Boy – a guy goes away for a few weeks and the stock markets crash, the government shuts down, and my beloved Redskins go on to crash and burn! I’m never leaving again!!! ;)
Not gonna lie though – it was a great escape for a few weeks spending time with my thoughts and family, and I’m finally ready to pretend I have a real job again, haha…
Ironically this blog made more money while I was away than when I was here thanks to all the New Years Resolutioners, so thanks guys!!! Don’t forget your money needs you all the other times of the year too, not just January 1st-8th!! ;)
Here’s a list of all the stuff I accomplished while away just to remind myself I actually DID do something:
- I decluttered my closet
- I decluttered my emails
- I decluttered my social media accounts (facebook/LinkedIn/twitter)
- I turned 39
- I visited two new cemeteries, one of which held the remains of F. Scott Fitzgerald!
- I watched Home Alone I and Home Alone II with my boys (on repeat…)
- I continued to grow out my beard – now heading into its 5th month!
- I indexed a historical book I like because it had no index and it was driving me CRAZYYYY (<– this is by far the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done in my life btw, and I’m only telling you guys because you might understand?)
- I visited Target during the work days and it was blissful
- And I got my Christmas shopping done for the first time ever before Christmas Eve!
Oh – and my wife also got a new job! With much better pay/opportunity/and telecommuting options – provided the government ever opens back up so she can start it, womp womp…
I’ll tell you this much though – it’s a helluva lot less stressful going without paychecks when you have months of emergency funds saved up! I feel horrible for those living paycheck to paycheck and probably freaked out of their gourds right now :( Just more reason why getting your finances in order is so incredibly important!! You never know what this world (or administration) will bring!! Gotta love your future self enough to make changes *today*!
So that’s what I’ve been up to over here, how about you?? Anything juicy going on with your money or life/love/career??
I heard Jim from RouteToRetire.com pulled the early retirement chord on the 31st – that’s exciting!! I feel like I’m just like him, only I still very much need the money and was playing “pretend” all month, haha…
One last note before I go – I’m gonna try going back to *daily* blogging here for a few weeks and see what happens… My New Years Resolution is to *experiment* more (and FASTER, without second guessing myself 24/7!), and something I’ve noticed lately is that it was much more fun/easy getting my thoughts out in shorter blurbs every day vs. skipping days, so I’m going old school again putting something out Mon-Fri and see if it gets more enjoyable/helpful for everyone.
If not, well, we’ll just pretend it never happened and go back to our usual scheduled programming again! Haha… That’s how experimenting works, right? ;)
Happy happy new year to everyone! I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one!!
UPDATE: If you’re signed up to our newsletter and don’t want to get inundated with daily posts now, sign up to our new *weekly* digest instead so you still catch them all –> jmoney.biz/newsletter // They’ll be going out every Friday from my personal account, and include notes on life/love/business and general self-improvement too.
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Congrats on the month off, and actually making money without working! Hopefully your wife will get to start that new job soon.
thank you sir! hope you had a great end of the year too!
Welcome back and Happy Belated Birthday. Was the cemetery where F. Scott Fitzgerald buried located in Rockville MD -half recalling hearing that several months ago when I saw a play at a near by community center? No new resolutions for me just continue to work on improving my health and the health of my finances. Looking forward to your daily blog.
Yes! Rockville’s St. Mary Church!
And it’s wild because it’s this quaint little cemetery surrounded by the chaos of hustle and bustle all around it where people are probably oblivious that it’s even there… I know I was! I must have driven past it dozens of times without even realizing it!
Pretty interesting background on how F. Scott came to be buried there too, as he wasn’t exactly a saint ;)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-scott-fitzgeralds-long-journey-to-a-rockville-cemetery/2014/09/13/4a97e826-39b3-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html
Happy New Year! Sounds like a productive break. Congrats on your wife’s job. Hopefully things resolve with the gov budget here soon but that is great you are not dependent on the gov or anyone else.
I’ve been losing money in the market and my wife continues to support pumping more in. It is scary to watch but I guess this is when the money is made.
Like you, I am about to turn 39. I got a surprise offer to interview for a “big boy” job that sort of scares me. Not sure if that is good or bad. First child is due in March so part of me feels I should take it if offered for my family’s future. Part of me feels I should stay put in known territory for the beginning of an unknown new chapter as a father.
Lots of convos with the wife about that. That was my break!
oh wow – exciting stuff all around!
I think you’re supposed to be scared of it all – that’s how you know you’re living and growing :) As a father of three, all I’ll say is that while the money/career/wealth is nice, the only thing your kids really want from you is your *time*. So as long as you make that a priority, the rest is fine however way it plays out.
Good luck!! And yes to keep dumping in $$$ while you’re young! As uncle Warren Buffett likes to say – be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. And a ton of people right now sure are fearful!
I successfully completed my 31 days of blogging in December.
https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/31-days-31-blog-posts.html
I’m not going to try to keep up that pace, but I am going ti write more in 2019. I think my brain works better when I’ writing regularly.
YES!!!! Totally true!!! Much easier when it’s consistent for sure – well done!! You even did weekends too – that’s hustling right there :)
Missed you buddy! Congrats on the beard…mine is now four months old. I opened a twitter account…thanks to you..ha ha but I already deleted it. Social media bores me. But again, thanks to you, MMM, and ERE, my 2018 savings rate is up to 75% from 50% in 2017 regardless of the market madness. Also, my heart is with MMM during this difficult time. I have had many stumbling blocks in my life as well. Peace, Love, and Prosperity to us all in 2019.
Haha.. well, out of all the things to stop I’m glad it was Twitter and not those massive savings!! Congrats man!! I want a beer when you hit early retirement, please! :)
I’ve been a DC football fan since eight-year-old me watched Doug Williams absolutely dismantle the Broncos in the ’88 Super Bowl. These last few years, though… you know what they say about neglect and apathy being stronger negative emotions than hate? :( That’s alright; for Christmas, my wife got me Caps tickets for Tuesday against the Flyers. DEFEND LORD STANLEY’S CUP WOOOO
Daily updates is a strong resolution — I hope it goes well!
I welcome you with open arms, my fellow DC’er! Good thing we have other sports here!!
Happy New Year! Happy belated birthday! I’ve missed reading new posts while you were gone but so glad you’re in a position to take time off and be with your family and friends. Looking forward to your next net worth. My husband and I are such rock stars, we spent our New Year’s Eve writing out our financial goals for the year. What can I say, we know how to party. I guess when you have a 5 year old that is going to get up at 6am, staying in and bypassing the NYE sitter fees is an easy choice. Now we prefer to do New Year’s Day football and food at a friend’s house. I calculated our net worth on New Year’s Day and we are perpetually stuck around $20,000. It’s a little frustrating but onward and upward. Happy New Year!
I’m kinda embarrassed and proud at the same time of going to bed at 10pm myself on NYE :) Sometimes it’s worth the pain, and others not! Haha….
Keep going strong on that $$$$ – once it starts compounding it goes a lot faster, don’t worry!
Welcome back and Happy New Year J! Glad you had some nice time off. I agree about the government shutdown. I feel very bad for people who are really depending on that income. But I won’t get too political here. :) Congrats on your wife getting the new job too. Daily blogging! Whew! Ambition!
Thanks friend!! Always love seeing you here :)
Hooray for more early morning motivating posts! Welcome back!
I agree, it’s so nice to have a little cushion for the holidays or a break from work. We were able to really relish the holidays and catch up with tons of friends and each other in large part because we’re finally not worried about taking a few weeks off and what that will do to our bank account.
Been there, done that, never going back! :)
Life is good :)
Happy New Year and Birthday! Jump on da Bears bandwagon if you’re bored. They’re such a fun group to watch.
My resolution for the new year is to just keep eating well. My cholesterol is a bit high, and I’m trying to lower it with diet and exercise only. I really don’t want to have to resort to medication, so wish me luck!
My twin 15-year olds both received their learners permits, so I’ve been helping them learn to drive. It’s been okay so far, but there’s been a couple of times that my heart skipped a beat or ten, haha. My youngest is about to start her club volleyball season, so I’ll be saying goodbye to my weekends until June! That’s okay though because she loves it, and I enjoy watching her play.
Professionally, I got promoted and have officially made my move from worker bee to management (I’m in IT). It’s something that I’ve thought about for a while but never did anything about until last year. It’s definitely different, but hopefully I’m up for the challenge.
My wife is probably going to be looking for a new job this year. Her company hasn’t been as generous with their pocket book in comparison to the additional responsibility she’s had to take on. She’s always been someone who goes above and beyond, and it stinks when her efforts go unrewarded.
GO BEARS!!!
I think Da Bears will always be associated with SNL forever :) I wouldn’t dare want the Skins to show up there as I’m sure it would just be a collage of being made fun of, haha…
Exciting about your new career jump and those twins though!! Can’t even imagine how much crazier the scheduling gets once they’re old enough to do all that stuff… Though I suppose getting their licenses will start helping with that, eh?
I’m not too sure about cholesterol stuff, but if you want to join me in amping your daily steps and exercising we can be accountability buddies :) I just got one of those fitness tracker watch thingies so now i know how much or not I’m moving every day… it’s weirdly addicting, but we’re only on week two so we’ll see if it sticks!
J$ was gone and it was pandemonium in the streets, human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together… Mass hysteria! LOL Welcome back J.
you’re not that far off ;)
Welp…. Go Cowboys! :D
We’re no longer friends.
Welcome back, brother! Sounds like you had a good time off and made some passive income while doing it… awesome!
The historical book indexing is pretty nerdy, but that can be a real pain in the @#$, too. I had to do this with the computer books I wrote a number of years ago and that wasn’t one of my fonder memories. Not sure I would have done it for fun! ;-)
Thanks for the shout-out, too… it’s only been a couple of days, but so far FIRE just feels like a stay-cation. I’d imagine that the extra time to start working on my blog should start to change that in the next couple of weeks though.
Have a great 2019!!
— Jim
PS I decided to stop shaving as well for a little bit. Maybe we’ll have a “beard off” in a couple months!
YOU’RE ON!!!
(But don’t bring the ‘hawk or people might confuse us again!! ;))
Is the market making you reconsider VTSAX at all? The majority of my retirement is in it still.
Nope.
If anything, it’s making me like it more as I don’t have to mess around with figuring out what stocks are good and bad, etc! We’re ALL in for all of them! Haha…
(and also – while it does sting a little – it’s make me appreciate how fortunate we are to even be able to have so much invested (and lost this month!) in the first place…. It’s so easy to get carried away wanting more and more and more and times like this brings us back to reality again :))
My advice, don’t check your balances during market volatility (if you can manage it, don’t even look at the market…I can’t quite bring myself to do that one ^_^) – if you panic and do something rash, you’ll almost certainly lose out….ride it out and keep up your steady contributions, and you’ll be fine =)
(I also have a large majority of my retirement in VTSAX)
Damn, beat me by three minutes
What did I win???
−643.92 (2.76%)
Lol
Welcome back, and happy New Year and Happy belated Birthday!
I also did a bit of decluttering (and cleaning, organizing) during my time off (and wish I had more time off to continue). Doesn’t it feel good to start a new year with less clutter?
Looking forward to reading your daily blog posts.
You know it!
And I’m so glad you’re here and reading the blog! :)
Welcome back! I was wondering when you’d decide to come back! I actually also went offline for much of December, and boy, did that make it hard to return to it when January rolled around.
In November, my husband and I finally were able to start contributing to our retirement again…only to watch as all our money got flushed away, and then some. So it goes. We’ve still got about 30 years that we can recover from our losses, ha ha.
Exactly why you can’t ever time anything too – who knows what this market will bring! :)
But excellent job plowing away… It’ll all come back later, don’t worry.
Welcome Back! Sounds like you made good use of your time off & I hope your wife’s new job will be a good career move.
We just decided to diversify a bit & took out an online CD. 15 months 2.85% thru Syncrony Bank. I like the short term of the CD. Haven’t looked at our Vanguard account in a month! Already know the dismal outlook on that.
Also signed up for 5% cash back on groceries charged to our Discover Card for the next 3 months. Our Chase Freedom card is now resulting in 5% cash back on gasoline and pharmacy charges (hubby gets 3 prescriptions per month).
Look forward to your daily motivating posts!
Happy 2019!
Nice!! You’re more of a hustler than I am as I don’t mess with any of that cash back/c/c stuff :) I keep all my accounts plain and simple else it drives me crazy.
JB, I get your wife’s situation. I filled in as an Interim Supervisor at work for a minimal monthly payment. When the offer came again I stood up for me, asked for an increase in pay for taking on those responsibilities AND reimbursement for a work-related Conference. When the response was a resounding NO, mine was also NO. My final car payment is coming up in a matter of months and with a newly/tweaked budget I’m looking forward to making the difference myself.
JMoney, bout damn time. I don’t post often but I read daily. During your very productive time off, I went back and re-read some of your posts. I’m counting that as education time!! Happy New Year, belated birthday, and Super-Dad points for watching HA & HA2 multiple times with the littles. Waiting anxiously for your net worth update!
Glad to have you here, Steph! And loving that you stood up for yourself a your job!! << muscle emoji goes here :) >>
Happy 39! We were watched Home Alone I and II during the holidays too. It’s a bit of a household tradition to watch these movies. The kids aren’t quite old enough to watch these movies yet.
They’re gonna DIE with laughter once they are!!! I’ve never seen my kids laugh so hard before from anything!! :)
Hello J$,
Happy new year!
Just made your acquaintance (well, your blogging one, can you even say that?) last week, actually.
Given your archive you obviously like stories, so here goes:
Someone mentioned your blog in a comment on another blog I follow (along with MMM I have yet to read), and I needed to kill time at the tail end of a 5-hour trip.
So I began reading.
I read a lot in a week. I think your humor and simplicity kept me in, and for the main topic, well…
Long story short,
– I thought I was savvy about money but now I feel I can do SO MUCH better,
– I’ll see how it turns out but seriously you gave me hope that I might not be obligated to work for the man another 32 to 37 years.
If you’re curious, TL;DR otherwise:
I’ve begun some soul-searching and some budget revisiting. Already applied the following:
– Reassign clearly all my savings with a spreadsheet, even though they sit together in the same account, so I know exactly where I am for my projects
– Remade a budget and identified a few corners to cut already and others to do research on (trick : in my spreadsheet there are no cents – every sum is rounded down for any income and up for any expense – makes a pile of pennies and dimes at the end of the month I can save as well)
I still need to figure out all the rest, especially given that I’m not American so I was often like “Wth is an IRA?” so I need to get to the bottom of it and translate it to useful tools for French me.
How/whether it works out I’ll tell ya in a few months, if you’re interested :)
I wish good luck to your wife: I’d hate that to happen to me, it could have been me and I sympathize a LOT.
GOOD JOB!!
Would love an update in a few months, although I’m pretty sure you’re going to find that your $$$ has increased, especially if you keep reading $$$ blogs :) It starts sinking in your life and can get addictive! Especially if you track your Net Worth like many of us do – it’s an easy way to keep track every month!
(And def. check out MMM and other blogs too – there are sooooo many good ones out there and they all add to your journey! Here are some of my personal favorites: https://budgetsaresexy.com/blogroll/ )
I’m so glad you’re enjoying mine! :)
Welcome back! I took a little break end of year as well which was nice and grew the beard out for two weeks! Longest it’s ever been haha. Had to shave before going back to work though unfortunately.
This was my first year ever finishing Xmas shopping before Xmas Eve too! My family was shocked haha.
Looking forward to what 2019 has in store and crushing the goals I’ve set!
I’ll be rooting you on, good sir!
Although next time I want to see you with *4* weeks of beard growth, please :) You can tell your boss to suck it.
Hi J$, Like everyone else I just want to welcome you back and wish you all the best in 2019. December was a pretty crazy month all around and January is looking much the same. Hope your wife is not among the 800k who are just pawns in someone else’s game.
I can’t believe you’ll be posting 5 days per week. I’m not sure I can read 5 posts per week let alone write em.
It’ll give you more to choose from and more to ignore, haha… Like a choose-your-own-adventure game, but for money :)
(and my wife is most definitely one of the pawns in this game! Only it’s affecting both her current job AND the new one she just signed on to but can’t finalize because there’s no one in HR to finalize it, ugh…. just hoping it all gets cleared up within the next week for the sake of the entire country)
Happy New Year! Haha! I don’t know if it is good or bad. I just found out the government shut down from reading your blog post. I only engage in the news about once every week or two, or when a friend, or sometimes my husband, brings up a hot topic. Then I head over to Google to find out what is going on. Congrats on all the good stuff: decluttering, wife’s new job, getting your shopping done before Christmas eve!
I am excited for your daily blog! I am trying to daily vlog this year (for myself, not publicly) for the first time ever. I am hoping the intentional time set aside will help me stay motivated on my goals daily, and help me reflect and remove challenges/barriers.
One question for you: how did you declutter your SM accounts? Are you removing content from your personal accounts? Defriending/unfollowing accounts?
Very fun! Never know what new projects would turn into – I hope you pull the trigger on it!
RE: Decluttering my accounts — Yup, unfollowing anyone who doesn’t bring me “up” or make me smile/think/enjoy my time while logged on :) And/or if I don’t know them at all, mainly for LinkedIn and Facebook… I’ve actually deleted most of my personal accounts everywhere and now just have my blog-related ones I pay attention to which are a lot more fun, probably because it’s super curated to only those I relate to and enjoy :) Always good to declutter your digital stuff alongside your physical!
I have never thought about decluttering my SM accounts suprisingly. I may have to give this a try in the future! Thanks for sharing.
Happy New Year and welcome back!
Home Alone is the best. I’ve gotten a kick out of watching the Google commercials with Macaulay Culkin and they’re pretty spot on. I finished reading “How to Retire Early with Real Estate” over the holidays and learned a buttload about real estate.
Also, that a 62% savings rate will allow you to retire within 11 years based off of the normal retirement withdrawal assumptions and return rates.
Interesting! I don’t think I knew that…
Welcome back! When you say the blog made more money due to the NY resolutioners, are you talking about random folks from search looking to get their finances right when ended up more on your site and took action than normal?
I decided to run through the finish line b/c I’ve found RPMs to be the highest in December, and then fade in 1Q. From this year own, I plan to take June off as my holiday month off b/c I’ve found June to be slowest.
GL with posting every day! I’ve totally burnt out and am struggling to do 3X a week nowadays.
Probably because you write mini-thesises for all your articles, haha… Mine are much less thought out or deep ;) (And yup to your first question!)
I’ll have a read of course in good time :) and as long as I don’t turn into a greedy harpagon I think I’m down with getting addicted to saving.
About the net worth, well, I need to figure out how to count it, but I’ll be doing it. And figure out both how to get it to increase and how much I need it to be.
To be continued… :)
I will be waiting to hear more from you :)
You’re back! I checked this website an unhealthy number of times over the past month to see if you were writing again. Happy 2019!
Haha – sure am! Thanks for making a guy feel good!
Welcome back!
We were happily tucked in by 9:30 on NYE and thankful that that was an option!
Yay for the new job but sucks that it’s impacted by the shutdown. I’m so glad that at least y’all are doing well enough that it’s not hurting your family the way it’s hurting a whole lot of federal employees right now.
Here’s to filling this new blank slate with good memories and good choices, cheers!
You too, friend!!! I wonder who will be next to produce another babe? ;)
Glad you’re back J! Looking forward to more great posts! :)
Hey, hey. Welcome back and happy belated birthday! Look forward to reading more of your posts. I’ve been around since before your kids so it’s wild seeing how far you’ve come and watching you continue your journey. You have sparked things for me and one is definitely not living paycheck to paycheck. Doesn’t mean we are rich by any means but it is freeing when you’re able to live that way. I have recently taken on a new job and almost doubled my pay. Ya…doubled. Couldn’t believe my own eyes. I have decided I am going to use what I have been using and anything extra is going to savings. I’m able to double my retirement contribution although I’m pretty scared to do that in light of all that’s going on. (haven’t actually done the paperwork for that, to be honest). Biggest change I have done is living within my means. I use CC and take advantage of rewards but I have not paid any interest since 2012. If I can’t pay it off, I don’t buy it. So…thanks for all the wonderful things you share. You are reaching many people.
See ya around – Kari
WOWWW Congrats!!! Double pay is huge!! Get that paperwork submitted!! :)
Too cool you’ve been around for so many years…. You just made my morning.
I’ve been here all this time and had no idea you were a fellow Redskins sufferer. I hope you are at least old enough to have experienced their heyday in the 80’s. Only thing that keeps me going.
Also, I grew up just about 5 miles from F Scott Fitzgerald’s grave on Rockville Pike. Suddenly feeling like old home week today.
I was only a little tyke back then so missed out on all that glory :(
I think you need to come back here and help us get them back on track! :)
Hey, that’s some serious productivity for being on a break, you nerd! Seriously, congrats to your wife on the new job.
I watched home alone 2 with my niece & nephews on Christmas. IDK why but that movie stresses me out. I much prefer Elf. ;-)
I’m seriously excited about 2019 and set up some big goals like create a will, work on writing a book, etc.. Furthermore, I set up clearly defined action steps so to ensure success.
Love the way you experiment with stuff on the blog. Life is dynamic.
Cheers to a rockin’ 2019, J!!
YOU TOO!!!
That book idea is so good for you!!! It would help so many people and will happily promote it for you!! :)
Happy New Year! Glad that you are back.
Good for you getting away with the fam! I was just thinking today ” I can’t imagine a month without my paycheck coming in.” And after 15 days I would be gasping for air. Not trying to get political here but you just don’t do that to people; this is the second time they do it.
Anyway, I am glad to hear about your wife’s new job and opportunities.
My mom, who recently (April 2018) joined my family in the US, finally was able to find a job; just 20hrs a week @ 8.50 per hour. No much for American standards. 7k a year. She couldn’t make it if she wasn’t living with me. But now get this, that amount of money equals 150+ years of work in our former homeland. Sick!
I never thought I could be even remotely thinking about retirement.
Wowwww…. where is y’all’s homeland??
I remember once a colleague from India was visiting and when we all went to Subway for lunch he opted out and didn’t get anything.. When I asked why he said because it was like $30 or $35 spending power back in his own country! I was blown away!
(And agreed about the shut down…. 800,000 lives being messed with right now, insane…)
A rich South American country living in one of the worst economic situations of the southern hemisphere.
:(