Monthly Update, April 2016
Expenses/Savings
If last month was our worst month in a long while, this month was our best ever for normal expenses. We achieved a new record low - 635.03 for two people. If not for renovation expenses our savings rate would have been 89%. As it was we accomplished 60%. I am still very pleased.
This month I went a bit chart/graphic happy. I have been playing with numbers and getting more information in my arsenal of FIRE kit.
Going forward, our expenses are going to be high for the next couple of months. Bathrooms are not cheap to build and that is what we are doing next. I'll be happy with 20% savings if we can manage it. I'm keeping my eye on that 90% savings rate at the end of this tunnel!!
Normal Spend - $635.03
Remodel Spend - $1576.01
Total Spend - $2211.04
Total Savings - $3365.81 ; 60%
Account Details
I added a couple of columns to this spreadsheet. I added the 'Expected Income' column which is simply the FAI column divided by 12. This represents what I would expect monthly income to be at 9% returns. The next column over is simply the difference between 'actual' and 'expected'. So now you can see the past couple months were well over expected and so the sudden drop is "to be expected" given long term ROI projections.
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
We had 4 charge offs last month so it seems that is the new benchmark number going forward.
Also, I offset the 'expected' vs 'actual' since it takes a month for the interest to start coming in. So last month's 'expected' vs this month's 'actual'.
Here's an interest chart for Lending Club. This shows the Charge Off to Interest Ratio for our account. In other words, how much monthly interest we lose to charge offs. For most investors the expected range is 30-50% each month. We had a ratio of 35% last month which is in line with expectations.
We had 5 dividend raises (IBM, PG, XOM, JNJ and PBCT) in April accounting for an increase of $12.51 in our annual dividend income. Dividends were received from GPS and MDU. I added XOM to our position in the middle of the month.
Since deciding that we will utilize a Roth Conversion ladder to access our 401K after FI, I changed the expected yield to match that of our dividend account since we'll be putting the money into those stocks when we get access. So the expected withdrawl rate went from 2.06% to 4.03% which is our current dividend yield. This explains the large jump in FAI for the 401k and also the small bump forward in our timeline.
Total FAI - $3850.43 (+414.97)
Time to Bills Only - 6 Months (-1)
Time to Bills & Food - 18 Months (-2)
Time to TTM Expenses - 30 Months (-3)
Time to 3% LC - 50 Months (-7)
TTM Expenses - $14286.15 (-466.58)
I added a new milestone to our FAI timeline. I noticed that we will accomplish FI for our fixed bills (garbage, internet, property taxes/insurance) this year so I wanted to have that on there. The next milestone include food expenses and is next year.
We are 6 months away from achieving our first milestone. Yahoo! Further breaking up this large project really helps to motivate.
I also included that 'Timeline Evolution' chart to show how our plan has evolved over the past 10 months of accumulation. We started with over 6 years to calling it quits. We are now down to 4 years, 2 months......after 10 months of accumulating.
Remodel
A month ago we were not quite done with our basement bathroom. I had also completed a great deal of tear out in preparation for our new staircase build. We completed the bathroom in the second week of April and this month has seen me mostly doing planning work for the staircase. I started building about half way through April and I now have 99% of the framing done, and about 50% of the drywall. I am now to the point where I will be taking out the joists and supporting the two joists at the end of the staircase that sit under the shower. After that I can build the actual stringers, risers and treads.
We are planning to leave the drywall unfinished in the staircase until we get the rest of the house completed. We are also leaving the rest of the basement unfinished until we complete the upstairs as this is work that can wait until next winter if need be. The upstairs work needs to be done in warm weather.
May and June will be the months of the master bathroom build! We have most of our layout planning completed and have some work to do before we decide on the look/design. We have an idea of what we want though.
One more note - I have been including a lump sum of $375 in our remodel expenses that isn't actually getting spent yet. That money is going into an account for new carpet. So we have about $1500 saved for that at this point. So in reality our 'real' renovation expense have been lower that what I report each month.
Eggs
We got 240 eggs in April, up from 230 in March. We are keeping up pretty well, but we have about 7-8 dozen in our fridge at this point. We have been giving some to friends and I might sell to some co-workers. We also have 1 hen that has gone broody! She just sits on eggs....all day. Each evening I lift her off and she just starts CLUCK CLUCK CLUCKING at me and poofs up really large. It's really really funny.
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)