Such a mixed bag this month--our retirement accounts went up, but so did our total debt. We just keep getting hit with unplanned expenses this year--about $2500 in electrical and other repairs on our rental property, a replacement phone for one of our kids, a new (used) bike for him as he's outgrown his current one...had to lean on the HELOC some more.

Being self-employed adds to the challenge, so I also needed to draw from the LOC just to cover routine bills. But we should have a few biggish payments coming this month and be able to pay it down some--whether temporarily or for good remains to be seen.

AS and I have an ambitious goal to make $160K with our business, and it looks like we'll hit about $70K by the end of June. So almost half of what we need...but not quite. And there's no guarantee we can keep up this pace of income for the rest of the year.

Even if we do manage to make $160K, it looks like our expenses will be over budget this year. Healthcare will be over, rental property and our own home improvement expenses too, probably transportation costs, maybe pet expenses, probably groceries ... I made our budget based on last year and this is a different year--inflation plus many unplanned hits.

The one thing we could still control is to take a trip to Thailand next year off the table. We were planning to get airfare and hotel reserved this year and go there in February 2027.

I'm definitely considering cutting it because it doesn't seem realistic that we'll hit our income or budget. But damn. It's the thing I wanted more than anything else. I really really want to visit Thailand and I'm not getting any younger. So for now I'm kicking that decision down the road a month or two.

So I'm not sure what the year will look like but I imagine we'll come up short, just a matter of how much.

On the other hand, we're rocking and rolling on CoastFIRE! We have a $278K surplus from where we need our retirement to be at for retirement at 65. What does that mean? Well, IF our kids were out of the picture and IF our main house was paid off, we could retire when I'm 58 and a half--basically 6 years from now! However, neither of those things will be the case, so we won't be able to retire then.

But, I feel like maybe we could start drawing down a bit of our retirement funds and supplement with income. However, I'd REALLY love for us to get our current income and expenses in balance--without that, I don't feel like we can count on anything.

I'm not sure how much more AS and I can really pull in though. We've been making more every year but our expenses just keep outstripping our income.

So, gonna grin and bear it this year, but if it turns out to be another deficit year--especially if it's an even bigger deficit than the past two years--we'll need to take a serious look at our expenses for 2027.