We passed the net worth milestone of $300,000. Yeehaw!! We passed our last net worth milestone of $290,000 all the way back in June.
Our net worth is currently $301,079.30. I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.
Based on my estimates, we should hit our next net worth milestone of $310,000 by April.
Happy New Year! The beginning of a new year brings the opportunity to set new financial goals. We had good success reaching most of our 2014 goals and hope to reach the five goals below by the end of 2015.
1) Pass our 2016 Net Worth Goal 1 year early Since we already passed our 2015 net worth goal of $296K (1 year early), we will shoot for hitting our 2016 net worth goal of $343K. I am not currently working this might a tough one.
2) Pay off credit card balance of $5,767.31 We charged a new HVAC system (~$6,400) to a 0% credit card in September and the remaining balance is $5,767.31. The 0% offer is good for 2 years, but we would like to get eliminate this debt in 2015.
3) Pay $3,000 extra towards mortgage principal We paid $1,200 total in extra mortgage principal payments in 2014 and would like to try to more than double that to a total of $3,000 in 2015. That is an average of $250/month in extra payments.
4) Contribute $4,000 to 529 Plans ($2,000 for each child) I feel like we have gotten off to a good start with saving for our kid’s college and want to keep up the pace. Our kids are young, so the more we can contribute now, the longer it will have time to grow. Our 3-year-old currently has a balance of $11,349.23 and 7-month-old has a balance of $3,673.32. In 2014, we contributed $3,365 to our daughter’s 529 and $965 to our son’s 529. We would like to contribute $2,000 to each of their 529 Plans in 2015.
5) Building savings account balance to $15,000 In previous years, I set a goal of reaching $20K in savings, but we repeatedly fail to get there. I hate lowering the bar, but I think we need a target that is more doable. I’m hoping that by reaching $15K in savings in 2015, we can get to $20K in 2016.
At the beginning of every year, we set goals that we hope to reach by the end of the year. Below are the goals that we set for ourselves in early 2014 along with our results in achieving them.
1) Increase net worth to $251,900 – SUCCESS
At the start of 2014, we were less than $7K from reaching our 2014 net worth goal of $252K. Reaching it was almost a certainty, but I was still surprised when we blew past it in February, reaching a net worth of $274K that month.
2) Pass our 2015 Net Worth Goal 1 year early – SUCCESS
We are roughly 1 year ahead of our net worth goal targets, so it made sense to attempt to pass our 2015 net worth goal ($296K) one year early. It came down to the buzzer but we hit the goal. Actually, we passed our 2015 net worth goal briefly back in August, but lost ground shortly thereafter. It wasn’t until the last week of December that we passed our 2015 net worth goal again and ended the year with a net worth of $296,126.38.
3) Building savings account balance to $20,000 – FAIL
Every year that we attempt to reach the goal of$20k in savings, we fail. Sad and frustrating. We ended 2014 with $9,207.30 in savings. On a positive note, when I quit my job in September, we only had $7,720 in savings, so at least we haven’t had to dip into it yet.
4) Pay off Car 3 – SUCCESS
We started 2014 with a $12K balance on our “Car 3” auto loan (monthly payments of $307.21). We paid the vehicle off in February, thanks to a large quarterly bonus that my wife received.
5) Open 529 Plan for new baby – SUCCESS
We believe strongly in saving for our kid’s college and were happy to be able to reach this goal. Our daughter’s 529 Plan account was opened in June (1 month after her birth) with a initial deposit of $3K. Her 529 balance is now $3,673.32, not too shabby for a 8-month-old.
I will post our goals for 2015 shortly.
Back in early 2007, I posted annual net worth goals for the next 20 years. Time flies and we’re nearly 8 years into it and one year ahead of schedule (see table below, current year in yellow).
The annual goals were based on a few assumptions/guesses that I made back in 2007: 1) An 8% average return on investments, 2) $12K in contributions to retirement accounts each year, and 3) $12K in debt reduction each year. Back in 2007, we had a household income of $101K, so those seemed like good challenges. Thanks to my wife’s dramatic increase in income, our household income is up to $250K+ this year. As a result, we have been able to contribute more than my original estimates to retirement savings and paying down debt.
My hope is that we can continue to outpace the annual goals, hopefully by years, and get to a point where we can semi retire in 2027. To do so, we will have to continue to increase our retirement contributions each year and focus on paying down our mortgage.
We passed our 2015 net worth goal of $296,000. Our net worth is currently $297,643.30 (I will be updating the chart to the left at the end of September).
This puts us over a year ahead of our planned goals:
2014 goal $241,900
2015 goal $296,000
It’s time now to start making some headway on our 2016 net worth goal of $343,700! Feeling blessed!
We passed the net worth milestone of $290,000. We passed our last net worth milestone of $280,000 in May (last month).
Our net worth is currently $290,155. I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.
We should hit our next net worth milestone of $300,000 by October.
We passed the net worth milestone of $280,000. We passed our last net worth milestone of $270,000 in February.
Our net worth is currently $280,108.56. I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.
We should hit our next net worth milestone of $290,000 around September.
We passed the net worth milestone of $270,000. This comes right after passing $250,000 and $260,000 in one day!
Our net worth is currently $271,307.22. I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.
We shoul hit our next net worth milestone of $280,00 around May.
Today we passed the $250,000 AND $260,000 net worth milestones! The first time we passed two milestones in one day! This was thanks to a $66,600 gross ($28,873.32 net) quarterly bonus that my wife earned. Our net worth is currently $262,430.17.
We passed our last milestone of $240K in November. Based on my forecasts, we should hit the next net worth milestone of $270K by May.
I will update our net worth meter (on the left side of the screen) at the end of the month.
Every year, we set goals that we hope to reach by the end of the year. Below is our list for 2014.
We are so close to hitting our 2014 net worth goal of $251,900 and the year has just begun. We are less than $7K from reaching this goal, so unless something dramatic happens, we will pass our goal very quickly.
2) Pass our 2015 Net Worth Goal 1 year early
Since we are so far ahead of our net worth goal, we are going to shoot for reaching next year’s (2015) net worth goal of $296,000 a year early. I think we have a good chance of making this happen.
3) Building savings account balance to $20,000
We have always struggled to keep a decent sum of money in our savings account. We would love to have our savings account built back up to $20,000, but it will take a determined effort to reach this by the end of the year.