Happy New Year!  Financially, 2016 was a strong year for us, hitting four of our five 2016 financial goals.  We’re looking forward to what the coming year brings and have listed our 2017 financial goals listed below.  I’m excited to be starting off the new 2016 with a new job that begins January 30th (I was laid off in October).

1) Pass our 2020 Net Worth Goals
Going into 2017 with a net worth of 517,430.64, we’re blessed to be tracking ~3 years ahead of our net worth targets.  We would love to pass our 2020 goal of $575,800 by the end of 2017 to keep our 3 year leed.

2) Start tithing again
We used to be consistent with our monthly giving.  I can honestly say that the more we gave, the more we were blessed.  After moving and trying to find a new church, we’ve lost the habit of give.  We want to get back on track with our giving and intend to begin giving $200/month in 2016.  It’s not a large amount but it is something that we should be able to consistently do and hopefully get back into the habit of giving.

3) Pay $5,000 extra towards mortgage principal
We purchased our new house in 2016 for $528K.  We put $267K down and only had to get a $261K mortgage.  Since the mortgage was small, we could afford a 15-year mortgage (at 2.875%).  Our hope is that we can pay the mortgage off in 10 years.  To do so, we plan to $100 in extra payments to principle each month and lump sum payments to principle whenever possible.  We made $2,100 in extra payments to principle on our new home in 2016 (we moved in in July).  Our current mortgage balance is $254,236.72 and we are shooting to do $5,000 in extra payments to principle in 2017.

4) Contribute $6,000 to 529 Plans ($3,000 for each child)
We’ve been able to consistently contribute $2,000/year to each of our kids 529 Plans.  Our 5-year-old son’s 529 Plan has a balance of $17,301.90 and our 2-year-old daughter’s 529 Plan has a balance of $8,425.64.   With the rising costs of tuition, we feel the need to pick up the pace of our contributions.  We hope to be able to contribute $3,000 to each child’s 529 Plan in 2017.

5) Building savings account balance to $20,000
For the past few years, we’ve had the goal of reaching $20K in our savings.  Unfortunately, this remains one of the goals that we can’t seem to reach.  We ended 2016 with $8,425 in savings and hope to reach $20K in savings by the end of 2017.