Net Worth Update 59: When FI Ideas Collide

Welp, it’s been two months since the last post. Sorry, time got away from me. We’ve just been busy over here fighting a civil war over whether to save more, or to focus on lifestyle optimization.

You can check the latest and greatest info on the Track Our Progress page.

First, the numbers:

Net Worth:

• End of November Balance: $1,066,696 Up $105,170 from the end of September
• Year to Date (YTD): Down $2,204 (0.2%)
• Since January 2018 (this is when I started tracking our net worth): Up $761,922

Portfolio:

• End of November Balance: $826,431 Up $96,949 from the end of September
• YTD: Down $47,829 (-5.5%)*
• Since January 2018: Up $586,431*

*This total value as opposed to an internal rate of return.

So, what’s up?

New Blog Schedule Coming

My schedule these days is fuller than ever.  Also, with our finances mostly on autopilot, it has been challenging coming up with fresh content for each monthly updated.  (although, it’s not for lack of trying… read below) And let’s face it, there is so much volatility month to month, that it’s easy to lose site of the big picture.

So… Starting next year this blog will be shifting to a quarterly update.  Unless, something interesting pops up.  I’m hopeful this will result in better content for the readers and a bit better work/life balance for me, the author.  

When FI Ideas Collide

Two of the main tenets of pursuing Financial Independence (FI) are maximizing your savings rate (spend less and earn more) and optimizing your lifestyle to do more of what you want and less of what you don’t.

Sometimes this two principles come into direct conflict. And we’ve been struggling with these two over the latter half of 2022. Our struggle is centered on our newfound love of RVing. In January we decided to get into the hobby, but there was still some skepticism that it would be a good fit for us. So our initial investments (the truck and RV) were hedged a bit. By that I mean, the RV was relatively small and the truck was selected to try to balance being able to tow the RV and serve as a daily driver.

We dipped our toes into the pool.

As it turns out, RVing is a great fit for us. So much so, that we almost immediately reached the limits of our equipment. Bigger, longer, and farther trips are in our future. But our newish equipment isn’t up to the task. So, we were faced with two options:

Option 1 – be patient, continue to work with what we have and pay down the debt associated with it.

Option 2 – double down, and buy the right equipment… now.

The former is much more financially responsible. Bigger rigs directly correlate to bigger bucks. And if you’ve been following the Fed recently you can’t help but notice rate increase after rate increase. The cost of borrowing is much higher than this time last year.

However, if you are chasing FI, you don’t want to be running from something (i.e. frustrating jobs, the ol’ 9 to 5 hamster wheel, etc.). You want to be running towards something… that optimized lifestyle I mentioned before. However, if you don’t try new things and test ideas, how can you know what to run to? I’m hard pressed to think of a sadder situation than someone who has scrimped and saved and retired early, only to not know what to do with themselves once they get there.

And the clock is ticking.

We have two kids, aged 9 and 6. They LOVE RVing as much, or more, than we do. We have a group of friends with similar aged kids and RVing has helped us find a sense of community. We figure we have about 6 years until traveling with Mom and Dad is no longer “cool”. Maybe we will get lucky and they will stay interested in it for longer… but we don’t want to regret not maximizing this time. I would try to further explain the time urgency, but Tim Urban already did a much better job than I ever could with his post “Tail End” on his blog Wait But Why.

Lastly, the road to FI can take years, or decades. Having the willpower to stay the course is paramount. Living with the singular focus of reaching FI can be draining. While not financially optimal, spending some of your hard earned money can actually help you stay in the game long enough for compounding to work its magic.

So no more dipping our toes into the water. We are diving in headfirst. We can always save more money or cut back in some other area. When we are old, we want to look back on this time and say we did our best to live it to our fullest.

We’ve just purchased a new, bigger, higher quality RV and we have an order for a truck better suited for safe, comfortable towing. We hope the bigger investment now in quality products pays off with long, low hassle use.

Hopefully, this allows us to run faster to the lifestyle we want.

Thanks for reading!