|
2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. 2015 Goals: Increase my gross income to $75k. Add at least $15k to my 401k and max my Roth IRA. Somehow decrease my housing expenses, either by moving or otherwise compensating my current landlord in some way. Maintain a girlfriend without driving her nuts with frugality Maintain good grades in school; B or higher gets me back 100% of tuition costs! edit: This is a stretch goal, but add $10k or more to savings. I'll be mentally and financially ready for a house purchase by 2017, I think. Not a Children fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Jan 5, 2015 |
#
¿
Dec 15, 2014 16:11
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 22:59 |
|
|
Not a Children posted:2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. Progress report: - On track to reach my income goal. The $75k goal and the "doing well in school" are closely intertwined; if I pull off the latter, it should easily push me into the former. - On track to max 401k; may actually draw this back a bit, since it's cutting into my ability to add to my house savings. I'm going to wait until I see what my yearly raise looks like in April before I make any moves. Roth IRA was maxed with money pulled from my non-emergency savings; I'm replenishing those funds with money left over from budget each month. - Housing expenses have remained constant, but may go up or down in the next couple months -- there are tons of great places around, I just need to choose one. Weighing space vs comfort vs location, and I hate the whole drat process of looking. - Girlfriend is completely on board with keeping things frugal (eating in, finding cheap things to do, etc) but alcohol and video games remain categories we could probably stand to reduce. We treat ourselves to 2 meals out together a month. We have a mini vacation to Miami planned for June. The flights were paid for with old frequent flier miles, and we have a cheap airbnb and car rental. Overall, 4 days of fun in the sun should run us less than $250 a piece.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2015 15:29
|
|
|
I've found that when well-to-do people are perpetually broke/indebted in a nonobvious way, it's because of one of 4 things: -Dating irresponsibly -Eating out too much -Expensive hobbies -Gambling Or a combination of the aforementioned thereof
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2015 00:19
|
|
|
Not a Children posted:2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. End-of-Quarter update Classes are going decently. One should be an easy alley-oop into a B+/A-, the other one I'll have to put a little more elbow grease into but the instructor seems like a total softie, so he'll probably end up giving enough extra credit for everyone to end up with at least a B. Anyone who knows about protective power relaying, hit me with a PM. Lots of overtime lately, and I'm on track for what I suspect will be a decent raise at appraisal time next month. Income goals are as planned. On track to max 401k, ROTH IRA is already maxed. Housing plans fell through, so I may end up actually moving back with my parents for a few months if I don't find anything by May 1. Sucks, but not the end of the world, and if I do end up doing that it's another ~$1200 in my pocket every month.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2015 14:41
|
|
|
Not a Children posted:2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. Monthly update #3: Things are going well! Got my raise earlier this month, raising my base salary by nearly 5%. If I count my reimbursement for school this year, I'll easily clear $80k gross. On track to max out my 401k, Roth IRA is already funded for this year. I have not yet decreased my housing costs. I'm considering moving back home for a spell while I look for a roommate. Girlfriend has tolerated me thus far. I've helped her put together a good budget, and she's helped me feel less guilty about spending fun money on myself. Communication is awesome. Clinched the B in one class, the other is pretty breezy and I only need to get 50% on the remaining design project and final to reach that goal. I should be able to get As in both, provided I have enough time to study around the crazy deadline at work. GPA doesn't matter in the real world, but I have my pride. I've been able to consistently make efforts toward my stretch goal, but I'm probably only going to be able to make it to $3-4k unless I really tighten my belt in regards to fun/convenience spending. If I end up moving back home, though, I'll be able to accomplish it very easily.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 17:28
|
|
|
Not a Children posted:2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. End-of-May Update: With the incoming educational reimbursement, I should blow past $75k even if I put in zero overtime for the rest of the year. Goal is to surpass $80k this year. In my last update, I said that would be easy -- it is not looking so easy now that I realize reimbursement for the fall semester won't come until January. Roth IRA is maxed. 401k is on track to max, and since I was maxing before my raise last month, I actually saw a pure take-home increase now that I can draw back my contribution %.  I have not yet decreased my housing expenses. I'm in a bit of a limbo right now, waiting for a couple of friends to finalize their work situations so we can figure out if a roommate situation would be palatable. May was a bad month for frugality, but not terrible; I got my tax refund, shoved it all into savings, and used the extra wiggle room in my monthly budget to treat the girlfriend to a couple of nice dinners. We're going on vacation next week, and after that have vowed to keep eating out to a maximum of twice a month as long as we can stand it. My grades are in! I probably could have gotten away with studying way, way less, but a pair of A+es isn't a half bad way to make my grad school debut. That's slightly less than $5000 of reimbursements banked right there.
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
2015 update, HALF YEAR EDITION 2015 Goals: Increase my gross income to $75k. DONE. Add at least $15k to my 401k and max my Roth IRA. On track, Roth is maxed and 401k is set to reach just below the limit of $18k. Somehow decrease my housing expenses, either by moving or otherwise compensating my current landlord in some way. Getting a bit off track here. My housing expenses have stayed the same, and I've actually been spending more than I expected on medical bills, summertime fun, and weddings. Going to have to tighten the drawstrings. Maintain a girlfriend without driving her nuts with frugality. So far, so good Maintain good grades in school; B or higher gets me back 100% of tuition costs! DONE! This is a stretch goal, but add $10k or more to savings. I'll be mentally and financially ready for a house purchase by 2017, I think. On track. On a side note, my net worth crossed over into 6 figgies today, so I must be doing something right
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2015 14:35
|
|
|
November update! 2015 Goals: Increase my gross income to $75k. Blew this one away with a surprise promotion late this year. Should be sitting pretty in the mid 80s once my tuition is reimbursed. Add at least $15k to my 401k and max my Roth IRA. Both will be maxed out this year! Somehow decrease my housing expenses, either by moving or otherwise compensating my current landlord in some way. I moved, and am saving about $100/mo on rent. However... my expenses actually went up, thanks to a longer commute and the fact that my landlord misled me about utility costs. Looking at $20-40/mo in increased expenses. Oh well, at least I have a private bathroom and room for a desk now. Maintain a girlfriend without driving her nuts with frugality. Success! We're both on board the savings train, and she's actually probably even more conservative with spending than I am. Maintain good grades in school; B or higher gets me back 100% of tuition costs! Successful so far, but one class is very poorly run with exactly zero feedback in 2.5 months, so we'll have to see. edit: This is a stretch goal, but add $10k or more to savings. I'll be mentally and financially ready for a house purchase by 2017, I think. Currently sitting at $9,900 contributed, with 2 months left in the year. Yeah, this'll work out.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2015 21:44
|
|
|
Thanks! I'm in electrical power engineering, working for a civil consulting firm of ~1000 people that has been doing very well over the past few years. I think I have a little extra leverage in that I'm one of just a handful of electrical engineers in a company of mostly civil/environmental engineers, but other than that I was just very lucky to end up with a company that treats its workers well and wants to invest in its staff. My only qualifications are about 3.5 years work experience and my BS in EE, but I should see further bumps in pay after passing the FE, PE, and finishing the Masters' (assuming my program doesn't lose accreditation, which it just may if it has more classes of the quality I'm currently experiencing). After that, I assume my pay more or less plateaus unless/until I break into management.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2015 16:43
|
|
|
Simple savings goals never hurt anyone. If you blow by all the basics, maybe make a stretch goal for investing $xx,xxx in a brokerage fund for next year? It doesn't have to be easy, just reasonably achievable. That's the point of setting goals!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2015 15:23
|
|
|
EOY Update!Not a Children posted:2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. 2015 was an easy success. I'm going to try to make my next set of goals a bit more ambitious. On to 2016!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2015 20:47
|
|
|
I submit that the reward for a sucessful year should be a gang tag and further that it should be this:
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2015 06:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 22:59 |
|
|
slap me silly posted:I like! Anyone who wants this and feels they deserve it, post in here with Thanks! Guess I'll embrace it since I made it. Original and final are condensed in the quote block. Not a Children posted:EOY Update! And if it's not too much trouble, could you change my av text to "Pffft, what do squids know about spending money?" while you're knocking around in there?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2015 03:15
|
|