel nights left on this trip, and we’ll be spending the full three weeks in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden which will be expensive.
How was July for you financially? Let me know in the comments!
If you want to learn more about 0ur 10-week trip throughout Europe this summer, check out this overview. You can also follow along with our trip on Instagram and Facebook where Whitney regularly posts pictures, especially on our stories.
Fifth Wheel Physical Therapist 