In February, we finished up our 6 week trip to South America and Antarctica. Our last stop was in Ecuador where we spent some time in Quito during Carnaval as well as in a very relaxing guest house in the cloud forest a couple hours away from Quito. A relaxing week in Ecuador was perfect after a few weeks of action packed travel and hiking.
Once we got back home in the middle of the month, we had one full day at home before we headed out to the APTA CSM conference in Boston. We probably should have planned a couple more days as a buffer, but we wanted to make the most of our time in South America. Our four days in Boston for the conference were extremely busy. We met hundreds of PTs in the exhibit hall who were interested in traveling, and we also had a meetup one of the evenings where we got to connect more in depth with some of them.
After CSM, we headed back home for a while to get back in the gym and to catch up on business. We also started looking into potential part time travel contracts for the spring. It’s been over a year and a half since I was last in the clinic treating patients, so if I don’t get back in there soon then I probably never will. I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to give up my PT license, but for now I plan to work enough to maintain it for at least a few more years if possible.
Income
Income from our websites (FifthWheelPT and Travel Therapy Mentor) for February was the lowest that we’ve had since mid 2022. More than 60% less than in January. While not ideal, this wasn’t completely unexpected after such a high earning month in January and a fairly high earning month in December as well. Our business revenue operates on a lag, and the end of 2023 was a pretty slow time for us and the market in general which contributed to lower income in February.
Expenses
My expenses were high again in February while traveling as expected. Though my expenses were not nearly as high as January where we spent the whole month either on the cruise or in Patagonia where costs are very high. For our flight back home from South America as well as the flights to and from Boston, we were able to use airline miles which was helpful with costs. We also used points for our hotel in Boston which meant no out of pocket costs for lodging there which saved us a lot.
In total my savings rate for the month was around 40% due to the lower than normal monthly income and higher than average monthly expenses.
Investments
The S&P 500 was up by about 5.7% in February. The stock market is back to all time highs and showing no signs of slowing down especially in the tech sector. Nvidia has had some unreal earnings and price growth that has pushed the stock price to almost unimaginable levels over the past year. A significant portion of the S&P 500 appreciation is due to just a few stocks, with Nvidia leading the pack. There have been a lot of analogies made between current day Nvidia and Cisco during the dot com bubble in 2000-2001. While I can certainly see the parallels, it remains to be seen whether it will play out the same way or if earnings eventually catch up to the stock valuation without a big collapse in price. I continue to have a low allocation to equities which has undoubtedly cost me quite a bit during this crazy rally.
Bitcoin was the real story of February though. The Bitcoin price increased by about 43.7% during the month! Even though I’ve been very bullish on Bitcoin for a long time now, a price jump like this is something that even I didn’t expect this early in the year. We aren’t even at the halving yet and Bitcoin is closing in on new all time highs. Some of my GBTC purchases during the bear market in 2022 are now up more than 400%! The assets flowing into the new Bitcoin ETFs are exceeding all expectations which continues to push the price higher.
While this very well may still be the early innings of the bull run to come after the halving, I remain cautiously optimistic. There are a lot of similarities between the current price run up and that of 2019 when the price quadrupled in six months before stalling and ultimately dropping back to near the bear market lows. While I don’t think bear market prices are possible, I’ve been involved with Bitcoin long enough to know that anything is possible and that you should be prepared for all possible outcomes. I continue to gradually sell as the price goes higher. If this is the beginning of another parabolic Bitcoin bull market then I’ll have plenty of exposure to make life changing gains, but if this is another 2019 then I’ll have money on the sidelines to buy back in at lower prices. I did a pretty good job overall of taking profits on the way up during the last bull market and buying back the Bitcoin lower in the bear market, but this time I’m more uncertain. The Federal Reserve is keeping rates high and continuing quantitative tightening to combat inflation, and those conditions aren’t conducive to an explosive rally like in 2017 and 2021. But on the other hand, this time really could be different with continuous buying from people allocating to the Bitcoin ETFs. Six months from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the price is $150,000 and people are FOMOing in. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we’re in a recession and the price is $30,000. My main goal is to be prepared for either outcome.
Financial Independence Progress
My net assets increased by about 7.3% in February, thanks to the big jump in the Bitcoin price.
This increase put me at another new all time high in both net assets and net worth!
That’s now nine straight months of new record highs for me. Since January of 2023, I’ve only had three months where my net assets dropped from one month to the next, and all of those were less than 1%. On the other hand, I’ve had a lot of really big positive months and my net worth and net assets have almost doubled in just 14 months. Those types of increases make me nervous and remind me to not take the gains for granted and to take profits. Whenever I start to feel like an investing genius, that’s my cue to take some profits and reduce my risk, even though that’s the time when, emotionally, I feel most like adding to my positions.
With this increase in my net asset value, my assets are now equal to approximately 95.3 times my average annual expenses.
Next Month
In March we’ll continue looking at potential part time travel PT contracts, get caught up more on business, and also go to Mexico for the Core Medical Group annual trip. We’ll also be going to Orlando for the Occupational Therapy national conference near the end of the month to talk to more potential travelers and have another meetup there. Let me know if you’re going to the Core trip or if you’re around the Orlando area and want to meetup!
How was February for you financially? Let me know in the comments!
Fifth Wheel Physical Therapist 