We just passed our net worth milestone of $580,000!  This is primarily due to a $12,500 (gross) signing bonus that my wife received for her new job.  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $570,000 last month.

Our net worth is currently $581,054.24.  I will update our chart on the right at the end of the month.  We hope to hit our next net worth goal of $590,000 by August.

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.

We got the new year off to a great start by hitting our net worth milestone of $520,000!  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $510,000 last month.

Our net worth is currently $520,539.17.  I will update our chart on the right at the end of the month.

We hope to hit our next net worth milestone of $530,000 by March.

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.

Thanks to a large quarterly bonus that my wife received today, we were able to pass our net worth milestone of $510,000!    We passed our previous net worth milestone of $500,000 last month.

Our net worth is currently $511,242.83.  I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.

We hope to hit our next net worth milestone of $520,000 by February.