Wow! 2018 flew by! Happy New Year! 2018 was another blessed year for our family. We were on track to hit all of our goals until the stock market dropped at the end of the year. Even though we only hit three of our five 2018 financial goals, I still am counting it as a very good year. Here are the details:
1) Pass our 2022 Net Worth Goal – FAIL
We had a very good chance to hit our 2022 net worth goal of $721,500 but the market dump at the end of the year did us in. We finished 2018 with a net worth of $667,000.27, still over 3 years ahead of our 2018 net worth goal target (2018’s target was $450,800) but short of our goal to be 4 years ahead of our net worth goal targets.
2) Continue tithing and improve attendance – SUCCESS
We did a better at making it to church more consistently but still have a lot of work to do do better. We tithed $5,471.01 in 2018, which is an average of $455.91/month. That was better than we were shooting for but there is still room to improve.
3) Pay $6,000 extra towards mortgage principal – SUCCESS
We nailed this goal perfectly! We paid exactly an extra $6,000 towards our mortgage principal in 2018. We started the year with a mortgage balance of $232,756.63 and ended the year with a mortgage balance of $213,191.54, a reduction of $19,565.09.
4) Contribute $2,000 to 529 Plans ($1,000 for each child) – SUCCESS
We exceed this goal, contributing a total of $2,591.35 to our kid’s 529 Plans in 2018. We contributed $1,321.35 to our son’s 529 Plan and $1,270 to our daughter’s 529 Plan. It feels good to get back on track with this after taking most of 2017 off from contributing. Currently, our 7-year-old son’s 529 Plan has a balance of $21,511.44 and our 4-year-old daughter’s 529 Plan has a balance of $11,579.15.
5) Building retirement accounts balance total to $300K – FAIL
We begin 2018 with $267k in retirement savings. Due to the big market downturn at the end of the year, we finished 2018 with a net worth of 274,633.09. Unfortunately, we came up well short of our $300k goal.