Today marks exactly one year from the start of this blog. And I think that it’s about time for me to shed some light on our spending, and our investments to give you a better picture of how things work in the Moneyseed household. Plus, I’ll give a little insight into how well the blog has done over the past year.
2013 was a transitional year for our family which unfortunately means that it was a big year of spending — as far as we’re concerned. It was the year that I started this site, and the year that we really started hammering away at our goal of Early Retirement.
We had a few categories of horrific spending, but every major financial move we made this year was done tactically with a plan to reduce future payments.
We spent big in these categories:
- Nearly $3,000 went to our cable, internet, and cell phone bills. Nasty.
- Almost 33% of the money that we spent over the entire year was on our two mortgages. Atrocious.
- We made a HUGE $7,650 payment to Ford to pay off our 2008 Ford Edge, putting our automotive spending at $14,992. Gross.
- Having two children in daycare put our grand total for childcare at $14,180. Unavoidable.
Our big spending will pay off in 2014.
Verizon Wireless was ruthlessly eating over $150 from our checking account every month. After paying two cancellation fees ($220 each), and purchasing two brand new phones from Republic Wireless ($300 each), we will have a significantly reduced phone bill in 2014. My wife is on the 4G plan at $40/month, and I’m on the WiFi/cellular-only plan for $10/month. Projected total 2014 spending: $600.
Early in 2013 we decided that we wanted to live closer to work, and instead of selling our house we would rent it out. We found a great house, and bought it for over $100k less than our first house. We weren’t able to move in until September, so we went through a period of paying two mortgages. Fortunately, we secured a great long-term tenant who pays us MORE than we have to dish out to the mortgage company. This means that in 2014 we will only have to spend $12,288 out of pocket on our mortgages.
Paying off our vehicles was one of the best financial moves that we’ve ever made. It allowed us to switch our insurance to liability only, and raise our deductibles as high as possible. This provides a cash flow of almost $600/month that we didn’t have prior to January 2013. In 2014 we will be selling our second vehicle. Our plan is to be able to drive for free in 2014, so we need to sell our vehicle for at least $7,342. Otherwise, that would roughly be the amount that we’d spend on our vehicles this year.
We spent a fair amount of money getting out of our Verizon FioS contract as well. We started the year with paying $134/month for cable and high-speed Internet. After a lengthy debate with customer service, we were hit with an early termination fee of $120 from Verizon. That left us with a $79/month Internet bill for most of 2013. In November I was turned on to a local Internet provider called Broadstripe. They were advertising high-speed Internet as low as $34/month. After ANOTHER (final) cancellation fee with Verizon, we’re official contract-free. Projected Internet costs for 2013: $408
What about our investments?
In 2013 our investment account grew $80,933. This number is a combination of contributions and growth. It was a great year to be an investor, with the S&P climbing about 30% and all of the major indices hitting record highs.
With over $80k in added investments, $13k equity added to our homes, and $8k debt eliminated from our vehicle, it’s safe to say that we’ve increased our Net Worth by OVER $100,000 in one year. I used to live paycheck to paycheck a few years ago, so I’d say this is pretty impressive.
Are we still on track to retire by 2020?
When I started this site I made a plan to retire by my 35th birthday in June 2020. In the original plan, our first year would have seen our investment account grow by $60,000. We surpassed this number by just over $20,000. We’ve also optimized our general monthly spending by a tremendous amount, which will make 2014 a much more impressive year.
I would have to say that I am fully confident in our ability to retire on time — if not earlier than expected.
One thing that’s going to help guide our plan safely to success is our new-found fascination with Tiny Houses. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a Tiny House, it’s basically a smaller than normal house that is set up in a way to provide maximum functionality. They range anywhere from $6,000-$100,000. We’ve been interested in building a Tiny House as our final project before calling it quits and retiring.
For more information on beautiful Tiny Houses, check out these links:
And what about the blog?
2013 was a trying period for me. I started this blog without any guidance, and I had no real direction for where I wanted to take things. I just knew that I wanted to provide a decent narrative of our life, while doling out the occasional pearl of wisdom to those that want to Retire Early.
I was working at a pretty strenuous pace for a while, pumping out 3 posts per week. It was stressing me the hell out. But, writing became something that I loved doing, so I reformed the way that I operated. I started writing one post every week or so (or whenever I felt like it). I didn’t treat the site like it was “something that needed to be done”. I treated it like it was a blank canvas, where I wanted to post my BEST work.
I had no idea that this site would become as popular as it has, and I’m thankful for the captive audience that has grown around the Moneyseed lifestyle. Here are some of the statistics that prove that we’re doing a great thing here:
- We’ve had over 402,000 pageviews and counting.
- We have over 500 email subscribers, and more than 500 RSS subscribers.
- Average daily traffic has grown to 2,000 pageviews per day.
- I’ve received emails from 138 readers asking for advice, or just saying hi.
- This site has been mentioned in big media 5 times.
- I’ve published 79 posts to date (this being the 80th).
- Over 2,500 comments have been written (some were responses from me).
Thanks for making my first year of blogging so enjoyable. I’d like to keep this thing going for the foreseeable future, and see where things go. If you aren’t a subscriber, maybe now should be the time to become one. And if you already are one, you’re my favorite person in the world.
The post The Moneyseed’s 2013 Year In Review appeared first on Johnny Moneyseed.