January was an action packed month! We spent the whole month abroad. On New Years Eve, we flew to Buenos Aires for the start of our 6 week trip to South America and Antarctica. We were actually in the air over Brasil at midnight, which was an interesting experience. We thought there may be some sort of New Years celebration on the plane, but besides some party hats and banners, almost everyone slept right through it. Once in Buenos Aires, we had only a few days before we embarked on our cruise to Antarctica. We were nervous about spending 16 days on a ship, but surprisingly being on the ship t ..read more

December felt like it flew by. It kinda seems like that every year, but this one was particularly fast. At the beginning of the month, we went on a weekend trip out of state with some friends to the Smoky Mountains. This was either our third or fourth visit to the Smoky Mountains National Park, and each time we see different awesome scenery. After that, we were out of town for about a week on a Caribbean cruise in the middle of the month with our families. This was a surprise trip that we booked as a gift for them. This was only my second ever cruise. It went well overall, but we did miss one ..read more

November was a quiet month. Besides a day trip out of the state (to WV to meet up with some friends for the afternoon), we spent the entire month at home in Virginia. We did a lot of hiking and got a lot of work done for the business. Thanksgiving was a good time spent with friends and family. We had a lot to be thankful for this year. We also started compiling all of our business expenses and deductions for the year in preparation for tax season, which is always a pretty time consuming process. Despite some ups and downs throughout the year with various metrics, our business overall keeps doi ..read more

October was a good month. I’ve had an increase in net assets and net worth almost every October since I started tracking my net worth, and this month was no exception. It seems that both income and investments are usually pretty good at this time of year. Another reason October is a good month is that it’s my birth month. This year I turned 35, which is hard to believe! Whitney helped make my birthday very special this year with lots of festivities. It was a good time celebrating with family and friends Besides my birthday, the month was pretty quiet. We didn’t have any big trips planned or ma ..read more

At the end of August we wrapped up our most recent long international trip in Europe. We’ve taken many multiple month international trips in the last 5 years, but this one was really special (why? keep reading). If you haven’t read about our prior trips and the associated expenses, you may be interested in those as well: 5 months traveling around the world in 2018 – $37/day (average for my expenses) 4 months traveling around Europe in 2019 – $46/day (average for my expenses) 2 months traveling around Mexico in 2021 – $56/day (average for my expenses) 2.5 months traveling around Latin America ..read more

At the beginning of September, we finished up our road trip to our last national park in Michigan, plus visiting friends in Wisconsin. Soon after we got home from the road trip, we flew to Las Vegas for annual The Traveler’s Conference. This conference is always one of our favorite times of the year, and this year was no exception. We met some new friends and reconnected with a lot of old ones as well. Even though we always look forward to TravCon, it’s also a bit of a relief when it’s over. The endless food, drinks, and late nights are great for a few days, but not for any more than that. Onc ..read more

We finished our 10 week European honeymoon near the end of August. At the beginning of the month, we finished up our time in Norway with a roadtrip around the southwestern part of the country. We started in Bergen but then spent about 10 days driving all around and through the fjords, mountains, and glaciers. This part of the trip was wonderful with a lot of hiking and beautiful views. After leaving Norway, we spent 5 days in Copenhagen followed by 5 days in Stockholm. Both were really cool cities to visit but felt underwhelming after such an incredible experience in Norway. Whitney and I ..read more

The Housing Market The housing market has been insane since 2020, and everyone seems to have an opinion about what the future holds. No matter what your opinion on it is, there’s no denying that things are really out of whack and that this is an anomalous situation. Houses are even more unaffordable now than they were prior to the housing market crisis in 2008. The median home price is now over 80% higher than at the peak in 2007, despite cumulative inflation being only about 42% and real median income up less than 10% since then. Meanwhile, rent prices have increased, but not nearly to the ex ..read more

We spent the month of July continuing on our 10 week European honeymoon. After leaving Switzerland at the end of June, we headed to Slovenia next — but not without some complications along the way. To get to Slovenia, we had a flight connection in Belgrade, Serbia. Unfortunately, our flight from Zurich to Belgrade was delayed, which caused us to miss our connection to Ljubljana. Normally that wouldn’t be a huge deal, but there were no more flights to Slovenia that evening, so we were stuck in Serbia for the night along with about 100 other people that missed connections there. Getting a hotel ..read more

The long awaited update is here! I’m past due for an update on how far ahead I am financially by choosing to go on an income based student loan plan (rather than pay off my student loans ASAP), while instead choosing to invest heavily at the beginning of my career. My original article about being ahead by over $20,000 in 3.5 years of income based student loan payments got a lot of attention. This was for a variety of reasons: Some still think that advocating for investing instead of paying down debt quickly is irresponsible and that I shouldn’t be writing about it. I believe that this critic ..read more