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In 2014, my net worth jumped from $85,000 to $125,000. I made a more conscious effort to save money this year than in previous years. I also started investing money. In the past, I usually hoarded the money in my checking account. The 2015 goals: - Increase net worth to over $175,000. It'd be nice if I can hit $200,000 by the end of the year. - Max out 401k, Roth IRA, and HSA - Remain debt free - Retain emergency fund of $75,000 and any dollar past that point gets moved into taxable investments or some other way of making money instead of sitting in the account. - Diversify my income. I want to make sure that I make money from more than just my full time job. I want money coming in from multiple sources. I just don't know quite yet what I will be doing to achieve this goal. - Set up a budget. I can't make my ideal #1 goal otherwise.
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Dec 15, 2014 05:42
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 10:11 |
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pig slut lisa posted:It's 2015, has everyone achieved all their financial goals yet? I went and already put in an order to max out my Roth IRA contributions for the year. It will take a day or two to process but so far so good!
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Jan 1, 2015 17:27
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The Experiment posted:In 2014, my net worth jumped from $85,000 to $125,000. I made a more conscious effort to save money this year than in previous years. I also started investing money. In the past, I usually hoarded the money in my checking account. 1) Net worth is a couple hundred short of $135,000 as of today. The stock market keeps fluctuating too much. I suspect this is going to be the hardest goal to reach. 2) Done. Roth IRA is completely maxed out and have the percentages for the 401k and HSA to work to be maxed throughout the year (or close to unfortunately since I can only adjust by percentage points for the 401k. I may be about $100-200 short of $18,000 as a result. I'll try to find a way to get it to $18,000 the best I can). 3) Done. 4) Due to the fluctuating market, I've been stashing most of my excess money in a two week European vacation I have planned for May. This is the first vacation I've ever taken (you read that right) so I'm going to go nuts. My overall budget for this might be $7,500. All of my tax return money is going to the vacation. 5) No progress here. I'm stumped. Maybe I can make goon erotica as a holdover and use that money to fund what I really want to do. Not sure what that is yet! Due to work and classes, I haven't had much time to think about side gigs or businesses. 6) I have finally put a budget in place. It feels weird. This month will require a good deal of self control. If I keep within my budget for this month, then the rest should be easier.
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Feb 1, 2015 20:35
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The Experiment posted:In 2014, my net worth jumped from $85,000 to $125,000. I made a more conscious effort to save money this year than in previous years. I also started investing money. In the past, I usually hoarded the money in my checking account. 1) Net worth is at $140,000. It was up to $142,000 but took a hit because I bought tickets for my European vacation. My tax return hasn't arrived yet or else it would have remained around $142k. Still a success since it increased by quite a bit. 2) Everything has been locked in place since the 1st of the year so this won't change. I bit the bullet and checked out the expense ratios on my 401k. Sure enough, not a single fund available is below 0.5%. The highest one I have is 0.68%. I asked my HR department about adding some Vanguard funds and they basically told me to go pound sand. I gave them all kinds of information but no dice. My March goal is to realign my 401k funds to the funds with (relatively) lower expense ratios. Then see if there is any deficiencies with the balance in the portfolio and make it up through the non-retirement account I have at Vanguard. 3) Still a success! 4) See #3 5) Things this month through May are very busy. This is probably going to be on the back burner for now. 6) I have kept within my budget but I stopped using YNAB. I still have a Mint account and Excel spreadsheet that I prefer to use.
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Feb 28, 2015 20:56
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I graduated college with almost $90k in debt, even though I had a part time job, lived with roommates, and I had almost nothing to show for it (except the degree). I once reflected how I was able to do this and it was mostly this: - Going to bars and never really caring about the tab at the end of the night (usually $50 minimum). - Eating out constantly. I convinced myself that I was often too busy to cook anything at home. Plus I wanted to eat healthy so that was definitely expensive. - I bought huge video game collections. I went on a Sega Saturn import spree that likely set me back $3,000. I wound up selling the whole thing for about $600. There were other examples but that was the most egregious I could think of. - Smoked a shitload of weed. I was usually generous with it so a big bag lasted a lot less than it normally did. - I worked out a lot. I also took a lot of supplements, most of which were expensive and provided no real benefit whatsoever. A lot of it was junk like Guggulsterones: something that was expensive that may possibly cause you to lose a half a pound of fat over a year if you take it religiously. I was just dumb with money during that time.
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Mar 8, 2015 01:06
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The Experiment posted:In 2014, my net worth jumped from $85,000 to $125,000. I made a more conscious effort to save money this year than in previous years. I also started investing money. In the past, I usually hoarded the money in my checking account. 1) LOL. Not going to make this one. I booked an appointment for LASIK in three weeks. I should make $150,000 though, barring some kind of stock market crash. 2) Still doing all of these. The 401k options are poor and my nominal YTD returns are just over 3%. Not sure what the current inflation rate is so my real returns are 1% at best. 3) Done 4) Didn't hit this goal. I decided to move $1,000 a month into taxable investments. Due to various expenses that have popped up, my current bank account balance is $44,000. I get about $4,000 in educational reimbursement in a couple of weeks. I've pretty much tightened my belt on expenses all around. I find that I have $2,500 in disposable income a month after all of the bills and investments. I'm going to start rebuilding my emergency fund but not at the expense of the $1,000 a month I put in the taxable investments. Also I get a 15% bonus in December and my policy with bonus spending is that I just add it to savings or investments. I can get back to this goal if I focus for the rest of the year. 5) I just graduated with my MBA. The next month or two will be spent on thinking about just that. 6) See #4. I did it. I hated using YNAB because everything was all manual. I find that I was better off just looking at my bank statements, looking at my credit card statements, and going from there in an Excel spreadsheet.
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Aug 1, 2015 20:22
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 10:11 |
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The Experiment posted:In 2014, my net worth jumped from $85,000 to $125,000. I made a more conscious effort to save money this year than in previous years. I also started investing money. In the past, I usually hoarded the money in my checking account. End of the year check: 1) Failed. My net worth is approximately $162,000. I'm not going to whine too much over a net worth increase of $37,000. 2) Completed successfully. 3) Completed successfully. 4) I eventually lowered it to $50,000 and started putting the difference into investments. The stock market hasn't done all that well so as of this year, I was better off leaving it in my checking account. Here's hoping it pays off if the Dow goes to 20,000+. 5) Failed totally. I don't have many good ideas to do this. 6) I succeeded...eventually. I suspect had I put in place a good budget, I'd be a lot closer to $175k. 4 out of 6...I still feel fine about that overall.
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Dec 18, 2015 03:47
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