Quarterly Life & Spending Update: Q3 2022 + Book Giveaway!

Hey everyone!  We’re back with another quarterly update. Like last time, we’ll focus today’s post on a life & spending update this week and then net worth update next post.  

What Happened in Q3 2022

• We made it out to the cabin two more times this summer (July and August) for swimming lessons, raspberry picking, Saskatoon berry picking, lake walks, and sand castle building.   
• Our little lady decided this was the summer to swim on her own.  She is VERY proud that she can now dive and swim by herself.  Water wings, they are all yours Parker! She has become obsessed with diving goggles.
• We went out camping twice this summer.  First up was the annual ChooseFI Alberta camping trip which I’d guess had 40 people in attendance.  It was great to connect with others and chat openly about personal finance.  The second trip was a last minute decision to join our friends and camp and then explore the Royal Tyrell Museum the next day.  Oh my.  I normally am not the best museum enthusiast, but I loved this museum!  It was massive and had so many amazing dinosaur fossils on display.  Highly recommend and we will be making this an annual trip.
• Finn and one of her buddies hosted their very first lemonade stand!  They made a fantastic duo and made $85!! I don’t think any of us could believe it.  After splitting the proceeds, paying the “parent tax” ($3 each for supplies), and designating $5 each to go to the local Humane Society, they netted $35 each.  Finn was adamant about purchasing this $10 toy we saw at the store a few week prior and invested the rest.  She sat on my lap and we invested in her informal trust so she could own a little piece of every company in the world.  
• Finn has also started preschool which has been….going.  She hates drop off but she loves being there.  It’s a very love-hate relationship.  From a financial side, thanks to Alberta’s recent affordable child care subsidies it costs $0/month from our end for her to attend preschool, woohoo!
• We saw a flight deal for non-stop flights from Calgary to Amsterdam open up so we jumped on them and decided on Portugal for our winter travel plans!  We will be heading there for 2 months (late January – late March) and will try to rent out our home while we’re gone to offset costs. (Whoooooo’s eyeing a trip to the Canadian Rockies?!)  For the first few weeks our plans were changing every day but I think we finally have our itinerary figured out now. 
• September is larch season around here so we went on our annual family larch hike with some friends to see those beauties.  

• I recorded my first international guest interview!  Yale from the Yale Chen YouTube channel reached out to interview us about our FIRE journey.  Yale is based out of Thailand and runs a youtube channel in Asia for Chinese speaking audiences from Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and more. They have over 240,000 subscribers on Youtube and around 140,000 on Instagram.  It’s so cool to know that people literally on the other side of the world are (hopefully) being inspired by our story.  The FIRE really is spreading.  You can check out the interview here (note my portion is in English with mandarin subtitles). 
• The obvious big life update this quarter is deciding to pull the plug on returning to the corporate world and officially enter the world of early retirement!

Taking Stock Book Giveaway

Jordan Grumet, aka DocG, truly has a way with words – whether it’s speaking on his amazing podcast (Earn & Invest) or through written words in his new book. It is very clear he is trying his best in this next chapter of life (post-FI) to help out others, which truly is admirable.

While this book likely falls in the personal finance category, it isn’t primarily about money. Rather, it’s is about valuing the one life you have and how you can shape how you think about money to be able to focus on what’s truly important. Figuring out what YOU value is one of the most important things out there – the sooner you can master that, the better.

As a hospice doctor, Doc has heard the stories of those in their last moments. He has had a career listening to the regrets of those who are dying. Not only has he been able to create a successful career in medicine – he’s also been able to figure out what truly is important in life through his patients. He graciously writes about what he has learned over the years so that we may apply the wisdom to our own lives to learn how to live a purposeful life without regrets.

From the amazing foreword by Vicki Robin to the very last chapter – this well written book with leave you with many takeaways. One of my favourite things about Doc G’s podcast is how it is so evident that he puts in a ton of time ahead of recording to research each podcast guest and it’s just as clear that much care and devotion was put into his book as well.

Doc has graciously provided me with a copy of the book and I’d highly recommend it. Doc G is also looking to gift an Audible copy of his new book to a lucky blog reader. In order to be considered for the book, please answer the following question in the comments below:

“What do you think the most common regret is that Doc G heard from his patients?”

Spending Report

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

• We installed a remote start on our new-to-us Subaru Outback.  While we technically don’t *have* to rush out of the door to be at a meeting at a specific time and instead can pick and choose when we want to use our vehicle, this is definitely a discretionary spending purchase this native Floridian is going to make if I’m living through Canadian winters!   This cost ~$550 for the two remotes plus installation.
• We purchased our annual pass for a provincial park nearby which cost $100.
• We all had our last round of dental cleanings while I still had my supplemental health plan with work in place.  My work covered 70% and our remaining 30% of the bill was $375.
• Finn started preschool so we paid for June 2023 as an upfront deposit ($195) and $80 for materials for the year.  As noted above, her preschool ends up costing us $0/month with the subsides in place, so we should be getting that deposit back.  
• Passports for the two kiddos cost $115.
• We purchased my mom’s flight to come visit us in October for $400.
• We ended up purchasing our 3 round trip flights from Calgary – Amsterdam (Parker is free as he’s under 2) vs using some of our points. Total cost was $2,000.
• Nic signed up for an adult soccer league for $215 which runs weekly from October – April. 

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 Q1 spending report is shaping up.  

After adding everything up, we spent $8,761 this quarter.  If we multiply this by 4 and add in $5,000 for the kiddos RESPs it’s actually quite eerie how close we are to $40,000 ($40,044). 

As for Portugal, we are estimating that we are going to spend $6,500 on this 2 month trip between airfares, airbnbs, and car rentals (of which $2,000 is reported here so far).  This is way over our annual travel budget!  However, we are hoping to rent out our house while we are gone to help offset some of these costs. We are hopeful that we can net a least $4,000 from our house while we’re gone to lower our overall net cost to $2,500 for this trip.  That’s more like it.  

If we do rent our house out (I am hopeful, Nic is much more pessimistic about it all) I’m quite confident we can keep our annual spending around/below $40,000 for the year again.  

That’s it for now!  Remember to comment below answering the following the question if you’d like to win a free copy of Taking Stock!

“What do you think the most common regret is that Doc G heard from his patients?”

Support This Blog

If you liked this article and want more content like this, please support this blog by sharing it.  Not only does it help spread the FIRE, but it lets me know what content you find beneficial.  Writing is NOT my strong suit and it honestly takes me hours to write each post so the more encouragement the better!  Engaging in the comments below keeps me motivated.  You can also support this blog by subscribing to receive emails anytime a new post is published.  Thank you FImily!

We believe in stacking up life hacks to keep your enjoyment levels to the max without depleting your bank account.  Here are some ways to further educate yourself and save thousands of dollars over your lifetime by making some simple adjustments:

• Investing Newbies: Check out our free Investing 101 Series.
• How much are you paying for your phone plan?  Canadians, learn more about Public Mobile, and see how we are paying $3/mo for our cell phone plan.
• How much are you paying for internet?  Canadians, learn more about the various Independent Service Providers out there to see who services your area so you can lower your monthly bills.
• How much are you paying for home insurance?  We were able to reduce our rates by 25% by switching over to Square One Insurance.  If you live in BC, AB, SK, MB, and ON, check out Square One for your home insurance, landlord insurance, and/or tenant insurance.  Use this link to receive an extra $15 off your quote.  (Note that you must use this link to start the process to get the $15 off even if you prefer to pay over the phone.)

Sharing is caring!