That was fast. 2021 is over and it’s time to update my early retirement chart.
Headline: I spent a ton of money in 2021
I’m a little embarrassed by how much I spent in 2021. To give you a little perspective, I spent ~$22,000 USD in 2020. In 2021 I spent ~$28,000. Eeek!
Oh, but 2020 was the pandemic, so it’s not really fair to compare. In 2019, I spent ~24k. So yeah, I’m still on the high side this past year, but it’s nothing to freak out about. Not that I’m the type to freak out.
Where did it all go? I bought myself a lot of clothes from ThredUp. I bought a lot of presents for people from Amazon because it was the Year of Celebrating Birthdays. Good food ate up a large part of my budget as I indulged in a lot of nice dinners out and grocery store inflation is high. Rent is $1,151.95 per month and, I suspect, climbing. I also bought a new laptop. I joined a gym because I’ve done every single free video on Fitness Blender.
But it’s okay that I spent so lavishly because the market more than made up for the inflation in 2021. The early retirement experiment continues to go as planned. Better than planned. I’m enjoying it while it lasts, anyway.
Charts
Here’s the chart from 2020
Remember, the green line is my average monthly projected passive income. Past results are not indicative of future earnings, but holy crap was this past result fairly good. The red line is my actual average monthly expenses for the year.
Here’s the chart for 2021.
The green line is calculated using a project passive income equation that makes assumptions about the future based on past results. My equation is: [(Net Worth at Dec. 31) * (Withdrawal rate)]/Months in the year. I use four percent as my withdrawal rate as an educated guess.
Specifics
My yearly expenses were absolutely exorbitant at $28,168 for an average of $2,347 per month.
$2,347 – (rent) $1151.95 = $1195 on food, drink, and everything else. That’s a lot and I can cut that way back if I needed to. I could get a roommate or move someplace cheaper. I have a lot of options for saving money that I won’t do right now because I don’t have to.
In 2021, I spent $122.86 on my business; I made $246.73 from selling my book, Operation Enough! How to Retire Remarkably Early, giving me a net profit of $124. To date, I’ve sold 646 books. If you’ve purchased a copy, I heart you. I have 2,229 email subscribers and 1,000 more from feedly.com. Not sure why I’m telling you this.
My net worth went up from the stock market going up and civilization humming along. For now, I remain blissfully unaware of any impending doom. I’m not going to give you numbers because I don’t want to brag.
I don’t know. I think that’s it. Any questions? Short and sweet. You know all this stuff.
Resolutions and other stuff
Are you doing any fun resolutions on your resolutions chart or for New Years? Mine this month are work out, do stretching for splits, practice intermittent fasting (only eat from noon to eight at night), remind myself that appearance is a consequence of fitness, document my writing time, take a picture, don’t eat any junk sugar, go outside for twenty minutes, and read twenty-five pages.
Could just be me but I can’t see the charts 🤣 Please keep writing (I was one of those who bought the book and enjoyed it. Have it to my then 17 year old who then used it as a great resource for an A* project he did. This helped him get to his choice of university and of course set great foundations for his path to FI. ) So many thanks, see what a difference you make without even realising.
That makes me so very happy! Your son is in the best position now!
Are you viewing the charts on mobile or desktop? I’m terrible when it comes to fixing this stuff.
MMM posted yesterday and you post today. This year is off to a great start! 🙂
There’s something in the air!
You don’t want to brag about your numbers but you do (humble)brag about your “exorbitant” spending! 🙂
I don’t see why exorbitant is in quotation marks!
Hi, keep writing because I also bought your book and enjoyed it very much!
My resolution for 2022 is to keep practicing intermittent eating/fasting, writing, walking and playing music each day. Walking in my hilly neighborhood has worked for me in that I am still committed after 2 years, though sightings of coyotes in recent months have changed my routes somewhat. I now try to avoid secluded paths if alone.
Appreciate the comment. Good resolutions. 🙂 Hill walking makes for a good butt, I think.
So nice to read this update and congratulations on the book! My resolutions are mostly unchanged but I’ve restarted using a chart (it is so helpful.) I’m doing intermittent fasting (though I’ve never put this on the chart since it’s not something I think about/struggle with, I think). I do have: early bedtime, respectable wakeup time, gratitude journal, haiku, Spanish practice, other flashcards (I’m mostly working on geography and key history dates), reading 20 minutes, yoga/other movement and a nebulous “projects” category to try and keep me on track for work/other life aims.
I love the haiku resolution. 🙂
Ann, I highly recommend seterra.com for geography practice. I use it on my computer rather than the app on my phone; I find the larger screen better for seeing more of the maps at once. And for Spanish, I recommend pimsleur.com. There is a monthly fee for that but I think it’s definitely worth it. I listen to French for 30 minutes each day while walking.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Wow- I was just thinking of you today and here you go posting! Glad to see you alive and kicking and the plan still working .
One of the reasons I thought of you was I’m gonna finally go part-time or retire this Spring, and I was wondering how you’re managing the CO Health Exchange marketplace. I recall from previous posting you had a goodly tax credit towards it. Is it still working? What percent is it if your monthly expense?
I’m currently on Medicaid because my income wasn’t high enough in the past years to qualify for anything else. When I first retired, I paid $200/month for my high deductible health plan and opened an HSA. Check out this article. https://thepowerofthrift.com/health-insurance-early-retirement/
And this article. https://thepowerofthrift.com/health-insurance-and-early-retirement-in-the-united-states-of-america/?preview_id=4789&preview_nonce=3404826a57&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=9006
and this article. https://thepowerofthrift.com/heard-health-savings-account-thing/
Why, thank you, Anita! My neighbor here in NorCal has also fallen into the Medicaid bucket because they’re below the income threshold. I’m curious now what that threshold is. Interesting.
Yay, you’re back! I’m always excited to see your little updates.
Haha, and your “exorbitant” spending is probably just fine. With inflation and all, $28,000 in 2021 is only $25,800 in 2019, so it really hasn’t gone up that much 🙂
And I hope you keep posting about your adventures — like your fancy dinners and birthday soirees, lol.
My goal in 2022 is definitely to write more for the blog. 😀
Yay! We’ll also follow any writing you do in book form 🙂
I’m sending it (my book) out to peoples, but not hearing back anything positive. Yet!
Moo, wanna give life advice to random strangers on the Internet? 🙂
So I’d been planning to stop working once I had enough savings and retire in my 30s like you, cuz I think you’re cool and I want to be like you :p
But I was at an alumni event tonight, and met someone who worked until her 60s, finishing her career as the CFO of a big hospital. And another older guy is still working, running a company that makes medical devices or something.
So like, is that what I’m SUPPOSED to do instead of retiring? (After all, every university talks about producing the next generation of leaders and innovators and stuff, not graduates who retire to enjoy their lives.)
I don’t think I really WANT to be a CFO or a leader of my industry or whatever. But at the same time, if I retire now, am I missing out and not “living up to my potential” or something?
And what about you? Did you ever meet someone inspirational who made you think, “that could’ve been me … if only I had stuck around to grind it out another 20 or 30 years”?
(Help! I think I’ve reached my number, so I should either quit now, or keep working foreeeever.)
Oh man! You hit the nail on the head with what I’m struggling with. Whenever I peek on Facebook and see all the amazing things my law school and law firm peers are up to, I get little stabs of the jealousy. Am I living my life wrong? I rectified that by putting up Facebook feed eradicator. I saw a RBG documentary and felt immense guilt for wasting my life. But I’m enjoying it. Does that make it a waste? I don’t know. I think about it often, too!! I’m sorry I can’t be much help.
In a way you are taking retirement when you are young and have energy to do lot of things you love to do.
Instead of taking it when you become old and your body does not cooperate to do those things.
For that you should be happy about…regarding achieving something..when you are not happy with the way you are living your life, what is the point in achieving those things???
Glad to hear things are going well with you! We’ve got some shared goals!
I’ve also got some exercise goals and less sugar intake. Probably should try that intermittent fasting too.
Professionally I want to ask for a raise at work or if I can’t, switch companies. Also do some long term traveling (this may be delayed by Covid yet again but hoping!)
Excellent goals. There’s no harm in asking for a raise, right?
Glad to see another post, I bought your book also and enjoyed reading about your minimalist lifestyle. When you didn’t have a post to read I also visited MMM and Millennial Revolution. I live in Portland where rent is expensive but managed to keep expenses low because my mortgage free condo near downtown is so small, less than 400 square feet. It is close to the bus, Max, Streetcar, and rental bikes, and everything I need like grocery store, library, late night coffee shop, is a few blocks away. I don’t care about living in such a small space because having a yard and large living space is not important to me, I am away from home all the time. I just need a place to sleep.
There is nothing to maintain really since it is such a small space. I don’t have to worry about anyone breaking into my place when I travel because the condo complex is secure. My property tax and condo fees, and homeowners insurance keep going up every year but altogether combined it is around $600 month now. My new year resolution is to test retiring early by working part-time now and traveling to a different part of the United States every other month. I can use my condo as a home base for mailing address and tax filing. I work as a RN right now and have been working alot because Omicron virus has caused staffing shortages all over Portland and they need me. Hopefully the pandemic subsides this year where I can feel more comfortable with traveling out of the county. I might even consider travel nursing to Hawaii. I talked to other nurses that have done this where they had hotel or rent paid for but they say they worked so much it did not feel like a vacation. Anyway, good to hear your retirement journey is still on track. You are still so young to be retired and have your whole life ahead of you.
My friend boards a lot of traveling nurses and I’ve heard they work all the time. I’m jealous of your paid-off home. $600/month is reasonable.
Nice to hear from you, it always gives me energy to set some goals myself.
And now I know why others are so good at gym, they already did every free video on Fitness Blender 😉
624 videos and counting! 😀
Hi Anita,
I go to youtube and go to Caroline Jordan. She has so many awesome exercise videos, stretching videos, foam rolling videos, bodyweight exercises. They are a great workout, in case you’re interested! I’ve heard yoga by adrienne is also good but haven’t tried it yet.
Thanks for the suggestion! I like Yoga by Adrienne’s Splits stretching videos. 🙂
For the 1st time in my life, I could manage to record all my expenses for an year, the whole of 2021, my expenses proved me that I don’t need to work but am still working. Managed to take some time off and didn’t do anything significant on those days, may be we should first decide what to do after retirement and then retire. You have long list of tasks to do but I don’t have many.
I do think that’s the hardest part of retirement – figuring out how to spend your days!
In your previous post, you mention…”ecause I am vaccinated and I have been socializing with other vaccinated people.” This is very sad that our world is seeing people through the lens of medical discrimination now and trying to normalize it. I thought we were trying to fight discrimination and segregation of all forms. 🙁