Quarterly Life & Spending Update: Q1 2023

Hey everyone!  It’s been awhile (this time it’s thanks to back end issues switching over our mailing program to send out email notifications for new posts to subscribers – always something!) but we’re back with another quarterly update. We’ll focus today’s post on a life & spending update this week and then a net worth update next post.

What Happened in Q1 2023

• Portugal, obvs! If you missed our other Portugal posts, you can find them here:
  • Our Itinerary: Two Months In Portugal
  • Our Cost Breakdown: Two Months In Portugal
• The beginning of the year meant prep for Portugal.  What does this entail you ask?
  • Packing Our Travel Bags
    • We managed to have 2 adults and 2 kiddos stuff for two months in 3 carry on bags!  We basically all brought the following clothes: 3 pairs of pants, 3 t-shirts, 2 long sleeve shirts, 1 pair of shorts (didn’t need), 1 bathing suit (didn’t need for the adults), 1 pair of sneakers, 1 toque, 1 pair of mits, 1 sweater, and 1 rain jacket.  The kiddos also had hats and sandals.  One bag of toiletries.   We also had various kid related items such as an ergo carrier, a slumberpod, a night light, medicine, sunscreen, soothers, stuffies, an iPad, snacks, water bottles, some small toys/figurines/stickers/books. Since we also had a rental car during most of our trip that meant two car seats in tow anddddd a double stroller! Phew!  Call us pack mules!  We also managed to pack a sleeve of diapers into one of the car seats on the way out from Calgary.  
    • Looking back, the only item we wish we brought but didn’t was slippers. 
  • Packing Up Our House
    • Thankfully our basement is quite spacious and has an office/gym room that we used as our personal storage room.  We swapped out the door handle to one with a key/lock and filled the room up with allllll our personal belongings throughout the house.  Packing up wasn’t too bad as there was the excitement factor and we could space it out over time.  Unpacking wasn’t as fun as we were jet-lagged and just wanted our house back to normal. 
  • Finding Tenants
    • Technically we signed everything with our tenants back in December but there was still a bit of back and forth conversation leading up to the trip.  
  • Creating a Tenant User Document
    • Crazy Court created a 10 page document outlining pretty much anything anyone would ever need to know about our house.  Yes, it really is a 10 page document..! As you can imagine, this took quite a bit of time to create but I’m glad it’s done so if we decide to rent our house out in the future the bulk of the work is done and it would just need updating going forward.  Thankfully this work paid off as we didn’t hear a peep from the tenants once they moved in.  
  • Prepping For The Trip
    • Crazy Court again created a few spreadsheets.  ME?!?!  Noooooo!  One was a cost tracker which outlaid our costs and information about our flights, accommodations, and car rentals.  Another document was for all our credit card info for which car rentals and flights were booked with what in case we had any issues. And another sheet was more for things to do in each of the 5 locations we were staying in.  Anytime we’d come across a website with some good tidbits or the name of a spot to check out we’d add it to that locations respective tab.
  • Then of course, there was the trip itself!  We probably should create a full post detailing the trip itself but here’s our overall recap in case I’m too lazy:
    • Our mission was to explore a country we’ve never been to while escaping the Canadian winter.  Check! We didn’t really have any set “plans” for the trip and the idea was to “slow travel” aka live like a local.
    • The best way to recap the trip is this: bakeries, beaches, and playgrounds. The majority of our outings entailed these three categories.
      • We personally liked Bolas de Berlim (sugar donuts) and Bolos de Arroz (rice cake that I’d call a corn muffin with sugar on top) more than Portugal’s infamous Pastel de Nata (egg custard).  Don’t get me wrong, we still ate plenty of Pastel de Nata’s!  Man oh man, Portuguese sure love their sweets.
      • The beaches overall were lovely.  They were not crowded this time of year but we could imagine them being packed in the summer.  The rock formations in Lagos were fantastic. The calmest and our favourite were surprisingly little coves along the Silver Coast (which is known world wide for their insanely large waves). The dirtiest beaches were up north near Porto (they have sandzonies, as I like to call them, driving around collecting debris from the sand). It definitely looked like the cause of the debris was coming from garbage being washed up from the ocean, which is just so sad and depressing.
      • Man, Lisbon’s playground scene is on point.  All the playgrounds are within green spaces and next to each playground is a cafe that serves coffee and alcohol.  Some of the parents would be off to the side having beers at 11am while the kiddos play around.  When I say some, I definitely am not speaking about Nic or I ha – I wish!  Note you will not find anything green in the “core” part of the city but along the outskirts there’s loads.  Outside of Lisbon, the playgrounds we’re as picturesque but we were still able to find plenty to roam around.  In Madeira, all the playgrounds are boat themed which was cute.  
    • Our highlight was Madeira Island.  Our unexpected joy was Peniche.  Our hyped up let down was Lagos.  Our quite beach town was Arcozelo.  Our “European Charm” was Lisbon.
    • Weather this time of year was about 60/40.  A little more than half the days were sunny and absolutely lovely.  We’d be out all day long and feel really great.  The others were cloudy/rainy/windy and we struggled to find things to do with the kiddos (we aren’t big church, museum, or mall people).  Many people would be sitting at a cafe for hours, but with two kids that simply is not happening.  Most families likely wait out the weather at home, but at an unfamiliar Airbnb, this also isn’t ideal with kids.
    • It was a lot more crowded than we were expecting – can’t imagine what it is like in the summer! No thanks!  
    • Considering the hype about Portugal and it’s low prices, it wasn’t as affordable as we imagined – especially when everything is increased by 45% when you factor in the $CAD/Euro exchange rate!  Some things, like food, were quite reasonably priced in Euros, but when you convert it back to Canadian dollars it’s about the same. Housing prices have spiraled out of control and I truly do feel bad for Portuguese people trying to keep up with expat money flooding in.  As a visitor, I couldn’t help but feel like we were only adding to the stress.  
    • Two months travelling with two kids under 5 is a LOOONNNNGGGGG time to be away.  This was not a vacation for us.  We were simply parenting in an unfamiliar location.  Not complaining, just stating a fact that parents should realize.
    • We definitely all struggled at various points but it was amazing to see how we all got through our difficult times.  Even though we live a relatively slow paced lifestyle, it was harder than we imagined to “slow down”.  But, once we did, we started to find a manageable groove.  Definitely more screen time and treats than our normal at home.  We missed our community of friends and kid related activities in our town.
    • Going forward, I think 3-4 weeks is our sweet spot for the next few years and then will ramp the amount of time up once the kids are a bit older. It’s just hard to know that a 3 week trip will end up costing more than a 2 month trip when you strip out the short-term rental income. 
    • So, are we pulling an Our Rich Journey and moving to Portugal?! Nope! That was never the idea behind this trip.  While we had a great time, made amazing memories, and avoided the snow, travelling sure does make us appreciate all that we do have back at home.  

Spending Report

Here are the larger one off expenses we encountered this quarter:

• Pretty much everything having to do with the prep for the Portugal trip.  As outlined in our cost breakdown post, we shelled out $6,500 for the flights, accommodations, transit, and all one-off costs ahead of time (which was offset by $4,400 of rental income).
• We bought some digital photo frames for our parents for their birthdays this year.
• One of my dear friends had family that was impacted by the earthquakes in Turkey, so we donated to their GoFundMe page.  
• We signed Finn up for Fall soccer.
• We went to the Oceanarium aquarium while in Lisbon – highly recommend!
• Nic and I both got our teeth cleanings completed in Lisbon.
• When we came back, we had some minor car repairs to fix on our car.
• We bought some kid shelving cubes for their rooms.
• Our two year car registration was up for renewal. 

Overall Spending

Since June 2021 was when I first started parental leave we decided that July 1st – June 30th will be how we tally up our spending in our post-FIRE world. So let’s see how our “Q3” spending report is shaping up.

After adding everything up, we spent $10,816 this quarter.  Plus we contributed $5,000 in the kiddos RESPs for a total spend of $15,816.  Crikey!!

This puts us at a total spend of $31,353 during our first 9 months of early retirement.  In Q4 we still have ~$4,500 for property taxes and car insurance due along with our typical monthly spending.  We’re also planning to purchase a new laptop along with some flights to Colorado to visit family.  

I’m purposefully not including our income for the year in these quarterly updates.  At the end of the year (June 2023) I’ll tally not only our overall spend for the year but our overall income for the year as I’m quite interested to see how those final numbers look.

That does it for today! Any questions for us?

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