Early Retirement, Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Financial Planning, Lifestyle, Marriage and Money, Money Habits, Money Psychology, On Investing, Retirement Planning

Annual Recap: Year 2017 Non-W2 Incomes

Happy 2018, readers. I hope you’re having a beautiful start to the new year.

This time of the year is magical for me. I enjoyed sharing extra special moments with families and friends, combined with delicious, comfort food (for weeks in a row). I also loved the holiday decors both at home and while being out and about. These moments can really be savored all year long. Sleeping until 9 a.m. has been typical for my family and I this past week as our bodies recovered from all the festivities.

Finishing the Old and Starting the New

As of yesterday, we’ve taken care most of our financial matters for year 2017, with the exception of paying property taxes and filing for tax return. We made purchases in my i401k account, rebalanced our investment portfolio, updated our financial accounts and made a projected budget for this year. So far, the two biggest, one-time expenses we’re looking at are money going toward paying for two international trips. Other than the usual recurring basic expenses, we also have several home renovation projects we want to accomplish.

December 2017 Non-W2 Incomes Report

Continue Reading

Spread the message. Encourage others to begin their financial learning!
Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Financial Planning, Giving Back, Home Improvements, Lifestyle, On Investing, Retirement Planning

November 2017 Non-W2 Incomes Report

Our Services in the Community (also available to you)

November was a very rewarding and joyful month in my household. My husband and I started the month off offering free financial and fitness coaching services. In the spirit of the holiday season, this is our way of giving and expressing our thanks to those we care about and to you, readers of our blogs (I’m linking my husband’s blog here; He recently shared quarterly update on our total net worth on his blog).

There’re two more weeks left if you’d like my husband (and/or I) to take a look at your current financial situation and provide you a roadmap helping you reach your financial goals in year 2018 and beyond. To learn more about this offer, visit an older post here. We’ve already gifted about 50 hours of time so far between the two of us.

november income

On the topic of services, my husband and I have also attended several orientation sessions in preparation to do more volunteering related to financial education and financial literacy in the upcoming year. Some of the organizations we are networking with are Junior Achievement and Caritas (an organization to prevent and end homelessness).

Some Life Updates

Continue Reading

Spread the message. Encourage others to begin their financial learning!
Early Retirement, Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Financial Journey, Travel

August – October 2017 Non-W2 Incomes Reports and Life Updates

Feeling Thankful

Before getting to the contents of this post, I’m taking a moment going back to my previous post on Scarcity Mentality. I was flooded with heartfelt tears reading all your comments and personal stories you shared with me through emails, social media and on the blog. I was touched by your kind (and encouraging) words and support. Your voices reminded me that we’re here to lift each other up. Your sharing reminded me of the many reasons I keep going with this blog.

Even though both my husband and I have retired from our W2 employment, every day we have so many activities going on. Some of these involve volunteering (mostly providing guidance on effective money management for disadvantaged families), promoting financial literacy in schools, getting involved in our communities, raising a toddler and doing self learning. When being asked about how my retirement has been, my typical response is, “busier than ever.”

In general, producing contents for this blog hasn’t been on the priority list. I have many topics I’d like to share on the blog, but finding the time to do research, write and edit has been challenging. Your comments, feedback and stories have been the most rewarding part of blogging. So, I want to thank you for taking your time to share with me and other readers of this blog. Your words inspire me. Your stories and courage are worth sharing. Thank you for being on this journey with me.

Life with the Seibolds

Next, I want to give you a snapshot of what has been going on in my family since my husband retired back in September. In the month of October, we took a one-month long trip to the Northwest, including visiting Washington and Canada. The fall colors and food were amazing in all the places we visited. This was the longest trip we’ve taken. We certainly enjoyed the luxury of slow travel. Our most memorable times were a day trip out to Mount Baker and visiting an apple orchard. Once we arrived home, we took one full week to recover from the trip and to take care of unattended errands.

As I’m writing this, our family routine is finally back to normal. This past week we have been busy doing research and going to home centers. My husband and I are taking on a huge project remodeling our home, and we plan to do most of the work ourselves. This will be a very interesting and challenging experience for both of us. Prior to this work, neither one of us have really picked up any tool other than those that came in a cheap tool box set. We’ll be setting up a wood shop in our garage and shed. The next project on our agenda is to build a farmhouse dining table and a bench. If that goes well, we’d move on to build a breakfast nook. The first DIY project we worked on was replacing the flooring in the laundry room.

Yesterday, we visited Home Depot looking at table saws, jig saws, miter saws, orbital sanders, drills and safety tools. I feel proud as I’m writing out those words. Even just a year ago, I would’ve never thought myself becoming a handy/wood-making person. But never say never, right?

My family and I also recently celebrated Ruby’s 3rd birthday.

Personal Finance in the Seibold Family

In the world of personal finance, we have several pending items on the to-do list prior to the end of the year. These including finish funding our HSA and opening a solo 401(k).

Some of you have asked about our health insurance situation. My husband’s COBRA ended in October and we’re currently on a health care plan through Healthcare.gov. We aren’t receiving any subsidies for the month of November or December. Our annual income for 2017 surpassed the set income criteria. Now through December 15th, it’s open enrollment period for year 2018 on Healthcare.gov. We are planning to finish the application by the end of this month. By then, I’ll have a lot more to share on the blog.

Non-W2 Income Reports

Continue Reading

Spread the message. Encourage others to begin their financial learning!
Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Financial Journey, Lifestyle, Retirement Planning

July 2017 Non-W2 Incomes Report

The days in August quickly passed by. My husband and I have been working on some new business adventures and we’re looking forward to sharing more details. In addition to that, my family and I will be closing on a real estate transaction later today! I haven’t write about real estate investing for a while. You can read some of the topics I wrote last year. I’ll be sharing more about our experiences and lessons learned on this particular one in future posts.

Below is a table capturing our July 2017 non-W2 incomes report.

July 2017 non-w2 income report

The total number was somewhat surprising. We just had a fabulous month back in June and expected the July number to be similar to those of January or February, 2017.

What was new in July? First, my husband’s financial coaching business has been picking up. He has been enjoying every moment of those consulting sessions. Second, we received a large payment from our affiliate sponsors.

This is the 8th month we’ve been tracking our non-W2 incomes. You can view our past income reports here.

We use Personal Capital, a free financial tool, to track our net worth, view our investment performance, analyze our asset allocations and project and reevaluate our retirement goals. I wrote a comprehensive review of Personal Capital on another post. I encourage you to check it out. According to Google Analytics, that post is a readers favorites. I plan to do an update on this financial tool and share more recent images on the blog sometime in September. Look out for that, too.

Like what you’ve just read? I encourage you to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter that goes out every Monday to receive updates on new posts. Please share my blog and contents with your family and friends, too. Financial literacy is one of the best gifts you can give yourself and loved ones.

To sign up for my free weekly newsletter, use the newsletter button provided below or go to the website’s sidebar.


Embark on a journey learning the financial language, find out what's financially possible for you and become a champion managing your finances!

Spread the message. Encourage others to begin their financial learning!
Early Retirement, Financial Freedom, Financial Independence, Financial Journey, Financial Planning, Investing, Lifestyle, Money Habits, Retirement Planning

This is Financial Freedom: June 2017 Non-W2 Incomes Report & Bi-annual Recap

In this article, I share our financial freedom number, our 2017 bi-annual recap of non-W2 incomes and the wealth building strategies we use to grow our daily worth.

Our Financial Freedom Number

A little over a year ago, I started taking my financial learning seriously (you can read my story here). I read that financial freedom (financial independence) is reached when one has enough passive and/or residual incomes to cover all basic expenses. Certainly, “basic” is a relative word, however you’d like to define that for yourself or your household.

My husband and I have calculated that our basic monthly expenses is about $3,500. This number includes $1400 for housing (utilities included), $1,000 on groceries plus dining out/entertainment once per week; $300 on personal/household expenses, $80 on phone services, $250 on various insurances we carry, $200 on vacation, $120 on gas/car, $50 for charity, and $100 on the unaccounted items/events (e.g., gifts).

June 2017 Non-W2 Incomes Report and Bi-annual Recap

Once we summed up our June 2017 non-W2 incomes and did a bi-annual recap, the numbers in front of us confirmed that we’ve reached the financial freedom stage.

Below is a chart detailing our June report.

June 2017 non-w2 incomes report

For months, we anticipated that June was going to be an amazing month for us. To our surprise, the total amount we received way exceeded our expectations. This number is bigger than the one from our December 2016 report (typically, December is supposed to be the best month for dividends/interest payouts).

If you follow our previous 2017 non-W2 income reports up to June, our average is $3,528.23 = [($8,021.13 + $2,142.44 + $2098.93 + $5,249.31 + $1,704.66 + $1,952.92)] / 6 months

This $3,528.23 number is very close to our estimated monthly expenses. By definition, my family and I have currently reached the financial freedom stage.

Wealth Building Strategies We Use

My husband and I attribute this favorable return on our investments on the following factors:

(1) We continue to have a high savings rate;

(2) We continue to build our investment portfolio using our savings;

(3) Having a well-managed investment portfolio (we slightly adjusted our asset allocations back in September 2016 – types of equities, percentages and diversification);

(4) We continue to learn new things financially and put new knowledge into actions;

(5) We openly talk about and discuss money topics with others (once in a while we learn something new in the process); and

(6) 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 on another post. I encourage you to check it out.

Like what you’ve just read? I invite you to go to my sidebar and sign up for my free weekly newsletter to receive new post updates.


Embark on a journey learning the financial language, find out what's financially possible for you and become a champion managing your finances!

Spread the message. Encourage others to begin their financial learning!