5 Years of F.I.R.E.

I was scrolling through our old blog posts the other day and didn’t realize how long we have been at this. We started this blog in April of 2019 to document our journey to becoming financially independent full-time RV’ers.

Our goal was to retire early so we could enjoy life on the road. We could have kept working remotely in some capacity, and Mrs. RVF did for a couple of months, but that wasn’t the point. The purpose was to enjoy life and traveling without the burden of financial worry or a work schedule.

At that time we were on the cusp of reaching the coveted $1M threshold in our portfolio. We also had a decent amount of equity built up in our townhouse. Combined we were only about $375k away from reaching our $1.5M goal. Since we planned to sell our house and everything we owned home equity was essentially cash in our minds.

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2025 Financial Wrap Up

Welcome to our 2025 financial wrap up blog. What a year!

2025 was a year of adjustments, challenges and getting acquainted with our new normal. It hasn’t been all roses, but we are very happy. Scratch that. We are happy and we working on some things that will make us more happy.

The transition from living in an RV to moving back into a house has been a bumpy ride. From a financial standpoint it has been very expensive. Trying to furnish an entire home is not cheap. It’s also not as fun as it used to be when we were younger. Getting reacquainted with the number of bills that come with home ownership is even less enjoyable. Water, trash, electric, tv, internet, POA, insurance and worst of all property taxes. BLAH!!

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2025 Divided Portfolio Wrap Up

Welcome to our 2025 dividend portfolio wrap up blog!

In our last update we talked about making some changes to start eliminating positions that no longer fit our portfolio. A few of our positions are no longer growing dividends or have even cut their dividend. These are the positions we are looking to exit so we can reallocate those funds to more productive investments.

Since that update we exited ABR. REITs have been going through a rough patch and ABR cut their dividend as a result. While I expect REITs to bounce back with lower interest rates this is a company I have lost faith in. We have other REITs that are better run so we will stick with those and cut our losses here.

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Q3 2025 Financial Update

It’s been a couple of months since our last financial update and there is no better time than now.

The markets have been on fire! But, we might be getting to that point where a pullback could be inevitable. We have certainly enjoyed watching our portfolio rebound to our pre home build levels. However, the reality is that the markets can’t go up forever. At some point there needs to be a pullback or even a correction. No one wants it to happen, but that’s what healthy markets do.

This year end could be similar to 2024. We had a good run until end of year profit taking started and the market fell pretty good. That would be ok though as it would set up nicely for 2026. But, what might keep the ball rolling this year are rate cuts.

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Dividend Portfolio Update

Welcome back for another dividend portfolio update!

Since our last update we have continued to execute on our plan of making regularly scheduled contributions. The markets continue to hit all time highs so it’s been slim pickings for individual stocks. However, there are some opportunities out there. With the current environment we have mostly stuck to adding shares to our ETF positions in SCHD, JEPI and JEPQ.

We do have a couple of positions that haven’t participated in the run up. Normally this is where we would direct our available funds. However, most of these positions are also the same ones we have identified and put on the chopping block. This is because they no long fit our investment strategy. The fact that they are having bad year is just an annoying inconvenience for the time being.

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Dividend Portfolio Update

Yes, we still have our dividend portfolio. It’s been over 10 months since we last gave an update on our dividend portfolio. Like everything else during that time it just wasn’t top of mind and took a back seat. However, we never stopped investing and our portfolio continues to grow.

With the change in our lifestyle we needed to make some adjustments to our approach to this portfolio. When we started our dividend portfolio we were committed to only using funds generated by our blog, and related affiliate programs, as a financing source to grow our account. Essentially we wanted to use passive income to generate more passive income. We also wanted to show people that you can build a nice portfolio even with limited funds. It just takes patience.

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Mid Year Financial Update

Sitting on a flight to Washington seems like a good time to write our mid-year financial update blog. Might as well take advantage of the boredom and pass the time in a constructive way.

In January we gave our year end financial update of our portfolio. You can find that blog here if you are interested in a recap. The most amazing part of that update was that despite the outflow of cash and expense of building a home our portfolio still managed to end the year up $41,039 or 2.87%! It was perfect timing for the markets to have a nice year with everything we had going on. December could have gone better, but that’s how it goes.

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