March felt like it flew by. We didn’t have any trips during the month, so we spent all of our time at home with the baby. Not having to leave the house to go to work has been a major blessing with a young baby. Even on nights when she sleeps terribly and wakes us up constantly, I know that worst case scenario we can just sleep in a little longer than normal which is comforting. Also being able to spend so much time with her throughout these early months has been wonderful. She changes so much from week to week, and I know that I’ll look back fondly on these months later in life. Just another major benefit of working hard and reaching financial independence early in life.
I’ve done a pretty good job of getting to the gym regularly despite some mild sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, staying on track as far as diet goes has been much more difficult for both me and Whitney. On the stressful days, we both are quick to eat out instead of cooking. We both weigh more than we would like to right now, but I’m confident that with the nicer weather coming soon we’ll be able to get back into more walks/hikes outside in addition to the gym and eating more healthy meals at home. Maintaining a healthy weight is something that we’ve struggled with a lot while traveling so much over the last decade, but that’s going to be our main focus this spring and summer.
Income
Income from our business (FifthWheelPT and Travel Therapy Mentor) for March was about 5% higher than in February. For Q1 this year we actually made less than in Q1 of 2023 or 2024, but I think that’s just an anomaly based on the trends for our primary metrics that I’m seeing. I think that Q2 will be really good and probably much higher than Q2 of prior years. Business remains really strong despite us spending less time than ever on it. Putting so much time in early on is really paying dividends now and making us more than I ever thought possible.
Expenses
My expenses for March were low. Just normal monthly household expenses and a few minor baby related expenses. We’re still loosely looking at “forever homes” but are in no rush unless something perfect pops up. We don’t really want to go through the hassle of moving right now and have a pretty good, very low cost situation at our current place, so every month that goes by lets us accumulate more cash for an eventual purchase.
In total, my savings rate for the month was around 85% when all was said and done.
Investments
The S&P 500 was down by about 5.8% in March. Tariff fears are really making the market volatile lately. The market reached a 10% correction from the peak during March, and people seemed to be panicking. In my opinion, it’s really hard to panic on a 10% drop when the market was up more than 50% between the beginning of 2023 to the end of 2024. It would take a much more significant correction to even get back to early 2023 levels, much less the bear market lows of 2022. I find that market moves like this are really easy to stomach with a long time horizon and a large cash allocation. I also think that my tolerance for volatility has really increased since I started investing heavily in Bitcoin in early 2020.
Speaking of Bitcoin, it was down by another 2.2% in March. As of the end of the month it’s down about 25% from the peak in January. Again, while a little painful, it’s not too bad at all considering the price was below $70,000 back in November. The volatility in Bitcoin has been significantly muted compared to last cycle so far, which has made dealing with the corrections a lot easier. After living through the 50% drop in the summer of 2021 when my conviction was much less, a 30% drop in the early post halving year seems like not a big deal. Overall, I’m more optimistic on the future of Bitcoin than ever. I’m treating this correction as a major buying opportunity in both Bitcoin and Microstrategy, which I expect will be significantly higher in Q3 and Q4 of this year. I currently have the most Bitcoin that I’ve ever had and will keep buying if we drop lower over the next month.
Financial Independence Progress
My net assets decreased by 0.2% in March. This is the first time I’ve had two consecutive monthly drops in my assets in about two years. Luckily the down months have been limited in both quantity and size compared to the up months over the last few years. I expect to be back at new all time highs before too long.
My assets are now equal to approximately 120.1 times my average annual expenses!
Next Month
In April we’ll be driving 7+ hours each way for an Occupational Therapy conference in Philadelphia. This will be the first time driving so far with Aria, so we’re hoping that she does well in the car. Besides that we’ll just be hoping for her to start sleeping through the night!
How was March for you financially? Let me know in the comments!
Fifth Wheel Physical Therapist 