Happy New Year!  We had an amazing 2017:  My wife and I both started great new jobs, we invested in quality family time, and our net worth skyrocketed.  Interestingly, we still only hit three of our five financial goals (details below).  I will be posting our 2018 financial goals shortly.

1) Pass our 2020 Net Worth Goal – SUCCESS
Going into 2017 with a net worth of $517,430, we were tracking ~3 years ahead of our net worth targets.  We had hoped to maintain this lead and end 2017 above our 2020 net worth goal of $575,800.  We were very blessed to end 2017 with a net worth of $641,732!  That puts us ~4 years ahead of our net worth targets (our 2021 goal is $645,800)!

2) Start tithing again – SUCCESS
We failed to make it to church very consistently but we did succeed in giving $200/month in 2017.  Now we have to fix our attendance…

3) Pay $5,000 extra towards mortgage principal – SUCCESS
We were able to pay $5,650 extra towards mortgage principal in 2017.  Our current mortgage balance is $234,182 on our 15-year mortgage (2.875%).  That puts us on track to pay it off 10-11 years after purchasing it in July 2016. 

4) Contribute $6,000 to 529 Plans ($3,000 for each child) – FAIL
We decided early in 2017 to abandon this goal so that we could purchase a boat to enjoy as a family.  We’ve been so financial focused that we quit having very much fun as a family.  The boat has been a fun, albeit expense, way to send time together and with friends.  That being said we were still able to contributed $700 to our son’s plan and $700 to our daughter’s plan. Our 6-year-old son’s 529 Plan has a balance of $21,642.82 and our 3-year-old daughter’s 529 Plan has a balance of $11,141.03.  

5) Building savings account balance to $20,000 – FAIL
We ended 2017 with $9,433.75 in savings. We got very close to the $20K goal in June with $17,309.22 in savings.  We had plenty of chances to exceed the $20K goal but we started pulling out more than we were putting in, including the following:

·        $12K down payment for SUV

·        $15K down payment for boat

·        $5K moved into brokerage and cryptocurrency accounts