Happy New Year!  The years have been flying by and we have set some exciting financial goals for ourselves in 2019.  Here they are:  

1) Pass our 2022 Net Worth Goal
We ended 2018 with a net worth of $667,000, over 3 years ahead of our 2018 net worth goal.  We would like to keep this lead and end 2019 with a net worth over $721,500 (our 2022 net worth goal).

2) Reduce average monthly expenses by $1,000
We spent an average of $15,620 per month in 2018.  An insane amount of money and not something we are proud of.  We hope to reduce our average monthly expenses by $1,000, to $14,620 average per month.  With life costing more each year, this might not be as easy as it seems, however, we flagged a couple of categories that we plan to reduce in order to achieve this goal: furniture, clothing, and food.

3)Create a family trust or will

With two children and rising assets, we have wanted to create a family trust or will but never have gotten around to it.  We want that to change in 2019 and plan to meet with a lawyer to get this goal competed.

4) Contribute $3,000 to 529 Plans ($1,500 for each child)
We feel a bit more pressure each year to save for our kid’s college educations.  Our son is currently 7-years-old with a 529 Plan balance of $21,511 and our daughter is 4-years-old with a 529 Plan balance of $11,579.  We successfully contributed $1,000 to each of their 529 Plans in 2018 and would like increase that to $1,500 to each of their 529 Plans in 2019.

5) Building savings account balance to $20,000
This is a goal we have made for ourselves a few times over the years and have never been able reach it.  In 2019 we want that to change!  We ended 2018 with $12,824 in savings and w

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.

We just passed our net worth milestones of $700,000! This years is starting to pick up!  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $690,000 in September.

Our net worth is currently $700,319.99.  We hope to reach the $710K milestone by November.

We just passed our net worth milestones of $690,000! We passed our previous net worth milestone of $680,000 in July.

Our net worth is currently $690,101.67 (barely made it, I know) We hope to reach the $700K milestone by October.

We just passed our net worth milestones of $680,000! We passed our previous net worth milestone of $670,000 in June.  The pace of our net worth increase in 2018 has been at a relatively slower pace than last year but we hope to make up ground the 2nd half of the year.

Our net worth is currently $680,982.02. Our retirement accounts led the way to our net worth increased this month.

We just passed our net worth milestones of $670,000! We passed our previous net worth milestone of $660,000 in March.

Our net worth is currently $671,313.40. Our retirement accounts were the main reason we our net worth increased this month 🙂

We just passed our net worth milestones of $660,000! We passed our previous net worth milestone of $650,000 in January.

Our net worth is currently $660,212.53. Our retirement accounts have had the biggest impact MTD. I will update our chart on the right at the end of the month.

My wife will be receiving a large bonus that may bump us past $670,000 by the end of the month!

We just passed our net worth milestones of $650,000! We passed our previous net worth milestone of $640,000 last month.  2018 is off to a great start!

Our net worth is currently $655,302.68.  Our retirement accounts and cryptocurrencies have been doing amazing in January.  I will update our chart on the right at the end of the month.  We hope to hit our next net worth goal of $660,000 by next month (or maybe even this month).

Happy New Year!  2017 was a great year for our net worth but we somehow only hit three of our five 2017 financial goals.  I hope we have better luck hitting our goals for 2018.  Here they are:  

1) Pass our 2022 Net Worth Goal
We enter 2018 with a net worth of $641,732.04, almost 4 years ahead of our net worth goal targets.  God willing, we can secure the 4 year lead by exceeding our 2022 net worth goal of $721,500 in 2018.  My estimates/forecast puts us at $682K by the end of the year so we’ll have to work extra hard to reach $721K.

2) Continue tithing and improve attendance
We failed to make it to church very consistently but we did succeed in giving $200/month in 2017.  We plan to continue our giving plan while working to improve our attendance.

3) Pay $6,000 extra towards mortgage principal
We secured a 15-year mortgage (2.875%) when we moved into our new house in July 2016.  We would love to pay it off in 10-11 years instead of 15 years.  To do so, we plan to make two extra payments a year ($1,800 each) and pay $200 extra every month.

4) Contribute $2,000 to 529 Plans ($1,000 for each child)
We plan to begin contributing again to our kids’ 529 Plans in 2018.  We took most of 2017 off so our intent is to work to get $1,000 in to each of their 529 Plans.  Currently, 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 retirement accounts balance total to $300K
We ended 2017 with $267K in retirement savings. God willing, with a little extra effort and good returns from the stock market, we hope to reach $300,000 total in our retirement accounts by the end of 2018.

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