Another day, another dollar. Or in this case, another month and (roughly) $5,000 – put away towards retirement that is.
To start off, I am glad I waited until the very end of February to do this post because the market has been quite red as of late. As money and retirement is hugely psychological, this actually HELPS my mindset since I try to frame it as “stocks are on sale” instead of “I just lost tons of money”.
To keep roughly the same format as last month, here are the figures through Feb 28:
Vanguard Roth IRA – $93,545.39 (-$4.5K from last month)
TSP – Just over $71K (no change in value, despite -$2.3K invested)
Taxable accounts – $31.2K (+$6.2K, but also -$4K invested) . As I have been waiting for at least some correction and a potential pull-back, instead of sitting on the side-lines, I decided to grow a little bit of my dividend portfolio as a slight hedge. I really liked the news of AT&T dumping their stake of DirecTV, and thought the price on Friday near close of markets was quite attractive and ended up throwing $4K into T at an average cost of $28.04.
Crypto – $20K (+$2.7K, no additional investment) Although ETH and XLM both had huge rallies (reaching $2K and $.60 respectively) I am continuing to hold.
Cash – $5K (-$5K) Besides the additional investments into my taxable accounts, I had a few larger-than-typical bills come due from some items purchased around the holiday season that I paid off, so my cash position has decreased.
Now then, for the things I enjoyed or accomplished this month.
This month was a blur and work has definitely been kicking my ass as of late. With COVID restrictions slowly easing up, my workplace is back to regular office hours. Unfortunately, with many other sections following suit, that means we are getting more requests than ever – especially after people realize what has been missing after the extended holiday break as well. This meant that painting my minis and getting my car checked out have taken a backseat since weekends so far are firmly for my mental health and relaxation with my wife.
Despite COVID restrictions loosening around our area, the slopes are still closed, which means it’s nearly a sure bet that I won’t be able to ride my new board at all, which is something that really frustrates me.
On the bright side, the weather is getting much warmer and more pleasant, so going out on weekends for anything is just much more enjoyable and we have been trying to do so on a regular basis. With the sun sets getting later and later, it is becoming much easier and my mood has definitely improved from being outdoors more often.
I also picked up a video game – Valheim (a survival, crafting game for those interested) that has been taking up a lot of my personal free time and I’ve really been enjoying it. Hoping to get my wife into it as well so we can have another hobby to spend time on together.
An odd addition, but I feel that it deserves its own space due to the nature of FIRE – getting you time back. One of the larger purchases we made over the holidays was a Roomba vacuum cleaner with a self-cleaning base that hopefully would have decreased all the time we spent cleaning/sweeping the floor from our dog’s constantly shedding fur. It finally arrived a couple of weeks ago and it has been working far better than I could have imagined! My wife loves it and sets up little routes for it every day. Due to its wifi capabilities and our dog not being bothered by it, we can have it running while we are off running errands, or just hanging out/doing other chores around the house. It probably adds at least 20-30 minutes back to our lives DAILY.
Next month I hope that the shares keep sliding so I can pick up more. I doubt I will be able to throw as much in as I did this time around, but the financial goal is an extra $1K on top of my TSP contribution with a “stretch” goal of an extra $1K (so $2,000 total) if I can be thrifty enough to pull it off despite the pull of going to more restaurants and spending more on gas as things are opening up (for now).
Outside of finances, I hope that I can catch up a bit with work so I can chill out more during my time off and won’t need as much time to recharge. Being more productive with not only my hobbies, but also some tasks around the house that I have been neglecting is definitely a big goal.
The Military Saver 