Well, hello again old friends. It’s been a hot minute since I put a new post out there and it’s long past the end of the 2nd Quarter. Click on in if you are interested in the last few months in the Heartland on FIRE household.
You can check the latest and greatest info on the Track Our Progress page.
First, the numbers:
Net Worth:
- End of Quarter 2 Balance: $1,559,592 Up $89,299 from Quarter 1.
- Year to Date (YTD): Up $227,754 (17.1%)
- Since January 2018 (this is when I started tracking our net worth): Up $1,254,592
Portfolio:
- End of Quarter 2 Balance: $1,253,222 Up $102,448 from Quarter 1
- YTD: Up $216,036 (20.8%)*
- Since January 2018: Up $1,013,222*
*This is total value as opposed to an internal rate of return.
Wow…the portfolio was really cooking in the first half of the year.
Mrs. HoF’s is (Side) Hustling
Since the last time I posted Mrs. HoF has gotten her side hustle groove going. A friend turned her on to an opportunity to become a travel advisor as a means to generate some income in addition to her day job.
And let me say this, being a travel advisor is RIGHT UP HER ALLEY. Everybody has some type of superpower… and at least one of her’s is planning trips. Basically, she’s been our family’s travel planner for years. She is extremely thorough both in her research of options and building itineraries with the right level of activities. It is to the point where there is little benefit of me trying my hand at it, because she has everything covered. Perhaps one of my super powers is marrying right? Ha!
As part of her travel agent gig, she is a member of an organization that sends leads her way (in exchange for a portion of the commission of course), but this works well as Social Media isn’t one of her super powers (yet). Right now, she can focus on what she does best (the planning) and leave the lead generation to others. The thought is that over time her clients will see her value and come back to her directly, which would be more lucrative.
Sure, it is not always easy (as with any customer service industry). But travel planning looks more like play to her and work to many others. I’m just proud that she recognized this and taken action to share her gift with others.
Oh, the Joy of Owning THINGS
Owning stuff is cool right? Who doesn’t like having a nice house and car, etc? But the flip side is those things need to be maintained. And these things… they have a tendency to conspire together to all need maintenance at the same damn time!
Quarter 2 was a poster child for this collaboration of material possessions. Where to begin…?
We had one helluva hailstorm on April 1st. We have 2 vehicles and one open garage spot (the other filled with more Things of course). This storm popped up very quickly and we had to make a quick decision on which vehicle would be spared. Since we were camping a couple days later, we decided to jam our truck in the garage. The thinking being that if the windows got shattered, then we’d be out of luck for camping that weekend. So, the CRV got the short end of the straw and took a major beating. There may, or may not be video of me trying to get a blanket over the vehicle whilst wearing a child’s bike helmet and holding a golf umbrella.
Thankfully, insurance is covering most of this issue. It’s just a hassle to deal with and, we are out the deductible, of course.
Fast forward to early June. I come home from work to find Mrs. HoF chastising the kids for playing with the thermostat and turning the temp up. No guilty party stepped forward to claim this deed. A couple hours later, I hear her shout “Feel the air coming out of the vents. It feels warm.” Doh!!
I go outside to find the compressor quiet as a mouse, while the blower on the furnace is running like mad. I attempt to then pull the compressor disconnect out only to find A) it won’t come out… because it is MELTED, and B) one painful and scary shock as somehow I made a connection between the live wires and the compressor frame. I’m lucky to be alive after that one. After pulling myself back together and shutting all the power down to the whole house, I was able to rule out the capacitor and other minor wiring issues. As this exhausts my knowledge of HVAC repairs, I called in the experts, who upon a quick review of the system, performed its last rites and notified next of kin (me). Now, the AC was the problem, but the furnace was also nearly 18 years old. I didn’t want to be back in the same spot with the furnace come this winter, so we put it out to pasture as well.
It is easy to talk a big game about getting competitive bids and working angles for better deals. It is another thing entirely to be faced with one, to potentially up to three weeks of incoming 90+ degree weather with Midwestern humidity sans AC. So, negotiations really became begging… who could get here first? Thankfully, we found a reputable firm who took care of us right before the worst of the heat arrived. As a result, we have a brand-new system, and a nearly $10k-sized hole in the bank account. Ouch!
One of the (many) reasons this post got delayed was due to yet another household Thing. This Thing happened to be the sump pump, which is a very necessary Thing, but also entails maintenance. Another day, shortly after I returned from work, Mrs. HoF made the comment “the sump pump has been beeping for a couple hours.” Notice a trend here? Upon inspection, the primary pump appeared to have ceased to be. Meaning that it literally came out of the water and the housing crumbled into many rust colored pieces. Thankfully, we had a backup pump. Emphasis on “had”. It pumped once, then promptly shorted out… never to pump again. I forgot to mention that we received several inches of rain that day and the day before. So, time was of the essence. I sprinted to Home Depot with my youngest in tow and obtained a replacement and associated pumping Things. Miraculously, I got the replacement in place before the pit runneth over.
The encore to this story is that the new pump Thing, which had been working all week, decided to choke on a piece of gravel while we were traveling. Rendering it inoperable for some untold number of days and filling the unfinished part of the basement with 2ish inches of water and soaking some of the carpet. This is why we can’t have nice Things. ‘
There are also more Things in need of care later this year that revealed themselves in Q2… namely one tree in the backyard died at the start of summer, and the very large tree in the front is giving me some concerns with dead limbs and some leaking sap.
Thank goodness for an emergency fund!!
On the positive side, my brother and I were able to get our old 1977 dirt bike up and running relatively painlessly. Next step is to do a couple cosmetic repairs and get it on the market. At least that will be one less Thing to worry about.
On the Road Again
Q2 included the bulk of our RV travels, including:
- Onondaga Cave State Park – unfortunately, the caves were closed for maintenance (those damn Things again) but we had a great 3 mile hike that Mrs. HoF swore she was told it would only be 1 mile. Ha!
- Hermann, Missouri – an annual staple for us, we took the whole family this year. As a bonus, we were able to see the aurora! Just an incredible experience.
- Mark Twain Lake – This has become a Memorial Day tradition for us. One of the highlights is renting out a pontoon boat to go tubing. Only problem is we ran out of gas a couple hundred yards from the dock! Lesson: don’t trust the gas gage on a rental!!
- Maramec Springs – This was a beautiful park and trout fishery. There are ruins of an old steel mill there which are impressive. Heavy rains dampened the weekend a bit as the Meramec River nearly flooded us out. We will be back for sure in the future though!
- Echo Bluff State Park – considered by some to be the crown jewel of Missouri’s State Parks. We took the family for a weekend of floating down the Current River and lounging in Sinking Creek. I highly recommend a stay here, but be warned that the route down there is very windy for a long time. If you have anyone in your group that gets motion sickness (as we do), it can make for an, ahem, interesting drive.
Coming Up in 2024 Q3
We will continue RVing all summer and into fall. Recent and upcoming trips include:
- Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky
- Charleston, South Carolina – this is the big one!
- Branson, Missouri – Hello Silver Dollar City!
- Nashville, Tennessee – giving the RV a break on this one and AirBnB’n it.
- Sam A. Baker State Park – a beautiful park along the St. Francois River
The kids will be back in school shortly, giving Mr. HoF a bit of freedom back. Our oldest is moving into middle school meaning, our youngest and her won’t be in the same school again until her senior year of high school. It’s going to be weird.
Thanks for reading!