Saving Archives - Traveling Wallet

16Jan 2017 by The Roamer No Comments

2016 Goals: Year End Review

Finance, Reading, Saving, Travel, Yearly Review Series

It's January, and you know what that means. Goals for 2016 This past year I decided to try something new. I had read that I could be more focused if I just chose one goal and really bore down on it for a whole month. It sounded interesting and logical. It sounded like I would get more, deeper work done. It was also a way to avoid my natural tendency to overload myself with goals. The year before I had jot down 24. Instead this year I could only choose 12 goals for the year. (more…)

09Jan 2017 by The Roamer 6 Comments

Net Worth Update : Our growth in 2016

Continuous improvement, Finance, Saving

Hey Traveling Wallet readers, It's net worth update time. When I first posted my net worth out for the world to see, I wasn’t so sure how I felt about it. I'll be honest I'm still a bit paranoid about the whole thing. It’s probably not a surprise that I feel like I am leaving myself a bit exposed. While I am not sharing my net worth here monthly I do track it regularly. Finally, I decided that giving a yearly snap shot was probably not so bad. (& since Mr. Roamer is on board, then all engines go) Today I will be sharing the growth we saw in the last 12 month period. Sometimes, a year can just fly by, but it turns out 365 days is a lot of time…

05May 2016 by The Roamer 24 Comments

Big Savings & Happiness, Can you have both?

Counter Culture, Finance, Saving

Last year we saved $72,360. (Deep breath) You have to give it a moment to let it sink in. (more…)

13Mar 2016 by The Roamer 6 Comments

No employer match, Who cares?

401K, Maximizing money, Saving

I was just working on our Net Worth post and I was looking at this graph. [caption id="attachment_1653" align="alignnone" width="313"] Traveling Wallet's asset allocation[/caption] and it just made me feel like man what a mistake! Your assets graph made you feel like what a mistake? Really?!?!? Yeah it did, and it's that little orange section right there. (more…)

11Dec 2015 by The Roamer 16 Comments

Getting Laid………..OFF

Finance, Saving

The one gift you always hope to receive before the holidays is more time off. Of course, that's paid time off. What you don't hope for is that you walk in at the start of your shift on Monday right before the holidays to receive a big fat lay off. Poor timing. It definitely wins the award for that. ..and while I was still in utter shock I was also trying really hard not to smile and shout, "see ya later suckers!!" . ( Of course Mommy would never say such bad things. Felt like I should address my kids there for some reason. Ha ha ha) But I didn't smile and I didn't utter any self aggrandizing phrases. Actually for all my joy, I was very much insulted. "You?!....…

13Nov 2015 by The Roamer 6 Comments

Surprise! Why me? Dealing with bad surprises

Finance, Monthly Challenge, Saving

You know that feeling you get, you know when you feel like "I just can't believe this is happening to me" and not in a good way. But in a Why me? way. That is how I was feeling lately. Why? Because of the Surprise! It wasn't even a good surprise. It was another unexpected, out of nowhere, break you expense. Well, it could have been, had we not been in the financial position we are today. Emergency fund, rainy day fund, unexpected expenses fund. It doesn't matter what it's called. Every one is touting be prepare. Like an 11 year old boy scout. But honestly most people just don't do it. One survey showed that up to 62% of people wouldn't be able to cover a $1,000 expense. While…

04Sep 2015 by The Roamer 6 Comments

Goals: 2nd Trimester Review 2015

401K, Family, Finance, Saving, Yearly Review Series

At some point this trimester I realized I needed to focus my efforts. It's not that it's impossible to work on multiple things at once. It was more the fact that I needed to do a lot of learning. See sometimes you have all the foundational knowledge to accomplish something you just need to take up the challenge to push yourself farther, harder. But that wasn't the case for a lot of what I was trying to do. I didn't have the background. So one task would split into several other smaller things that I needed to learn first. In essence my one goal might actually require me to jump 5 hurdles before even being able to address my goal. I knew that on some level. That was part of…

14Aug 2015 by The Roamer 4 Comments

Shooting for Early Retirement

Finance, Retirement, Saving

I don't remember and don't want to go back and look at all the previous Traveling Wallet posts. But......Do you even know what our retirement goal is? I don't think that I have shared it with you. I guess in a way I always wanted to retire early but that to me meant at 50. I first started thinking about retirement because at my new full time job I had to decide what to do about this 401k thing. As I learned I thought 65 just sounded wrong specially with the acceptable retirement age getting older and older. It almost seemed like it was just out of my control. So I started reading about retirement, a lot of it was very negative but I also discovered retirement calculators. I got…

24Jul 2015 by The Roamer 2 Comments

Money Cycle: Spend, Worry, Earn

Freestyle, Saving

Spending money before its in your pocket. You know this is a frequent topic when it comes to money and often its used to illustrate poor financial habits. Some guy buying a big screen TV in anticipation of a big bonus. Or some girl eyeing some strappy sandals and a nice paring bag. Because she deserves it. Honestly I've never suffered from wanting to buy stuff before even having the money in my hand. Actually I'm a really bad shopper period. Even when I see something I want and think about it I regularly convince myself out of the purchase. And even to this day there are things I still want after years and years of thinking about it. (Like the signature little black dress, and a nice blazer). Have…

28May 2015 by The Roamer 3 Comments

Quarter 1 review of goals

Earning, Family, Finance, Saving, Travel

Actually I guess its not a quarterly review as much as a trimester review. Jan- April. So part of making goals public is that they help you with accountability right? Well things have not been going well on all fronts. I am just going to hit these all fast and hard... Is what I was going to say, but who am I kidding :) Starting from the top and working my way down. [caption id="attachment_1136" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Picture of the goals I carry around in my planner. The one in my planner is actually all marked up.[/caption] Spiritual Awareness Let see what we have on here?.. Attend 4 churches in a year( attend 4 times a month ) 1 2 3 4 Write in Journal, reflect 15 min what…

28Jan 2015 by The Roamer 14 Comments

2014 Financial Goals Reviewed and Net Worth Revealed

401K, Finance, Saving, Yearly Review Series

Time to review our Financials. We were on track to reach our 3 financial goals. Pay off all Student loans by July Open MMA Celebrate with a splurge activity for the family As you can tell these are some measly goals. Is one of them really open up a new account ,in other word break up with my bank and take my funds earning less then .01% to a better place(Hey breaking up is hard, right?). So at the start of 2014 we had over 35K of Debt. Some of that was student loan debt. Student debt Mr. Had finished paying off his the year before and so we had a talk to discuss what we would do with the newly available funds. We deferred them to my student loans.…

11Dec 2014 by The Roamer 16 Comments

Over 100K paid off in 3.5 years

Debt Destruction, Finance, Saving

When I started this blog, Traveling Wallet, I wasn't in the death grip of debt. Actually I was about to make my escape. I have written a few posts about my debt and my repayment journey. But I really wanted to take the time and give you the whole big picture. When I look at the numbers it just really amazes me. And I think its inspirational. That is why I am sharing. Like I've said before when I graduated I had a ball and chain of student debt attached to me to the tune of $46,695. With $10k of it at a horrendous rate of 10.75%. Can you say Wow! But that wasn't all. I had a car and no mechanical experience. To translate I knew nothing about this…

29Oct 2014 by The Roamer No Comments

Waging the War on Wireless

Finance, Saving

A battle for better internet rates Hello All, Guest post today.... Mr. Roamer, but don't worry, my grammar and story telling isn't much worse than the Mrs. Well lets get too it: After returning from the mail box last Monday afternoon, we discovered that AT&T no longer was providing us with the promo rate of $25.95 a month (6 mbps down, 1 up for the tech savvy). They had hiked the rate up to $52.00 a month. I was speechless and frankly, kinda pissed off. I told the wife that I would call the next day and talk some sense into them. [caption id="attachment_464" align="aligncenter" width="300" class=" "] Look at it just look at it! DOUBLED![/caption] Flash forward to the next day. I called during my morning "break" at work (first mistake). And proceeded…

Category: Saving