cmonkey's journal

[Tyler9000]

Man, a beautiful little face like that will melt away a lot of worry. Congrats!!!

[Gilberto de Piento]

Congratulations! I'm really happy for you. It's great that the heart was able to heal on it's own. Cute kid!

[theanimal]

Congrats! Best wishes to you and Mrs Cmonkey

[wolf]

congrats! Best wishes to you!

[McTrex]

Very good news cmonkey, congratulations with your beautiful daughter!

[vexed87]

Fantastic news, I was wondering when we might hear. Hello and welcome baby monkey!

So very relieved to hear no intervention was needed. Well done and congratulations to Mrs Cmonkey also!

Let's hope for your sake she makes the most of her quiet and homely crib

[jennypenny]

She's adorable! I'm so glad things are going well. I wondered if you were still dealing with hospital stuff in Minneapolis in that crazy cold weather.

[Jason]

That baby looks like its all business.

[Hristo Botev]

What a beautiful baby! Congratulations!

[cmonkey]

Wow, thank you all for the kind comments.

Let's hope for your sake she makes the most of her quiet and homely crib

So far so good! She is proving to sleep a lot, but then it is really early. She just turned 1 week old.

She's adorable! I'm so glad things are going well. I wondered if you were still dealing with hospital stuff in Minneapolis in that crazy cold weather.

We were in Iowa City, IA, at University of Iowa Hospitals but the weather is just as crazy. We got home right before it got bad yesterday. My thermometer read -23 F this morning at 5 AM (of course I'm up at that time ). It's unfortunate but we actually lost our rooster Stanley because of this cold snap, it dropped to -22 F last Friday and it was just too much for him. In the past I had brought him in, but I wasn't home.

My chickens are currently living in my truck bed in the garage. Do what you can!

[cmonkey]

Thanks to both of you! It's been a wild ride so far but starting to get the routine down. The days go quick!

[BlueNote]

Congratulations on the beautiful baby, welcome to fatherhood!

[cmonkey]

Congratulations on the beautiful baby, welcome to fatherhood!

Thanks! I've almost been fully initiated now as of tonight having experienced her filling her diaper with 30 hours of shit in about 5 minutes.

[Fish]

1. I have been following the emotional rollercoaster in your journal and am glad that none of the fears seem to have materialized. It’s awesome that you’re entering parenthood in great financial shape, I think you will enjoy it more for all the options it affords you. (My experience was the opposite where having kids was the wake-up call on our financial situation, which added a lot of unnecessary stress.) Congrats to you and your wife on your lovely baby monkey (bmonkey?) and wish you the best on this adventure.

2. What happened to your income in December?

[FBeyer]

My heart literally tickled at the lack of complications. I'm so glad on your behalf!
Also: Your daughter looks so eerily much like mine did at 6 weeks, it's crazy!

Congratulations. Get some sleep

[cmonkey]

Thanks Fish.

2. What happened to your income in December?

I was wondering if anyone would wonder. It's nothing more than the in-laws starting to gift us our inheritance I guess. This is the second year they've given us a chunk, but this year might be larger because of the baby. They have no idea how well we are doing, I'd guess they think we are scraping by based on our habits and lack of spending anything. They've told us they have 6 figures in their checking not doing anything (not sure how accurate) and I've seen their retirement statements. I don't think they have any debt and with their house paid off, I think they are close to millionaires. They are doing quite well, but strangely don't quite realize it.

Also: Your daughter looks so eerily much like mine did at 6 weeks, it's crazy!

Thanks FBeyer! People don't think she's newborn when they see her. One of the house keepers thought she was 8 weeks old and she was only 3 days...

Also, she's only 8 days old, but I can tell she's growing quickly already. Her face has changed and her hair has doubled in length since she was born. It's crazy!

[7Wannabe5]

I would note that she was the exact same height and weight as my daughter at birth, and she is now a smidge over 5'10." Maybe plan on very rapid rotation of wardrobe over the next couple years.

[cmonkey]

I would note that she was the exact same height and weight as my daughter at birth, and she is now a smidge over 5'10." Maybe plan on very rapid rotation of wardrobe over the next couple years.

Ha! Every day is proving to be a rapid rotation. Learning to use bibs.


Old man winter is proving to be an ass this year. Not only did the QC hit an all time low temp this morning of -33 F ( as in since recording began in the 1880's its never been colder ), but we are getting good amounts of snow.

Yes you are looking at 18+ inches of snow on that table and it's all from the last 10-14 days. As you can it's still snowing...

[cmonkey]

January 2019 Update

I am ready to be done working. After 2 long vacations from work recently (holiday and baby time off), and also having a new baby in my life I'm ready to move on from work. Good thing we crossed a couple of good milestones this month!

We topped 20 years of expenses saved and fell under 5% WR, currently at 4.98%. FI Funds ended at 266K, up 11K, which is an all time high.

I maxed out my HSA this month so the FI Funds bump was only from market gains. Half of my FAI increase came from dividend increases!

Spend was slightly higher than I'd like, but we had the extended stay in Iowa City which contributed a bit to eating out and I had some car work to do. All in all, we are doing very well.

Work Update


The buddy who got me this job is leaving the company at the end of this month. He is massively overworked and now they are implementing a voluntary separation retirement thingy (just like my last company...) and he is freaked out by it I think. I don't think there's much risk to my job right now, but you never know.

The biggest pain will now be having to travel by myself a few times this year. I don't enjoy solo travel. I'm planning to do 3 trips this year and then stop going to them altogether as winter comes around again.

I think there is a chance I could ride his coat tails if he enjoys his new job and they are hiring on more people, particularly if I got let go for some reason. Who knows!

Expenses/Savings


Total Spend - $1,467.14
Total Savings - $5,564.81; 78%

Years Saved - 20.09
SWR - 4.98%

TTM Expenses - $13,240.14 (+ $145.35)
Total FAI - $9,388.19 (+ $121.00)

[cmonkey]

Now that bmonkey has been born and we are moving on from all the events of her birth, DW and I are turning our attention back to our desire to move away from Illinois back to Minnesota (despite recent weather). In fact, we are compromising more and more on what house we'd like to live in and have been looking at some more houses. We actually made an offer on a house last week, but someone beat us to the punch on signing the offer letter so that one did not happen.

We had looked at a place last October and really liked it except that it had some outstanding issues that prevented us from pursuing it. The primary reason was that it had electric heat and inadequate electric service for that heat. However, the current owners have now installed a gas furnace and ducting for the home and are putting in central air in the spring. So we are considering it again and might make an offer this week.

It hasn't sold so far because the house didn't have heat upstairs and no one can get financing on a house with no heat. Of course we are paying with cash so this isn't a problem.

A number of huge benefits will be realized right away once we move. Our annual expense number will fall drastically. Property taxes on this place are 800 per year, compared to 2200 where we currently live. We also cannot have chickens so that's 250 saved. Grocery expenses will also fall a bit because there is a service in town which provides a whole butt-ton of surplus grocery store food for $20 a month.

So our projected annual expense would be - 13,200 - ( property taxes ) (2200-800) - ( chickens )250 - grocery savings ( 2200 * .3 ) = $10,890

Even adding in paying for water service and a possible bump in energy bills (it's a really really old house), we'll still be within spitting distance of 11K, but there are other things we can do to reduce expenses as well. This place is within walking distance of groceries, the library, a huge park and also family, so gas expenses are likely going to fall a bit.

This would mean that our current SWR/years saved jumps to 4.19% / 23.86 given the savings we'd get not including the grocery expenses. If I assume a 30% fall in grocery expenses, we'd currently be at 3.87% / 25.84 years saved.

I explained this to DW and she definitely got excited by the idea that just the act of moving would make us nearly FI.

Another huge piece of the puzzle here though is that we will likely sell our current house for more than what we'll pay for this place. I expect we'll unlock anywhere from 15K to 30K in equity, which would give us a huge boost as well.

In the end, the act of moving would let us hit 3% in the second half of this year. If we get the equity boost, it'll be in July (!!). If we do not, it will be in October. If we don't move, we'll hit 3% in early summer of 2020.

I still haven't settled completely on an end date, but March of 2020 is shaping up well. Given the reduced expense number we'd be at about a 2.4% SWR which would be more than safe for us.