Times They Are A Changin'


The one constant in life is that things will change.  Of course this change was one we were trying for.  Earlier this month my wife officially passed the first trimester.  That's right...we're expecting!  

We're not going to find out whether it's a boy or girl until he/she gets here.  We did that with our daughter and it was great to just focus on the here and now with the pregnancy.  

Our daughter was pretty excited for the photo shoot, especially finding the eggs.  

Our original plan for 2018 was to get rid of all of our non-mortgage debt so we could get back to investing our excess cash flow each month.  We didn't make a whole lot of progress until August rolled around when we finally said enough is enough.  By the end of September one of the debts was paid off and we'd put down an extra $3,500 on the remaining balance of the car loan we have.  

However, at this point in time I think cash is the better place to be for our overall finances.  With a baby on the way the unknown costs can definitely creep up and I'd rather have plenty of cash in the bank account and ready to go than need it and not have it.  

We're obviously very excited to meet the new baby in April; however, this is definitely a reason to reexamine the best route going forward, financially.  Here's our upcoming cash needs as well as the approximate date that we need it by.

This is roughly the amount of cash, except for regular monthly expenses, that we'll need between now and April.  The car loan is the most flexible requirement since the loan isn't due for a few more years, rather I set an April 2019 date in order to have the car paid off by the time the baby comes.

I desperately want to get back to investing each month; however, I just can't justify it given where we currently stand.  

So we have a rough target of $21,777 in savings that we need between now and April.  The property taxes are already covered by our existing emergency fund if need be.

Thus far in 2018 my average monthly income from work has been $8,010.12 with average expenses, excluding extra debt payments and travel expenses, coming in at $3,263.28.  Assuming each month is "average" from here through the end of March that means we potentially have $4,746.83 per month of positive cash flow coming our way.  

That gives us plenty to work with.  Assuming "average" holds for the next 6 months that will give us around $28.5k of cash flow to work with.  That would put us roughly having all cash saved up for the baby and property taxes by the end of December plus a little extra.  Then in January we'd resume aggressive pay down of the car loan and potentially have it paid off in February.  That's a little behind schedule, but life happens.  So the new timeline to get back to investing each month is *hopefully* April-ish.

I do think we'll come up short of that amount because of some upcoming training that I'll be going to so these estimates/timelines are all subject to change.

Even though new baby is throwing us another curve ball, my wife and I are both excited to see what this new adventure brings.  Our daughter is excited too, for now we'll see how she feels once she no longer gets 100% of attention from my wife and I.  

Adding to our family with another little one just gives me even more motivation to find a way to reach financial independence ASAP.  

Life is what happens when you're busy making plans.  

Have you had to adjust your plans even though you didn't want to?  For those with multiple children how was the transition from one to two?

Comments

  1. Congrats on a new addition to your family! I think it's smart to get some of your bills paid off so that's less to worry about in the future and hopefully allows you to start investing again after April.

    Take care

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on Baby #2 JC. That is exciting enough as it is. I think you developed a sound plan here. Sure, your plan to pay off all your debt early was awesome. But life stuff happens and sometimes, you need to re-examine your life and develop a new, better plan. It sounds like having some extra cash on hand will be a good thing for these awesome changes and once the dust settles, you will be back on your debt crushing plan before you know it. You have the fire in your belly, I can tell from your final few lines of the article. Keep at it. And most importantly, congrats again.

    Bert

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awesome. Congrats on the upcoming baby! As much as we would have liked to wait to find out the gender of ours, we couldn't do it. We both wanted different genders and to remove the risk of a tiny moment of defeat in such an otherwise joyful time, we found out ahead of time to deal with it and be able to focus on the joy during actual childbirth. Seriously, best wishes.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment