Every month, I write an article that shows my passive income and my growth toward my life goals. We’re very late in May, and I’m just starting to review April. It usually only takes me a few days to begin this article, and April feels like a distant memory. For that reason, this update may be a little shorter in some places.
In the past, I’ve done some personal/family updates, but I’ve started writing this over a week after I would like to have it published. I’ll quickly mention that I turned 50 in March, then get to the numbers.
Goals for 2025
I put all my goals in a spreadsheet that I stole borrowed from Retire By 40. Here’s what it looks like for this year:
(Click it, and it will open in a new tab.)
Steal this idea and make it yours. I always make a bunch of goals that I know I’ll never complete. It gives me the flexibility to fail on some things as long as I’m making progress on others. Most people would do the opposite, focus on fewer goals, and aim to get them all done. It’s much less overwhelming. I’m unusual.
Passive Income
I used to have three side hustles with a passive component: a dog-sitting business, this blog, and a website I manage for a non-profit. They all required some active work. However, I could do them all even while working a full-time job. I considered those partially passive income. This blog and the retainer for the non-profit website are minimal, so consider it almost all dog boarding.
Dog Boarding/Website Income
This is the least passive of all incomes. I only count this as 50% passive. Dog sitting has been very steady over the last few years. It’s been close to $50,000.
That’s changed this year. Business is down about 40%. It’s nice to have the break, but I’m ready to host more dogs. The summer is usually quite busy, but that hasn’t been the case.
April’s Dog/Web Real Income: $3,026.35
There’s a path to earning more from web work, and I’m probably going to pivot to that for a bit. I still have more than enough family stuff to do.
Rental Property Income
We have two rental properties. Both still have mortgages, and the rental income is around $1,100/mo. One mortgage is done in 2027. The other one is a small loan, but it has another 15 years on it. If they were both mortgage-free, we’d make around $32,000 a year.
For the purpose of this report, I calculate the rental property income using the following formula:
(Rents After Estimated Expenses) * (Equity Percentage Owned) = Income)
The idea is that we only own a percentage of the equity, so I should only count that percentage of the rent after expenses. When we own everything, the equity percentage will be 100%, and the rent will be after expenses.
Estimated expenses are insurance, property taxes, condo fees, and estimated condo maintenance. Equity Percentage Owned (EPO) is our total equity divided by the property value on Zillow. (Zillow is very accurate for our condos.) When the mortgages are paid off, we’ll have an EPO of 100% and be able to keep all the rent after estimated expenses.
In April, Zillow estimated our properties were worth $13,000 more than the month before. The seasonal market is just starting to hit its peak time. We also paid off almost $1,000 in mortgage principal. That meant our EPO went from owning 84.48% of our properties to 84.91%. The rents after expenses are $2,900/month. Using the equation above, our estimated income from this area would be $2,460. That’s up from $2,448 in March. Twelve dollars is a nice gain for this number.
Managing rental properties requires some work – a few days a year. For this reason, I only count 80% of this number as passive income. One of our new tenants has had a lot of needs, but they are mostly legitimate. I’m thinking of getting out of the rental property business. We’re probably going to sell one property next spring.
Dividend Income
My wife and I have been nearly maxing out our retirement accounts for a couple of decades. The markets have done very well over that time. Overall, we have a nice retirement nest egg.
I don’t track dividends from all the accounts. I’m doing well to get my wife to log in to her TSP (the government’s version of a 401k) account and give me the totals. I simply assume we could invest the money into an ETF that pays a 2.5% dividend. For example, HDV, a high-dividend ETF, currently yields 3.01%.
I also have profit-sharing income with a private company in which I own a small stake. I get a check each month that behaves like a dividend – it’s just taxed a little differently.
April’s estimated dividend income was $6218. In March, it was $5,897. You can see why the $12 in real estate gains are unexciting now. That was nice, but nothing compared to this $321 number. The stock market can jump around a lot, and I can see a 20%+ correction coming, but I’ve been wrong about that for a couple of years now. I’ll just keep on growing money while everything is going good. I have been putting more and more money into bonds and treasuries to try to protect these gains.
Unlike the previous two sections, this income is 100% passive. For this reason, I don’t have to adjust the numbers.
Total Passive Income
Dog/Etc.: $3,026 – Adjusted to $1,513
Rentals: $2,460 – Adjusted to $1,968
Dividends: $6,218 – Remains at $6,218
Dogs/Etc – Blue Line
Rental – Red Line
Dividend – Yellow Line
Total Adjusted Passive Income: $9,699
Here’s a graph of the adjusted passive income since 2017, when I started keeping track:
The blue line represents the monthly total adjusted passive income. The red line represents the 12-month average. This removes some of the seasonality of dog boarding. That’s the important one.
This April’s numbers were the biggest jump in some time. That important red line mentioned above has hit another new high, as it has for 13 of the last 15 months. The most passive components, real estate and dividends, passed $8,000 for the first time. They blew by the number at $8,186 – almost at the magic $100,000 milestone.
My wife continues to work as well. She has 27 years of high-level military service. That means she’s vested in a pension that would double all this passive income. I also earn some income that falls outside of the areas listed above. It’s not passive, so I don’t mention it here.
I can’t think of anywhere else to put this information, but our net worth gained 4.79%. I can’t remember too many months like that. I can’t remember too many months like that. It’s all the stock market, though, and it can easily go back down quickly. This is why I’m “pocketing” some gains in treasuries and bonds. They are less likely to go down and still give some income in the meantime. For the whole year, our net worth is up 5.81%.
Business and Other Money Goals
Personal Income ($80,000)
My income has been dropping over the last few years, going from $98K to 488K to $81K. Last year, I stayed mostly the same at $80,593.
Now that I’m 50 and we’ve got a good set of assets, I don’t feel the need to push this. It’s more for self-worth feelings than anything else, I guess.
In April, I made $5,026. For the year, I’m at $18,097. That pace would bring me to $54K. Dog boarding ramps up in the summertime, but we have some extra travel this year, so I’m very likely to fall short on this one.
Improve My Dog Boarding Website and Operations
I can’t remember doing anything to improve the website or operations. I have a whole list of stuff to do, but I was too busy to get to most of it. I’m also not motivated to do much for operations when we don’t have nearly as much business as we’ve had in the past.
AI Everything
I mentioned last month that I’m working on a guide for boys and young men on how to live the best life. It’s inspired by Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway (affiliate link), which I’ve been reading. I’m using AI to shape it, and I’ve added a bunch of other sources.
The problem is that it always feels like it can be improved. I have to call it good enough and print a version to present to the kids. Once again, perfect is the enemy of good. I should be able to finish this in a couple of hours this weekend.
I have also been using AI to research the value of private high schools. I don’t think I’ve ever been so flummoxed by anything before. I had always assumed that we’d send the kids to public high school, take advantage of dual enrollment, and hack together a great Bachelor’s degree in maybe three years.
Part of the master plan with this was to use my wife’s military discount for a cheaper private school and give them a head start. Our oldest (7th grade) doesn’t have to try to get A’s and is often bored by the material. When we visit the private high school classes, he finds them fascinating and engaging. I think he’s just sliding through the public high school classes.
I’m not sure if the AI is helping me come up with any answers, but I’m able to have it review some of the books on the subject and give me some analysis. I’m careful to take any findings to another AI for verification.
Health
As I mentioned above, I got old, turning 50 a few months ago. For my health goals, I’m mostly using this separate article about health goals from last year.
Weight and Body Fat (Lean-(fat*2) mass >60)
My goal this year is to add lean mass while losing fat mass. It took me a long time to figure out how to create a formula for that. I settled on the formula: lean mass minus 2×fat mass. This penalizes me if I add weight that’s a bunch of fat.
My weight this month was 175.9 lbs, and my body fat was 24.7%. That means my lean mass was 132.5, and my fat mass was 43.4 lbs. This is a score of 45.6 using my formula. Last month, my average weight was 173.3lbs, and my body fat was 23.6%. That was a score of 50.6. It turns out that I added 2.5 pounds of straight fat – almost no lean mass. That’s why my score dropped 5 points.
Higher is better, and I’ve been going in the wrong direction for a couple of months now. The vacation in March really set me back. I haven’t been able to get back to where I was. I’m making progress, but it takes time to lower the whole average.
My goal of getting this number to 60 could be achieved by losing 169 lbs and having a body fat of 21.5%. Wow, those numbers don’t seem likely at all, right now.
Body and Brain Points (300 and 225 respectively)
I rate my diet from 1 (poor) to 5 (great) each week. It’s mostly a gut feel for how the week went.
I used to do the same for exercise, but I’m switching that up to use Heart Points from my Pixel Watch. This is more honest than my gut feeling and just as easy for me to use. Then I add both scores (diet and exercise) for the month to get Body Points.
With the weather improving, I’m getting a little more active. My diet has been just average, though. I have 47 diet points and 40 body points, for a total of 87 points. That’s a pace for 261 points – not good enough.
I measure brain points on the same scale. They are based on doing things like Duolingo (Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, and Chess), and the NY Times puzzles (Wordle, Strands, and Connections). I want to include more creative stuff, such as drawing and/or music. Until I add those, I’m likely to max out at 4 points per week by doing all the previous stuff.
At the end of April, I got to 70 Brain Points. That’s a pace of 210 points. It’s close, but not quite there.
Blood Pressure (Goal: 115/75)
Last year, I found that I had high blood pressure. I was measuring it daily and putting it in a spreadsheet. However, now I have this blood pressure monitor and it tracks it over time in an app. (That link to the device is an affiliate link, by the way.)
I am able to bring this to my doctor, and she can adjust my medication based on the data.
In April, my blood pressure was 134/78. In March, it was 135/81. It’s a little better, but not perfect. However, by the end of the month, the latest increase in medicine has helped it stay in a good range. I feel like I’m in good shape here.
Doctor Appointments
I didn’t have any doctor appointments. It feels like the first time I said that in a while.
Longevity Research (40 hours)
I did a little longevity research. I’ve been watching Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever on CNN. That qualifies.
Hobbies
Most of my hobbies are related to AI nowadays. I can come up with some fun ideas and go down the rabbit hole. Here are a couple of others that I am working on.
3D Printing
The kids keep 3D printing, but it’s the same old stuff. I want them to create some new stuff with TinkerCAD or something. I need to help them set up accounts and such. They had them a long time ago, but it has been a few years. I haven’t found the time to get them going on that. Also, I’m spending the hours of 3-6 every day running them to karate, Scouts, or play practice.
Play a modern song on a ukulele
So far, no work on the ukulele. It sits tucked away under a table. I would bring it out so that it would be in view, and I’d be encouraged to play it. If I did that, it wouldn’t be long before my wife hid it back under the table to eliminate the clutter.
Family
Declutter and Organize House
My wife and I did a very good spring cleaning of the garage in April. IT took only about 2-3 hours and made such a big difference. We probably have another 5 hours left to go, which we could spread over a couple of days. We had been waiting until the weather gets better, because it’s no fun cleaning a garage that’s 35 degrees.
Travel
Last month, we focused mostly on planning our excursions for our upcoming Alaska cruise in June. I’m starting to look into planning what to do when we’re in Tuscany in August. So far, I’ve just gotten discouraged as it’s far from the major cities. It’s my wife’s idea for a trip, so I’ll let her take the lead.
Kids
The kids are at the age now (12 and 13) where they either love each other or hate each other. They are either working well together or getting into big fights.
In April, we put a lot of time into looking at high schools for the 13-year-old. I mentioned it above in my AI section. We toured four high schools, and they take the better part of the morning. It’s a different world than what I’m used to.
Final Thoughts
I’m so late in getting out, we’ll save any extra thoughts for another day.
