Category Archives: Goals

NET WORTH MILESTONE: $710,000

We just passed our net worth milestones of $710,000! It has been a long time since we reached a new net worth milestone. We passed our previous milestone of $700,000 way back in September.

Our net worth is currently $712,820.28. We hope to reach the $720K milestone by May.

2019 FINANCIAL GOALS

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

Review of 2018 Financial Goals

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.

NET WORTH MILESTONE: $680,000

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.