Rube's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
McTrex
Posts: 180
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2010 9:35 am
Location: NL

Re: Rube's journal

Post by McTrex »

Gefeliciteerd Rube!

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thank you all! Tomorrow we 'celibrate' our 1 month anniversary :D.

Earlier in July I spend a week in Toronto for work. We also had a great meet-up with in total 6 ere'ers. Nice to meet members from a different region (to me) and to see some persons after 2.5 and 1.5 years again.

Today we arrived at our holiday destination in Italy. On the way we stayed in two hotels, which I could 'pay' with points collected during my business travels. So free hotel nights!

Earlier in July I gave a RE-agent the assignment to lookout for another rental property. Hopefully he can come up with something goods in the next 3 months (as he affirmed he could).

NW as of end today is 473K. A lot of the 7K increase since last month came from the strong market (or PP performance).

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Rube's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Nice. Enjoy your holiday!

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Another 2 month have passed.

Last month a close colleague (friend) was 'let go' (=fired) unexpectedly and was replaced by another (inexperienced) individual. There are too many details which I won't reveal here but bottom line is I don't get it. And even though I think my position is a bit more secure, it made me realize again I am happy we're not living paycheck to paycheck.

We were in agreement to buy another 2 rentals, but we walked away from 1 due to a couple of reasons. We signed the contract for the other one though and transfer is in about two months. This rental is different from the 2 we already have: different renters (students) and different place (it's actually in the town where Dutchgirl lives :-) ).
Perhaps a little bit more risk/work, but the expected yield is also higher. Sold part of our PP to finance the rental.
If goes as expected the income from the 3 rentals should cover 90% of our current expenses.

NW end of Sept. 483K. This is with a conservative estimation of our real estate (our house was appraised recently 35K more then I use for our NW). So we might have already passed the 'half a millionaire' border :-).

We're leaning more and more to the idea to quit our normal salaryjob in about 3 years time, even if we have not as much as we ideally want. We'll see, but about 3 years is the current target.

Almost at the office for another day of work. Till the next update.

LiberateMind
Posts: 197
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 8:18 pm

Re: Rube's journal

Post by LiberateMind »

Congrats on the wedding!!

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Rube's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Ha, Rube, funny that you've bought a student house here. Maybe, if you're in town anyway, you can drop by for a cup of coffee.

And: you're making yourself less dependent on your income from your job every month, so hopefully that helps with any job loss fears that you might have.

But yes, it is good to be aware of the fact that a "permanent" job may not be so stable after all.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks @liberatemind. I am always reading your updates with interests and wondering how your life really is. I have been to India and lived for a shortwhile in an India(ish) country and I am fascinated by the culture, the diversity of everything.

@Dutchgirl, thanks. Next time I will be in the neighbourhood and have some time I'll let you know :-).
Congrats on passing the 100K!!

This post is to celebrate my 4th anniversary of this journal (well actually it was a week ago).
We made a lot of progress since then, but we still have a long way money wise but also for a Web of goals. I guess there is no real finish line anyway.

Had some down days/weeks, personally and work related. Too much/too personal to go in to detail here but I just feel like 'sigh'. Difficult to motivate for work too. It is not all bad (not depressed) and will be better probably soon again. One of the things I need to find again is something I am passionate about and it should not involve money/investing/internet-screen time/work related. Maybe exercising seems obvious but unfortunately can't really get passionate about that.

Back to work now, till the next update. Thnx for reading.

BlueNote
Posts: 501
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 6:26 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Rube's journal

Post by BlueNote »

Super belated congrats on the wedding!

I've always found that exercise helps with the blues at the same time it's hard to get excited for exercise in and of itself.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks @BlueNote. You are absolutely right. On.Both.Points.

I feel a bit better again. Work: ah well, holding up for now. Maybe more about this another time.

NW end Nov. 492K.
In a few days we'll receive the keys of our 3rd rental.
Expected NW end of Dec. will be around 490K (savings and a bit of Dec. will go to the closing costs and tax for the 3rd rental).

Note to myself: fix the graphics in "the file" so I can post them end of Dec. together with a long(er) update.

NickHalden
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2015 3:48 am

Re: Rube's journal

Post by NickHalden »

Hi Rube, could you elaborate on how you obtained your first rental house?
Was it before or after you payed of your own mortgage on your own house? And if you ever had to start over, any tips on how to go about it? I am sorry if you already went into this either here or on the GoT-forum but I can't seem to find it easily.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

@Nickhalden: it was after we payed of 40% of our original mortgage. We recently increased the mortgage on our own house again (against a much lower interest as originally). How to start: read, investigate, make (worst case) scenario's, visit houses etc. Note that we're doing this for the cashflow, not to make a lot of money. Majority of our savings comes simply from saving our salaries.

Update
2016 is not ended yet, but I don't expect any major changes anymore....

Our average expenses are already 4+ years close to 2500 euro / month and lately getting close to 2600 euro. Probably it is increasing slightly do to the wedding, a new car and growing up kids....we can cut if we want, but this level seems to be okay for all persons in our family ;)
Income has increased due to raises in the last 4+ years and the income from assets (mostly rentals now). We should see another jump next year when we receive the rent of the 3rd rental. This should push our savings rate over the 70%.

With some slight adjustment in appraising the real estate, still quite conservative, NW is now around 500K.

My target date to quit is September 2019 or, if I can stand it it will be March 2020 (6 more months will result in about a 9 month normal pay due to a bonus + tax advantage). We'll see.

Some graphics again after a very long time:

(click for a larger version)
Image


I met my supervisor earlier this month. On my question what I should change or improve he said just keep doing what you are doing. Ok....that is not really pushing me or helping my motivation but I'll take it :roll: .

I wish everybody in the ERE community the best for 2017! Hope to meet some of you (again) in the (near) future in person.
Thanks for reading.

J_
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:12 pm
Location: Netherlands/Austria

Re: Rube's journal

Post by J_ »

Looks so good Rube. You are a kind of excellent example of using ere principles, and one of those is reaching in a very short period financial independence, even with children, and even in a country with very high taxes! Chapeau.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks J, but I don't feel we're doing anothing exceptional job. Many others do earn less then what we spending, and/or are being a more renessance person. But maybe I am comparing myself too much to the E's types here who fit well in the Extreme part :D.

The third rental was rented out end of last week. Cashflow of rentals and interest/dividend do now cover about 90% of our average expenses (assuming no unexpected maintenance, vacancies etc.).
Going strong, but want more to be able to cover to college cost for the kids, some future plans and buffer in case of vacancies, maintenance, costs of property manager etc. Stretch goal is to reach 200%. But will accept 160% if that is what we can do in the next 33-39 months.

Currently on a business trip of 2 weeks. It is ok but being around other people so much is costing me a lot of energy (besides jetlag). But I'llmake sure I enjoy the food paid for by the employer and do some exploring during the weekend!

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Back home again from the business trip. Expect to stay home for a while now and travel a bit less then last year.
Finances:
NW 508K (6K increase).
Spend more then usual (3254).
Income was also more then usual because of the additional rent (but will be a bit less then this month due to the overflow of payments) (9015)
Therefore the savings ratio still was a decent 64%.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Highlights of last month:
1) DW got a new job per April. Gross a big increase in salary, net a bit less but still about 35% increase (but also a longer commute and a few more hours). To offset the extra time away from home we probably will hire somebody for a few hours a week to help with cleaning the house. To some of you this extra spending on something simple as cleaning might look strange. But this is a temporarily tradeoff (while we are working so many hours) since we we do not want this change of job will negatively impact the time we have for our family, increase stress etc. Even if we factor in these costs, the net increase for her salary is still 25%, so it is well worth for us. Probably most importantly though she needed a change of environment.

2) We bought another appartment for a rental to students (@Dutchgirl, yes again in your city). We should receive the signed contract early next week. Transfer will be then in a few months. Aim is to rent out around July/August after an additional room is created and just before the start of a new year for the students. It will be partly financed with a loan, which we should have paid off in <12 months.

With these changes our income will go up quite a bit.
The expected rental income with this 4the one will be, not counting vacancies and internal maintenance, about 130% of our current expenses. The question is, how sustainable this rental income is long term but I guess it means, when this 4th rental will be up and running, we're kind of FI for now.
Our savings are more then doubled compared to where we were about 5 years ago. 
Each of our three main sources, income from work for DW, myself and from our assets (rentals), has increased a lot in these 5 years while expenses only have gone up a little bit. 
Due to the three income sources, I am pretty sure we can keep the snowball rolling, even if there will be a hiccup in one or two of the three income sources for some reason. 

NW 518K. Almost a 10K increase, the market helped for about 3K.
Expenses, income and savingsrate not yet (exactly) calculated.

Next month this journal is running 4.5 years. Though my journal might no be as graphical (C40, Cmonkey) or well written (ehm, almost all others haha) I hope it helps/inspire others who are just starting out, especially those with Families as this means in many cases some additional challenges.

In any case thanks for reading, all the journals and other posts on this forum.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Rube's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

It's looking very nice, Rube, well done.

I assume you'll both keep working for at least as little while longer, but you are getting close to being able to sustainably sustain yourself on your assets.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks DG, indeed, according current projections we aim to stay employed in the traditional way for another 31-37 months.
But we'll see how things go.

Family father
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2016 10:59 am

Re: Rube's journal

Post by Family father »

rube wrote:
Fri Mar 03, 2017 1:45 pm

Next month this journal is running 4.5 years. Though my journal might no be as graphical (C40, Cmonkey) or well written (ehm, almost all others haha) I hope it helps/inspire others who are just starting out, especially those with Families as this means in many cases some additional challenges.
It surely does to some...

Thanks for sharing, rube!

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Thanks @Ffn

Quick update: NW 524K. About 5K increase.
Expenses were high (3354) due to buying some things for the kids (bycicle, furniture) and advanced payment for a new bed for us (which was really needed) among some other things expenses. Savings rate of March was still 66%, Feb was 80%. TTM 68%.
We're plugging along....

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Almost 5 months, since my last update. Much longer then I planned.
It's not that I do not read the forums*, because I check it several times a day. But I have some fatigue in posting here. Somehow anything that is not really, really needed (according myself or family) and which takes an attention span of longer then 15 minutes on the computer and is not for work, is getting hard. In general, I do things (see highlights), I do actually quite a lot, but after work in the evenings I feel often tired, apathetic and unless I have a deadline I'm not very productive (read: watching netflix too long, reading blogs on my phone etc.). I am really longing for a time when I don't need to stare at a monitor for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. So that I can start to find the energy again to get interested in new things and have the energy to actually do them. At least, I hope that having more free time will bring this back to me. I expect so, but you never know till you are there.

All that said, some highlights of these last months:
ERE Meetup in NL in May, was great to see several members again. Same goes for the meet-up in Toronto in June.
Transfer of the 4th apartment, get it ready, rent out. So far this was the rental which required the most work, I mean a LOT of work in a (stressed) time span of about 6 weeks. Several business trips, some overseas, some within Europe. Painted the house interior, started to working on the outside. A great holiday with the family. Some very intensive periods varied with some (more) relaxing week.

Financially, expenses are creeping up (kids getting older, needed to replace certain things) but still acceptable. Income from work is increasing much more. And the free cash flow from the rentals is, now with the 4th included, even about 120%/130% of our average monthly expenses. This is excluding vacancy, management, maintenance of the interior though. Nevertheless, it feels great and we could probably manage if we would stop working now.
But I'm not where I want to be. During the holiday I thought about trying to stay on for another 30 months, but soon after the holiday I decided to go back to my latest previous target of 24 months (summer 2019). Going on longer might provide more buffer and possibilities, but the freedom to do other things is stronger.
It is getting more difficult to give an accurate net worth number because most of it is in real estate now. A rough estimation is at least 545K, but it could be even around 635K if we would be able to sell all well since the market is very hot. Net worth is becoming a bit less important though as I am looking mostly at cashflow now. The fact that we now can live from the rental free cash flow means we save both our salaries and a bit from the rental income. Projected savings are now as high as 100K / year. IT. FEELS. INSANE.

*though I stopped reading all journals. After 5+ years also here some fatique, when new people are starting their journals is often generally more of the same. That is not meant unkind, but often it's the same, just a little different. Therefore getting less interesting to me. I keep on following several journals that are going on for a longer time and several posters (C40, Dutchgirl, J_ , I liked your latest post about the last 20 years a lot, Henk. Bluenote. And Jason (wow, you have a ehm, special way of telling things. I like it). And...also others who I now forget which I shouldn't. But in any case I do no read every new topic/journal anymore as I used to do.

Well, that's it for now. in 2 months this journal is running 5 years already. Speaking about a marathon (Zalo/Olaz/Tophatfox are you reading this!?)

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