I hope everyone’s new year is off to a great start!   We hit three out of five of our 2015 financial goals and hope to have better luck reaching our 2016 financial goals listed below.

1) Pass both our 2016 and 2017 Net Worth Goals We finished 2015 with a net worth of $331,113, meaning we are roughly $12K short of our 2106 net worth goal of $343,700. God willing, we should easily reach that goal and once we do, we’ll shoot for hitting our 2017 net worth goal of $395,200 one year early. My wife was laid off on 12/31/15, so these goals are more challenging than they seem.

2) Pay off Car 1 Loan Last year, we went from having no car payment to have two car payments that total $850/month. Insane! We must try to pay off the smaller of the two loans. As of December 2015, we owe $21,585.22 on our loan for Car 1.

3) Pay $4,000 extra towards mortgage principal We paid $3,100 total in extra mortgage principal payments in 2015 and would love to try pay an extra $4,000 towards mortgage principal in 2016 (an average of $333/month in extra payments.

4) Contribute $4,000 to 529 Plans ($2,000 for each child) We hope again be able to contribute $4,000 total ($2,000 for each child) to our kids 529 Plans in 2016. We barely pulled it off in 2015 and hope to do it again in 2016. Our 4-year-old currently has a balance of $13,323.37 and our 18-month-old has a balance of $5,762.07.

5) Building savings account balance to $20,000 We’ve tried so many times to build and maintain a saving account balance of $20,000. We ended 2015 with a saving account balance of $11,516.46. Hopefully we will reach $20,000 in 2016.

I can’t believe 2016 is hear already.  Below are the results of the 2015 financial goals that we set for ourselves 12 months ago. As you can see, it’s a mixed bag in terms of success and failure. We’re excited about what 2016 will bring.  I’ll be posting our 2016 financial goals soon.

1) Pass our 2016 Net Worth Goal 1 year early – FAIL

We passed our 2015 net worth goal of $296K one year early so we set a goal to of hitting our 2016 net worth goal of $343K by the end of 2015. We didn’t quite get there but got darn close, ending 2015 with a net worth of $331,113. I was out of a job the first 5 months of the year so that’s not too shabby.

2) Pay off credit card balance of $5,767.31 – SUCCESS

We successfully paid off the $5,767.31 credit card balance from purchasing a new HVAC system a little over a year ago.

3) Pay $3,000 extra towards mortgage principal – SUCCESS

Another success! We paid $3,100 total in extra mortgage principal payments in 2015, surpassing our goal by a tiny bit.

4) Contribute $4,000 to 529 Plans ($2,000 for each child) – SUCCESS

We squeezed this one in the last month of the year. By contributing $640 to our son’s 529 Plan in December and $285 to our daughter’s plan in December, we reached goal of contributing $2,000 to each of their 529 Plans in 2015.

4) Building savings account balance to $15,000 – FAIL

We set a goal of building our savings to $15,000 in 2015. We didn’t quite make it but finished with a respectable $11,516.46. We hope to exceed the $15K in savings in just a couple of weeks with a ~$34K gross severance that my wife will receive in January.

Got this one in before the New Year buzzer:)  We passed our net worth milestone of $330,000.  We passed our previous net worth milestone of $310,000 last month.

Our net worth is currently $331,813.98. I will update our chart on the left at the end of the month.

Thanks to a severance package that my wife is receiving, we should hit our next net worth milestone of $340,000 next month!

It took awhile but we finally passed the net worth milestone of $320,000.  We passed our last net worth milestone of $310,000 back in May.

Our net worth is currently $320,922.87. 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 $330,000 by February.

I’m happy to report that we passed the net worth milestone of $310,000.  We passed our last net worth milestone of $310,000 back in February.

Our net worth is currently $310,263.14. 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 $320,000 by August.

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.

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!