Unfortunately, when I tried to do this over the weekend, the TSP site was down for maintenance and I just did not have the time to do it on Monday. This does mean that my total numbers are slightly into May since I got all my figures to write this up after markets closed on Monday night. That being said, it should not make much of a difference.
Big picture wise, Italy is starting to open up and we have immediately started going out to restaurants and some local travel, which does mean spending money. That said, I do not have a single regret so far. I will expand more on that after the numbers…
Vanguard Roth IRA – $96,613 (+$2.45K from last month) No change in my distributions here.
TSP – $88,261 (+$7.5K with -$2.3K invested) Nothing much to add here either, just staying the course. Still have 100% of my contributions going to the S fund, with a current 55/45 distribution between the C and S funds. Glad to see that with the remaining contributions I can still add I am on course to hit 6 figures in this account by the end of year.
Taxable accounts – $42,958 (+6.15K with -$3K invested). The past month I threw in $3K into $BUD as my dividend purchase. So far I’m up just under 9% on my position and will hit the div-ex date today (Tuesday).
Crypto – $45.6K (+17.4K, no additional investment). Crypto is getting a bit crazy and is starting to be quite a substantial piece of my investments (getting close to 20%!). I am almost at my personal “moon” price target. I was initially waiting for my ETH position to hit $50K overall, although I am moving towards taking out half as soon as my overall crypto balance hits that $50K number and diversify in some additional stocks. I am currently seeing and hearing 60 year old+ retirees talking about dogecoin, which means it’s about that time to get out. I polled my coworkers today, and just about all of them are investing in it “just because the charts keep going up”, which is just another indicator that we’re getting a bit close to the cliff. Maybe (hopefully for many!) I am wrong, but I would sleep better once I go back to <10% of my NW in crypto. Keeping in mind my initial gamble was ~$3-4K, I am quite fortunate to be in the current position, but since this WAS 100% a gamble, I am dead set on waiting for the $50K mark. Thanks to the military giving me ~60% of my income tax-free, I should pay nothing in long-term capital gains tax, so basically, my $4K turning into $25K is something I am looking forward to. I will leave the rest there (in my case, will be 6 ETH and 5K XLM) in case ETH hits BTC levels of silliness down the line…
Cash – $6.7K (-$1.1K). This will likely be decreasing throughout the month with travel and dining becoming available once again.
Life enjoyment wise, my mood is definitely picking up. The weather is full on spring/early summer and with vaccinations happening across the country and cases dropping, we are no longer prisoners of our own home. We have been going hiking with our pooch as well as hitting up a couple of our favorite restaurants throughout the first week of things opening up and are loving being able to see and eat things we kind of took for granted. We have also had more company at our house, along with meeting some friends out and visiting others in their own home. Although I am usually quite introverted, I have not minded the social contact after being cooped up for so long. Sure, this means my savings rate is “plummeting” compared to the past couple of months, but it is important to enjoy life and not be a slave to the money.
Speaking of more traveling and so on, this month we have another 4 day weekend coming up thanks to memorial day. We will likely attempt to go to Rome and will try to stay with our free hotel nights thanks to our credit card perks that we have not been able to take advantage of in the last 1.5 years due to my deployment and COVID, which I am DEFINITELY excited about as I have still not yet been (yes I know, despite spending nearly 5 years in Italy…).As country borders all over are opening up, my wife is planning on heading to the US to visit her family at the very end of the month which we are paying for with our credit card points, so we are quite happy that we can take advantage of the various perks all of our CC’s provide.
Not counting crypto (since I am not cashing out until I hit a certain number no matter what, so it’s either all or nothing) or the equity in my rent homes, my NW has gone up $15K over a month to total $234.5K. Subtracting out the contributions/additional investments I made puts me at an investment gain of $9.7K, or roughly my total monthly pay which makes me feel pretty great typing it out.
I again “beat” my personal stretch goal again by $1K. I doubt that I can keep this going, but in the sake of striving for success, I will keep it the same as last month. $1K deposit in taxable + $1K as a “stretch” goal.
The Military Saver 