Hello 2020 crew ... I've been away during the last couple of monthly update days, so catching up a bit here.
Aug/Sep/Oct Highlights:
- Steady progress toward meeting our saving and giving goals. Progress continues to be muted due to poor company stock performance relative to the broader market, but I honestly don't mind some stress on the portfolio as we seek to reach our FI number. We have also been spending on some future costs (2020 vacation, knocking out some of our FIRE home remodel projects today vs. 2021, etc.). Anyway, we have finally exceeded 91% progress for the first time.
- Work has been pretty stressful, really since the summer began. We are under-staffed, but there is a real light at the end of the tunnel effective January, so I look forward to that. Lots of good work to be done, and my team is awesome ... just looking forward to being more balanced whereby I can lean more heavily on my team to handle the day-to-day and week-to-week work. I also have a new boss, who seems to be pretty good ... will need to work on laying out my 2020 plans/needs for some remote work again, but I will wait to do that until the turn of the calendar.
- Travel: In order to continue making the most of TODAY, while saving and planning for the FUTURE, we are still in the mode of saying "YES" to most everything that comes our way when it comes to time with friends, family, trips and opportunities, etc. August was an international work trip for me. September we had an awesome vacation to our future FIRE location with some friends. October was full of several long-weekend adventures, celebrating a destination wedding with friends, and visiting our new nephew. November & December will cruise along, as I have another international work trip and we'll be spending time off from work visiting family during the Christmas holidays. 2020 will be here before we all know it!
- As of today, our NW progress covers the following: a paid-off FIRE home, funded FIRE lump sums (giving, renovation budget, new car, etc.) and a WR of 4.29% based on our target annual spend (living expenses, taxes, home maintenance, travel, healthcare, etc.).
- Countdown: Assuming monthly progress remains on par with our historic averages, we should reach our WR goal of 3.75% by Q4-2020, but who knows what lies ahead. My whiteboard countdown tracker now shows 16 months to reach our most-likely FIRE target timing of Q1-2021.
EOY 2015 = 53.8%
EOY 2016 = 67.8%
EOY 2017 = 75.5%
EOY 2018 = 81.6%
// FI target defined as 3.75% WR, mortgage-free + lump sums funded //
END OF MONTH PROGRESS:
JAN 2019 84.5%
FEB 2019 86.9%
MAR 2019 88.4%
APR 2019 89.0%
MAY 2019 86.1%
JUN 2019 89.3%
JUL 2019 89.6%
AUG 2019 88.6%
SEP 2019 90.3%
OCT 2019 91.2%
Have a great November!
FIREby2021