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Financial Freedom, Financial Journey, Financial Planning, Investment, Lifestyle, Retirement Planning

March 2017 Non-W2 Income Report and First Quarter Recap

You can go here to read about why we’re sharing our non-W2 incomes on the blog. And you can visit this link to see our past non-W2 income reports.

As anticipated, March was a very great month for us. We received a total of $5,249.31 in non-W2 income. Our international stocks (many of which pay out dividends in larger amounts once a quarter) were responsible for the big jump.

march 2017 non-w2 income report

This month’s number plus the January 2017 and February 2017 numbers have brought our first quarter non-W2 income total to $8,906.89. The monthly average is $2,968.96. With our monthly expenses being around $4,000, this monthly average covers about 74% of our expenses.

We anticipate this percentage will be a little higher by the end of the calendar year. Some of our investments have large dividends/interest payouts bi-annually or annually. Additionally, we continue to make new contributions to most of our accounts. We’ll see as we continue to track these numbers.

April’s chart will look slightly different as I recently did a 401(k) rollover.

We use Personal Capital, a free financial tool, to track our net worth, view our investment performance, analyze our asset allocations and project our retirement goals. I wrote a comprehensive review of Personal Capital in another post. I encourage you to check it out.

Like what you’ve just read? Sign up for my free weekly newsletter to receive new post updates. Posts have been very sparse lately as my family and I are adjusting to a new lifestyle. I hope to resume posting two to three times weekly starting in May. In the meantime, feel free to connect with me on Twitter or Facebook. As always, thanks for reading.

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Financial Freedom, Financial Journey, Financial Planning, Investment, Lifestyle, Retirement Planning

Money Makes Money: February 2017 Non-W2 Income Report

It’s already April and I just got around to sharing our February non-W2 incomes report. A lot has happened in my family in the past month. Some of the changes and adventures included giving my resignation letter to my previous employer and possibly forever saying goodbye to W-2 employment and taking a road trip across the country.

february 2017 non-w2 income

There are two great things I’ve came to love about non-W2 incomes; one being having incomes coming in to cover my expenses while on vacation and that, two, these incomes are location independent (e.g., I can be anywhere in the world and still continue to receive dividend/interest payments.).

You’ve probably noticed the few “$0”s on the table above. First, I was surprised we didn’t receive any dividends/interest payments on either one of our Roth accounts. Second, there was no financial coaching income for February. We were busy preparing for taxes and for the adventure across the country.

All things considered, the total for February was only couple hundred dollars lower than that of January. We are optimistic that the March total will be much higher. Many of our investments either pay dividends/interests quarterly or pay out higher amounts on the quarter mark. Come back to the blog to see the March report soon. You can view my previous non-W2 income reports here.

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Behavioral Finance, Financial Independence, Financial Journey, Financial Planning, Lifestyle, Retirement Planning

Calculate How Much Money You Need to Retire: How Safe is the 4% Withdrawal Rule

For years, my husband and I didn’t know how much money we would need to retire (you can read about our financial journey in an earlier article I wrote by clicking here). We had our guesses, with numbers anywhere between $3 million to $5 million dollars. Our logic was that by the time we’re ready to retire, our primary residence home would worth $1 million dollars (all in equity). We would also have $2 million or so dollars invested in the stock market and the dividends and interest yields from these investments would be enough to cover our annual expenses.

In that article, I also mentioned about having learned about the financial independence movement in the middle of 2016. Since then, my husband and I’ve decided that we would reach financial independence once our net worth meets 33X our annual expenses. However, in that article, I didn’t mention how we came up with the number, 33 or why we chose this particular number.

In this article, I’m sharing with you the 4% safe withdrawal rule (SWR) and what this number means for my family’s situation. In the past several months, I’ve read many written documents on the 4% SWR (some of them were more technical than others). It took me a while to understand the different strategies behind this financial planning tool. Feel free to ask me questions on the comment section below and I’ll try my best to respond and/or refer you to further readings.

The Origin of the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rule

After you’ve spent years saving toward retirement, how do you know how much money you can safely withdraw annually so that you will not outlive your money?

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Financial Independence, Financial Journey, Financial Planning, Lifestyle, Money Habits, Money Psychology, Purchase Decisions

Three Ways to Enjoy Today While Building and Maintaining a High Savings Rate

On the Path to Financial Independence

As you work toward your financial goals, does it sometimes seem like you’re sacrificing too much today just so you can have a better life tomorrow?

If that’s the case for you, you might be having mixed feelings. I know I’m too familiar with these feelings. A bunch of high days were mixed in with a bunch of low days. There were times when I wished my days away as I eagerly waited to taste the life of having reached millionaire status. During those periods of time, I was not living in or enjoying the present moment. I did not want to spend any money other than the absolute necessary. All I focused on was reaching the million-dollars goal. In that process, I neglected myself in many ways. I went through emotional struggles and have shed lots of tears.

high savings rate

The path to financial independence is not an easy one. There’s no shortcut. Even those who are very disciplined and hardcore (with high savings rates) still take anywhere from 7 to 20 years to get there.

For some of us, we’re okay taking our time. A 20-year horizon is not so bad. For some of us, even a two-year time frame is almost unbearable (and each of us have our own reasons). If you’re in the latter group, sometimes, it’s easy to get into the danger zone of depriving ourselves when we think we’re only being frugal (the gray area between being frugal and feeling self-deprived can be blurry).

When prolonged self-deprivation is left unnoticed, we could be putting our health and our financial plans in jeopardy. Not only is self-deprivation unhealthy, this behavior can lead to the resentment of oneself and others who are in the same team as you (such as your spouse and/or children).

Recently, I caught myself going down the self-deprivation slope. My emotions were strong. In this article, I’m sharing my story. I also recommend three ways for you to stay on course to reach your savings goal without going into self-deprivation mode.

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Financial Empowerment, Financial Freedom, Financial Journey, Money Psychology, Purchase Decisions, Women and Financial Literacy

My Financial Transformations

Financial Independence Mindset

It’s been six months since I learned about financial independence (FI) and this way of life. What does financial freedom look like? How would you structure your life when you no longer have to answer to an employer and/or manager? You can read about this lifestyle in an earlier article I wrote here.

In this article, I’m sharing six financial transformations I have gone through since I became aware of FI. These observations and self-reflections surprised and fascinated me. I used to think I was stuck in a certain way and that was how I was going to be. Nowadays, I believe in the transformative power of adapting a financial independence mindset and the psychological freedom that comes from living life this way.

financial independence financial transformation

Six Financial Transformations

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