Enough PF stuff for 2022!

Here's the annual "don't think about PF anymore" post. 

I am a LONG way from a (comfortable) retirement. I'm not socking away the around 200k per year I think I would need to get there. At my current savings rate, about half of that, I should be able to retire a "standard" early retirement of 57 or so but anything earlier than that is probably not going to work. So I need to stop fantasizing about leaving work in the next year or two because it's not going to happen. 

My house needs to be paid off to retire, and I must have enough money to cover substantial expenses during retirement. 

The better and more productive way would be: 

1. To figure out how to do a better job at work 

2. To figure out how to be more frugal 

3. To keep a regular exercise routine and keep flossing and brushing your teeth 

4. To figure out how to be a better parent... not to figure out ways to stop working 

And stop focusing on the numbers. 

check in: net worth $882K ($650K)

Hi, it's me again, doing a check in 5 months since the last one. 

Over time, I do see pretty substantial income and net worth growth - I've earned over 67k since the last update. I just don't see it over the day to day period so it feels a bit stagnant right now. 

The biggest drag on net worth growth has of course been the stock market, which has been on its downward trend since January (although with a nice uptick in the last few months, thank goodness I could not access Interactive Brokers during the very low period to see all the losses! It's very healthy not to access your investment accounts). I have learned my lesson about focusing too much on individual stocks, and will now return to the usual boring but stable program of Vanguard all world and all USA ETFs. 

The second biggest drag has been expenses, such as paying annual taxes, fees associated with the move, and apartment furnishings (something which can make its own separate post). 

I have refinanced my mortgage on my place and the interest rate is quite high (5.29%); however I wanted to lock in a rate now rather than see it continue to go up. So it will add another $500/month to my expenses which will come out to $30000 over 5 years going straight to the bank. But that can't be helped, and my apartment value (likely $50-100k) and equity (+$48000) will continue to grow over that time so it will offset the increased costs. The rent on our current place is so low ($1570/month) that it helps a lot with financial decisions. 

I also have big news that I am expecting child #2 early next year. I have fairly stable income of $10000/month post tax coming in over the next 10 months at least. This is great because it means I can grow net worth to hopefully close to $1M ($740k-750k) by this time next year, IF I can keep our lifestyle modest, and keep spending under control and not buy every high end thing on the market for baby. I don't think it's healthy to speculate beyond that but I have a big incentive to go back to the job soon - if I manage to return to the office and stay on the job another year I can see some fairly significant gains (around $100k) due to pension vesting, and therefore with some luck should reach $1.2M ($950k) around this time in 2 years. Of course, I have no idea what will happen at work with all the politics and senior management changes, but so far I enjoy my job and can see myself doing it for a few years more, and at least have a guarantee till the end of my maternity leave in a year. Then, I know people generally rather keep personnel on than let them go, so it should at least be ok for me to keep with the job for a bit longer. 

So, smooth sailing for now.