This is an exciting monthly update. April marks 10 full years of Fifth Wheel Physical Therapist and 10 years of writing these updates every month.
I still remember sitting down to write that very first update and feeling like I had things mostly figured out and a good idea of what the next decade would look like. Boy was I wrong. I could never have imagined the position I’d be in today, both financially and with life in general. In 2016, I’d never been out of the country and had only been out of the state of Virginia a few times. Now, a decade later, I’ve been to all 50 states, all 63 national parks, and 56 countries. The me of 10 years ago could have never imagined that would be possible. Back then Whitney and I were living in about 200 square feet in our fifth wheel. Now we live in a house and property that would have been beyond our most lofty aspirations.
In 2016 I had been saving money very aggressively for nearly a year and felt like I had a decent amount in investments for the first time in my life. In reality, I only had mid five figures in assets and over $100k in student loans. My assets are now about 25x higher than they were back then, giving me financial security I never thought would be feasible for me.
Back then I was working more than 60 hours per week, every week, between Travel PT contracts, PRN work, and building this website and business. Now I haven’t worked full time in the clinic in over 7 years and the business that I was building earns more than I ever earned as a travel PT in a fraction of the time. Whitney was also able to quit full time clinical work in 2019 to help me build the business.
I’ve also gotten married, had a baby, and now have another one on the way! That’s right, in April we announced that we’re expecting our second child in early November, a baby boy.
When looking back, It’s clear to me that these monthly updates were actually the linchpin that made everything else possible as crazy as that sounds. I’ve never made a penny from these and they don’t have a ton of readers or engagement, but that’s not the point. In the first few years of this website, I was spending a lot of time and making very little money. There were many times that I nearly quit because I didn’t think the effort was worth the payout I was getting. The one thing that kept me from quitting though was that I didn’t want to miss a month of these updates and break the streak. I’d begrudgingly sit down to write, and the process of logging back in and writing the update would inevitably give me some motivation and ideas to keep going for a little while longer. This happened many times between when starting this website in 2016 and the end of 2018. Had it not been for these monthly updates, Fifth Wheel PT would have almost certainly died out, and there would have never been a Travel Therapy Mentor. What a shame that would have been. Between this website and Travel Therapy Mentor, we’ve been able to help tens of thousands of therapists follow in our footsteps through the education provided and have directly communicated with over 9,000 of them between email and social media messages, plus hundreds more in person at conferences and meetups. Many of those went on to take travel contracts of their own and work with one of the recruiters that we recommended to them. That volume led to us having to expand our business massively between 2019 and today. In 2019 we had only a few companies and recruiters that we could recommend, but today we refer people to over 50 recruiters at 14 different companies depending on their wants/needs and have had many more come and go during that time period. It’s been a wild ride.
I’m incredibly grateful to all of you that have followed us off and on over the years and watched everything evolve in real time! Here’s a link to my very first monthly update from a decade ago. Progress to Financial Independence- April 2016
Income
Income from our business (FifthWheelPT and Travel Therapy Mentor) for April was nearly double what we made in March. This is partially due to March being a very low earning month, but April was very good in it’s own right. We also passed some really big revenue and profit milestones in the month of April. Celebrating those milestones as they come has been really exciting for Whitney and I and reminds us to not take any of it for granted. We’re continuously grateful for the business we’ve been able to build.
Expenses
My expenses for April were pretty much back to baseline due to no traveling and no big purchases. With Aria in a good routine and Whitney pregnant, we don’t plan to do much traveling for the remainder of this year. The Whitney and Jared of the past would have looked at this as a negative, but the us of today actually really enjoys our life at home spending time with Aria and living a laid back lifestyle.
My savings rate for the month was about 80% when all was said and done.
Investments
The S&P 500 was up by 10.1% in April! There’s a war going on, an oil supply shock, rising inflation, a weakening labor market, housing market stagnation, rising rates, and a lot of economic stress for the lower earning 50% of households, yet the S&P had one of its best months of all time. This is just further evidence that trying to time markets is nearly impossible. Had you surveyed 100 financial experts at the beginning of April, I’d bet that not one of them would have predicted a 10% gain during the month and probably less than half would have predicted a gain at all.
Bitcoin was up by about 11.9% in April. A very strong return and the second consecutive positive month after 5 months nearly straight down. While I think there’s still a decent probability that price could go back lower in the summer or fall, it’s nice to see the strength. My base case is that February was the low and prices will chop around between $60k and $80k for the next few months, but I don’t have really strong conviction on that. No matter what the rest of the year holds, I think that current prices are very attractive and I’m continuing to buy regularly with a more positive long term outlook than ever. It’s becoming more clear that a sovereign debt crisis is a real possibility in the next decade and that Bitcoin is the most likely neutral reserve asset and settlement layer of the future. Both citizens and entire countries are coming to the realization that continued currency debasement is all but inevitable with world wide debt to GDP ratios and deficits where they are making holding treasuries much less attractive.
Financial Independence Progress
My net assets increased by 6.4% in April. It’s nice to have a real increase in net worth this month after a pretty difficult end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. I don’t know if the drop is really over yet, but I do think I’m closer to the end than the beginning either way.
My assets are now equal to approximately 33.5 times my average annual expenses!
In case you missed it, check out my August monthly post for an update on why I adjusted my spending assumptions.
Next Month
In May we’re going to be doing a lot of hiking and playing outside in the beautiful spring weather. Spring in Virginia is hard to beat, and we want to take full advantage of it before it gets too hot this summer.
How was April for you financially? Let me know in the comments!
Fifth Wheel Physical Therapist 