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.