So, milestones were reached, numbers went up, progress was made. Two big numbers to speak of, net worth crossed $150,000 for the first time ever! Also, with dividends, during the 2018-2019 school year, I saved over $41,000 with one month to go!
Considering that I was only planning on saving $25k this school year, and that I'm at 164% of that, I am not going to complain!!! In a few weeks we will know how much total for the school year, but I'm pretty shocked by this. I've never saved nearly this much in a year before.
The $158,000 net worth also is pretty cool! It took about 18 months to increase my net worth $50,000 when it took me 34 years to get to $100,000. That's a pretty drastic increase! It looks like I'll have one more year in Dubai, so hopefully this next school year will stay on this same trend. Maybe, with a little market luck, I can top $200,000 before I leave! That would be crazy, $30,000 to $200,000 in 5 years.
I was able to save 40% of my income in July, which is fantastic for a summer month! I was traveling the whole month, and was not frugal at all, with a bunch of expensive hotels and excursions in Alaska, including a seaplane adventure over the fjords!
It helped that I was on a cruise and land excursion for a couple weeks, so lodging and a lot of meals were already covered. Also, not eating meat (except for Alaskan King Crab once, gotta live a little) helped, along with not drinking helped keep costs down.
I saved a bit over $2,000 in July. I'll probably be close to that for August. The only other traveling money tip I have is to not to need to stay in 5 star resorts. Smaller motels and hotels are fine, and often have more character than big chain monstrosities. All I need is air conditioning, wifi, and hot water, anything else is a bonus.
As of now, I'm at 17x expenses for early retirement in Thailand. That's my first FIRE number, and I'm calculating it based on $750 a month (when I lived there, I did it on $500, so it's not a crazy number at all). I could probably live there if I made like $250 a month in income and lived off my investments and followed the 4% rule. I don't think I'll do it, but I draw great comfort from knowing that it's an option.
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