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Even though I changed things so much partway through last year that most of my goals were no longer relevant, I'll try again. This time, with simpler goals 2024 goals Financial - Get my combined house and emergency fund to €20k and keep it there Currently €10k (emergency), €5750 (house savings) and €2967 (house checking) and I'll keep paying utilities and house work from the checking account so I'll just need to fill the house savings account up to 7k and then pay into the checking account whatever I spend each month, so it's probably going to be at not quite €3k at the end of the month like it is now. - Make €1800 or more worth of extra mortgage payments In preparation of my current interest rate expiring in 2030 for two parts of my mortgage. For now, this is happening automatically, with €150 per month going to the loan part with the nearest rate change date. - Contribute €200 per month to my tax advantaged retirement account Still doing this automatically. - Build up my non tax advantaged brokerage account to at least €58k More if possible, depending on the market, obviously. Once I have €100k (not this year lol), I'll start allocating more money to the mortgage instead. The brokerage balance is currently at €43200. House - Finish the last remaining work from last year's renovation Some finishing work to be done, and wood paneling on one living room wall. I'll probably meet with the contractor next week, after a few months of doing nothing about the renovation. - Get a washer and dryer And get them installed, which means I'll have to sacrifice my separate shower and move my shower into the bath tub. I used to worry about accessibility for resale value, but since it's up a flight of stairs, no seniors are going to buy my apt. Other - Finish reading 20 books (up from 13 last year) - Finish writing my small breakfast cookbook - Do some exercise every day, even if it's just a set of situps or biking to the office EricBauman fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jan 2, 2024 |
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Jan 2, 2024 16:08
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I feel like I got a freebie this month, with the market doing more work than me. And I'm currently in Thailand for work, receiving a per diem that's much more than I spend on daily stuff and food 2024 goals Financial - Get my combined house and emergency fund to €20k and keep it there Currently €10k (emergency), €7000 (house savings, up from €5750) and €3000 (house checking) - Make €1800 or more worth of extra mortgage payments On schedule with €150 paid in January - Contribute €200 per month to my tax advantaged retirement account Still doing this automatically. - Build up my non tax advantaged brokerage account to at least €58k Currently at €44916, up from €43200, but that's all just market movement, I haven't made any contributions. I know I could lose it again just the same way, but still, feels like I'm ahead of schedule a bit House - Finish the last remaining work from last year's renovation No progress - Get a washer and dryer No progress, and my dishwasher broke just before I left for Thailand, so I'm going to replace that first Other - Finish reading 20 books I finished a mediocre book about coffee and am now reading The Fund about Ray Dalio and Bridgewater. Has some annoying copy editing mistakes, but I do recommend it to bfc goons - Finish writing my small breakfast cookbook Made some progress, but none since I went to Thailand - Do some exercise every day On track. Doing a lot of swimming in the hotel pool right now, which apparently my previous knee injury doesn't prevent anymore EricBauman fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Feb 1, 2024 |
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Feb 1, 2024 05:49
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The market did a lot of my work for me again this month, and that's a good thing since I had to buy a new dishwasher and pay for some travel I'm doing in May. 2024 goals Financial - Get my combined house and emergency fund to €20k and keep it there Currently €10k (emergency), €7000 (house savings) and €3000 (house checking) - Make €1800 or more worth of extra mortgage payments On schedule with €150 paid in February, €300 total. - Contribute €200 per month to my tax advantaged retirement account Still doing this automatically. - Build up my non tax advantaged brokerage account to at least €58k Currently at €46610 (the day's not ever yet, so it can still move a bit), up from €43200 at the start of the year, €44916 at the end of January. I did put in €250, the rest is all market movement. At one point I was up even more, but the market has been cooling off a bit in the past few days. House - Finish the last remaining work from last year's renovation No progress - Get a washer and dryer No progress, but I did replace my dishwasher and I fixed a problem with my kitchen drain that I thought was unfixable until I replaced the dishwasher hose. Other - Finish reading 20 books I finished The Fund about Ray Dalio and Bridgewater, and then a Dutch translation of Marco Polo's Il Milione. The Fund was good but should have had a few weeks more of editing. At one point Copeland even writes Brightwater instead of Bridgewater and it's absolutely shameful that no one caught that error. Il Milione isn't a great book, and I don't know why people think it is. It's basically a listicle of cities in Asia and not quite the adventure story that people think of when they talk about Marco Polo. "The next city is X, their religion is Y and their industry is Z" ad nauseam. Like computer-generated lore articles for an MMORPG. So that's 3 books finished in the first 2 months of the year, putting me on track. I'm currently reading Love, Death and Money in the Pays D'Oc by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, but not making great progress. I always read a lot when I'm travelling, so this might improve during my two trips in March. - Finish writing my small breakfast cookbook The dishwasher being broken really messed with my plans. Once it was fixed I did make a cinnamon rolls but with dulce de leche instead of cinnamon sugar recipe. - Do some exercise every day On track. I didn't do any actual exercise when I took a four day trip to Italy, but I did walk 20km every day while I was there, so I'll accept that as exercise. Now that I'm spending less money on my house and travelling more for work, I'm thinking of setting myself some travel goals as well (or a goal of setting some money aside for personal travel). I could set myself a goal to attain silver status with KLM, but that's going to happen anyway with the trips I've already got planned. I'd like to visit a country I've never been to before. Perhaps I'll go see Latvia over Easter during my work trip to Lithuania next month. Also going to Scotland in May, and I've never been to that part of the UK, so that counts as a unique country as well, I think
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Feb 29, 2024 11:04
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I'm getting a head start on posting this one, since the market has closed for Good Friday anyway, and I'll be travelling for the next few days so I'm not going to move any money around. Had a bit of a dip because of some more travel expenses for my trip to Scotland in May, and had to move some money to another account so a hotel will be able to put a hold on the correct credit card for a stay I already paid for, so that's some more money that's coming back to the savings account. I also booked my Christmas vacation to Mexico already, but that's not yet in these numbers as my cc statement gets paid in the middle of next month. Amex didn't want to change that to the end of the month the last time I tried, sadly. Maybe I'll try again one of these days. I'll make back most of that Mexico money in my tax refund, but I'm not sure yet when I'll receive that. So potentially another month where the savings accts aren't full next month. I'll survive. In May I'll get my yearly 8% holiday pay, so if the tax refund is late, I'll use that to fill up the house accounts. I've also decided to start saving for these travel expenses in a more organized way. If the other accounts are full and I'm at or ahead of the planned amount in the brokerage account, I'll fill a new savings account up to 5k. That way, I won't have to temporarily dip into the house savings account to pay for travel stuff. I'll include that savings account in the calculations, but it's not my goal to keep it full at all times. 2024 goals Financial - Combined house and emergency fund to €20k Emergency €10k House savings €5750 House checking €3000 For a total of €18750 - €1800 extra mortgage payments €150 again, €450 total, as planned. - €200 per month to tax advantaged retirement account Done automatically again. - Non tax advantaged brokerage account to at least €58k €48645, up from €46610 No extra input from me, all market movement. More than two months ahead of schedule on this, but it's easy to lose it again. House - Finish the last remaining work from last year's renovation No progress - Get a washer and dryer No progress, I've been travelling too much Other - Finish reading 20 books Love, Death and Money in the Pays D'Oc by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie is not as much fun as I hoped. More literature survey than fun local history. Maybe I'll drop this, or I'll force through. I'll catch up with other books later. - Finish writing my small breakfast cookbook Did some planning with my friend that has published a few. She's going to help me a bit. - Do some exercise every day On track, but only because I count the large amounts of walking I do as exercise. - Travel On track to visit a new country this year, since I'm taking a few days break in Riga over Easter. Guaranteed to reach KLM Silver status with the Scotland trip in May, and Gold with the Mexico trip in December. Mostly thanks to a shitload of work travel, though. And I make a killing on the per diem as well. I have a graph!  (This is just the savings accounts, house checking and brokerage, so stuff I can access without problems)
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Mar 29, 2024 18:08
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Let's just say I had a bad month. It started with me getting back from a business trip (plus break of a few days) to receive an email informing me that my side job is over. They said it was because I was available less often, but I don't think that's it. There wasn't that much work anyway and I was one of their most expensive freelancers. So I think they were just looking to dump me, or potentially everyone and have AI do a bad job instead. RIP to what was a great side job over the past seven years. It paid for the new kitchen in my old apt and for a carefree life. The income I got from that was variable, but was about 500-1300 euros a month. That's a pretty big hit. I also had to pay for my Mexico flights in December. If I'd known that my income was going to take this hit for the rest of the year, I wouldn't have booked them back in March. I can afford it, but it's not great. I'm looking for another source of side income, but it's not easy. All of this caused me a bit of stress, so I stopped working out and reading as much. I stopped the extra payments into my retirement account and my mortgage principal. And then the stock market also turned a bit. I'm doing a very simple four fund portfolio, but I feel there's a lot of instability, with pretty big intraday swings. The good news is that Mexico has been paid for (I still need to pay for the hotel, though), and in May I'll get about 2k extra because of the Dutch vacation allowance scheme, and, inshallah, my 1200 tax refund. But that could also be June. The (extra) bad new is that it looks like I may be getting into a long distance relationship, so that's another expense. 2024 goals Financial - Combined house and emergency fund to €20k Emergency €10k House savings €6813.18 House checking €2000 For a total of €18813.18 - €1800 extra mortgage payments Stopped this, so it's still at €450 total. One month behind plan. - €200 per month to tax advantaged retirement account Stopped this, so it's at €600 for the year. One month behind plan. - Non tax advantaged brokerage account to at least €58k €48018, down from €48645 due to the market being the market I didn't put any new money in, though, and I'm still ahead of schedule on this. House - Finish the last remaining work from last year's renovation No progress - Get a washer and dryer No progress Other - Finish reading 20 books I dropped Love, Death and Money in the Pays D'Oc by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie because it's no fun and am now reading The Key Man about a fraudulent hedge fund mogul. Much more fun and I recommend it for BFC goons. - Finish writing my small breakfast cookbook No progress. - Do some exercise every day There were days I did nothing. I did bike to the office more often. Not all the time, since April had kind of poo poo weather. - Travel I've crossed a new country off my list: Latvia. Riga is very different to Vilnius, which I know very well by now. My budding long distance relationship may have me flying to other European places soon, but let's see how that goes. Graph time!  (This is just the savings accounts, house checking and brokerage, so stuff I can access without problems) Still above what I planned, but it's going to be hard to hit my goals for the rest of the year now that my income has gone down by so much
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May 1, 2024 09:35
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