In April I saw friends in Boston after not travelling for over 600 days. I was in need of a change of and drove to Rhode Island one day since it was less an an hour away. Here are a couple pictures from that trip.
It made me think more about how life is not just about accumulating wealth. It’s about being healthy, and enjoying new experiences too. Whether that’s with someone or alone. So yes I plan to do more travelling over in some coming months. Definitely see a summer trip in my near future. I’m a little irked that my folks haven’t been vaccinated yet, nor are they pursuing it after the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine debacle.
The trips don’t have to be expensive either. My car rental from Tuesday – Friday was only $182, and gas was $25. I think I only ended up paying for 2 or 3 meals during the whole trip. I had a credit from American Airlines from my previously cancelled New York trip. I did have to pay extra fora checked in suitcase and to change my seats to main cabin extra but it was totally worth it.
4/27/21
401K: $132,427
Roth IRA: $13,825
M1 Acct $1,818
Crypto: $122
HSA $1,505
Total Investments: $150,707
3/27/21
401K: $123,653 (including pending contributions)
Roth IRA: $12,484
M1 Acct $1,566
Crypto: $0
HSA $1,303
Total Investments: $139,006
Total Net Worth is up $11.701 or 8.4% vs previous month. I’ve had a series of dividend payments on my 401k, the latest was $145.60. It’s nice to lock these in to offset fluctuations in the marke.. So far since 2018 the total is $3,760.
Going back to the dark period of April 2020… There was so much uncertainty about what was going on in the economy. This time last year my total only around $65,285. Almost one year ago I made the last payment on my car and became officially debt free! I would never make it to the Dave Ramsey show but this is fine….
Since then… I’ve been aggressively squirrelling my dollars away into investments. With my car payment at the time I would have spent $6,500 over 12 months. S&P 500 comparing April 23, 2021 is $4,180.17 vs May 1, 2020 was $2,919.61 or +43%. Between the payment and the appreciation I would have been down $9,295. That’s a lot of $$$.
Still thinking about my next steps. Things are kinda stagnant right now. Getting closer to 40, 9 years experience in my industry, almost 10 in this city… Texas population is very much still booming, we gained 2 congressional seats, and almost 4 million people from 2010 to 2020.
I hope after 9 years of this blog I can inspire other people to become debt free too. 2012 was a long time ago! My biggest takeaway is hard work and sticking to a plan pays off. I’ve always thought along the way how to get to the next level and now is no different.
Debt Free Alpha 