Happy New Year!  Financially, 2016 was a strong year for us, hitting four of our five financial goals for the year.  It was especially good considering my wife did not start her current job until the end of February 2016 and I was laid off in October 2016.  I will be posting our 2017 financial goals shortly.

1) Pass both our 2016 and 2017 Net Worth Goals – SUCCESS
We were blessed to sell our last home for nearly $700K this past summer (only owed $350K on the mortgage).  This helped us absolutely crush our net worth goals.  We finished 2016 with a net worth of $517,430.64, propelling us past not only our 2016 goal ($343,700) and 2017 goal ($395,200) but also past our 2018 goal ($450,800) and 2019 goal ($510,900).

2) Pay off Car 1 Loan – SUCCESS
We began 2015 with two SUV auto loans, one for $22K at 3.29% and one for $27K at 2.59%.  We had the simple goal of paying off the $22K loan by the end of 2016.  I am happy to report that we sold both SUVs, replacing them with one low mileage sedan for $12K at 1.99%!

3) Pay $4,000 extra towards mortgage principal – SUCCESS
We killed this goal!  We sold our home at a huge profit, allowing us to pay the $353K mortgage off completely and put $267K down on a new home. Our new $528K home has a 15-year mortgage at 2.875% that we have begun making accelerated payments on it as well (current mortgage balance $254,236.72).

4) Contribute $4,000 to 529 Plans – SUCCESS
We squeezed this win in at that last minute.  Thanks to the blessing of my wife’s large quarterly bonus in December, we were able to hit our goal of contributing $4,000 total ($2,000 for each child) to our kids 529 Plans in 2016.  Our 5-year-old currently has a 529 Plan balance of $17,301.90 and our 2-year-old has a 529 Plan balance of $8,587.02.

5) Building savings account balance to $20,000 – FAIL
We’ve attempted to accumulate $20K in savings for a few years but still can’t reach this goal.  We had nearly $300K cash in the bank after selling our home, but we used it for a down payment on our new home and for furniture.  We ended 2016 with a savings balance of $8,425.64.

Thanks to a large quarterly bonus that my wife received today, we were able to pass our net worth milestone of $510,000!    We passed our previous net worth milestone of $500,000 last month.

Our net worth is currently $511,242.83.  I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.

We hope to hit our next net worth milestone of $520,000 by February.

We just passed our net worth milestone of $500,000!  I can’t believe we’re half-millionaires!  LOL!  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $490,000 in July.

Our net worth is currently $500,112.59.  I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.

We hope to hit our next net worth milestone of $510,000 by next month (thanks to wife’s large quarterly bonus).

We just passed our net worth milestone of $480,000!  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $470,000 last month.

Our net worth is currently $482,626.70.  I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.

We hope to hit our next net worth milestone of $490,000 by September.  As always, God willing.

We passed our 2016 net worth goal of $343,700 today.  Our current net worth is $344,243.

Now we can start working towards our 2017 net worth goal of $395,200!

We just passed our net worth milestone of $340,000.  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $330,000 in December.  We thought we would hit 340K in January but it took a few extra months:)

Our net worth is currently $340,385.78. I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.

We hope to hit our next net worth milestone of $350,000 by June or July.  God willing.

I hope everyone’s new year is off to a great start!   We hit three out of five of our 2015 financial goals and hope to have better luck reaching our 2016 financial goals listed below.

1) Pass both our 2016 and 2017 Net Worth Goals We finished 2015 with a net worth of $331,113, meaning we are roughly $12K short of our 2106 net worth goal of $343,700. God willing, we should easily reach that goal and once we do, we’ll shoot for hitting our 2017 net worth goal of $395,200 one year early. My wife was laid off on 12/31/15, so these goals are more challenging than they seem.

2) Pay off Car 1 Loan Last year, we went from having no car payment to have two car payments that total $850/month. Insane! We must try to pay off the smaller of the two loans. As of December 2015, we owe $21,585.22 on our loan for Car 1.

3) Pay $4,000 extra towards mortgage principal We paid $3,100 total in extra mortgage principal payments in 2015 and would love to try pay an extra $4,000 towards mortgage principal in 2016 (an average of $333/month in extra payments.

4) Contribute $4,000 to 529 Plans ($2,000 for each child) We hope again be able to contribute $4,000 total ($2,000 for each child) to our kids 529 Plans in 2016. We barely pulled it off in 2015 and hope to do it again in 2016. Our 4-year-old currently has a balance of $13,323.37 and our 18-month-old has a balance of $5,762.07.

5) Building savings account balance to $20,000 We’ve tried so many times to build and maintain a saving account balance of $20,000. We ended 2015 with a saving account balance of $11,516.46. Hopefully we will reach $20,000 in 2016.

I can’t believe 2016 is hear already.  Below are the results of the 2015 financial goals that we set for ourselves 12 months ago. As you can see, it’s a mixed bag in terms of success and failure. We’re excited about what 2016 will bring.  I’ll be posting our 2016 financial goals soon.

1) Pass our 2016 Net Worth Goal 1 year early – FAIL

We passed our 2015 net worth goal of $296K one year early so we set a goal to of hitting our 2016 net worth goal of $343K by the end of 2015. We didn’t quite get there but got darn close, ending 2015 with a net worth of $331,113. I was out of a job the first 5 months of the year so that’s not too shabby.

2) Pay off credit card balance of $5,767.31 – SUCCESS

We successfully paid off the $5,767.31 credit card balance from purchasing a new HVAC system a little over a year ago.

3) Pay $3,000 extra towards mortgage principal – SUCCESS

Another success! We paid $3,100 total in extra mortgage principal payments in 2015, surpassing our goal by a tiny bit.

4) Contribute $4,000 to 529 Plans ($2,000 for each child) – SUCCESS

We squeezed this one in the last month of the year. By contributing $640 to our son’s 529 Plan in December and $285 to our daughter’s plan in December, we reached goal of contributing $2,000 to each of their 529 Plans in 2015.

4) Building savings account balance to $15,000 – FAIL

We set a goal of building our savings to $15,000 in 2015. We didn’t quite make it but finished with a respectable $11,516.46. We hope to exceed the $15K in savings in just a couple of weeks with a ~$34K gross severance that my wife will receive in January.

Got this one in before the New Year buzzer:)  We passed our net worth milestone of $330,000.  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $310,000 last month.

Our net worth is currently $331,813.98. I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.

Thanks to a severance package that my wife is receiving, we should hit our next net worth milestone of $340,000 next month!