2021 MM goals check in....we're getting down to the wire

[ohgillian]

How's everyone doing on their goals? 

Here's the original thread: pandce.proboards.com/thread/624175/2021-mm-goals-intentions
Here's the mid-year check in thread: pandce.proboards.com/thread/627482/2021-mid-year-check

If there was one of these recently and I missed it, then just ignore me. LOL.

[ohgillian]

My goals:

- Update my "in case I die" file: Done! I printed it and reviewed it with DH, then gave it to him in a labeled envelope maybe a month ago. At first he asked me to file it somewhere but I told him no, that he had to put it somewhere that would work for him, so he put it in his bedside table. I feel really good having that done. Things had changed a lot in the 8ish years since I last did it.

- Learn to issue K-1s: I chose not to do this. I'm going to keep using the CPA who does the Trust's taxes.

- Simplify the finances somewhat: I guess I'm not sure if I've done this or not, but I'm not feeling overwhelmed, so, I think I'm fine with things as-is. 

[trissie18]

1. Stick to budget - we have gotten a little lax and need to get back on track. We haven't incurred any new debt but haven't saved as much as I would have liked.


2. Student loans - Done.


3. Financial Advisor - Done. We meet with him quarterly and are on track (which was a relief for me). Next steps are to review DH's 401k fund allocations and next year we will begin maxing retirement savings and restarting college fund deposits.


4. Home Improvements - we cash flowed the ones we did this year and delayed others until lumber prices level out. We will be buying the whole house generator with DH's workers comp payout once that is determined.


5. Pay off 50% of a 0% transferred debt with a targeted goal to pay it off by mid-2022. - on track to meet the 50% goal in December and pay off by May 2022 (0% expires in June). The money we are paying towards this will be used for #3 in 2022.

[sadlebred]

1. Short term: get savings back up after an expensive Jan. (car & furnace repair bills)

-Still working on this. I decided to do a landscaping project in August to complete the two front garden beds of the house. I had my yard service replace 40 year old boxwoods that were taller than me (although nicely shaped) and added some bushes the 2nd bed. I also bought a battery powered leaf blower and hedge/bush clipper.

2. Increase e-fund by 1 month's expenses.

--Nope

3. Put some money into a cd for a future car purchase 3-4+ years from now.

--Did this in March.

4. Pay off e-bike. This will be done in April.

--Done

5. Save up enough for Lasik to be done after COVID settles down.

--Lasik was done in June.

6. Towards the end of the year, transfer my current ROTH to Vanguard for Fidelity and start contributing again after meeting my other goals.

-Did in March/April

7. Keep chipping away at a small loan I have.

-Still chipping.

[brooke77]

I made my updates in July. It was a good MM year for me. I am maxing out 401K, paid off my SLs (huge for me!!), am contributing to DS’ 529, and have my emergency fund back on track.

In July I mentioned that the new goal was to buy a house. We were unsuccessful last summer and will look again in the spring. We are saving for a higher down payment.

[Susie]

As of mid-year I was mostly done, except after we finalized our estate planning documents, I needed to update the beneficiaries on all our retirement accounts and life insurance policies from our kids themselves to the trust.  I haven't done that yet.  REMINDER TO SELF, do it!

I'm also adding another task:

We bought our new house with 5% down, intending to sell our old house, then use the proceeds to pay down the new mortgage, drop PMI, and recast.  We're still sitting on the proceeds 3 months later.  I have to admit it's giving me pause to put all that cash into a mortgage at 2.75%, when I could do any number of other things with it.  In any case, by year's end I need to decide and execute because leaving it in my checking account out of indecision is for sure the dumbest available option.

[chpmnk1015]

same place i was for midyear:
-fund Dhs Roth by end of Jan.. DONE Also did a Roth for me.
-playing catch up with the kids savings accounts and want to have those to a specific # each by July DONE
-pay cash/outright for new front stairs- Decided to wait another year on this.
-buy new LR furniture.. DId this and some other renovations in cash we had saved for.
-Mortgage # in mind-- will be short of this due to to no job still.
- save Xx amount for vaca fund- Really close but saving more for other things at the moment.

Happy where this year is so far.. also added to save for a new car for me.. slow going but will need sooner rather than later. And rebuilding the house projects fund since we used most for furniture and built ins.
I am getting close to a job i think so this could help a lot on a couple things we are close to. But overall pretty happy at the moment.

[wildrice]

We are doing ok but probably won't hit everything.

1. Finish paying back my parents for the money they loaned us last year for down payment/closing costs.
- Yes, we have 2 payments left (just under $1200) and will make the final one in December

2. Pay off our car
- No, but we may still do so. We only owe like 2k at this point so there is no good reason not to!

3. Save up enough money to pay cash for new windows, replacing our bedroom closet doors, and new flooring in the living room.
- Paid cash for new windows and put the other stuff on hold for a variety of reasons. We probably spent at least 2k in other house fixes and upgrades this year so I feel like we did enough that I'm satisfied.

4. Switch bank accounts to something local.
- Yes, although I still need to finish actually transferring over our savings and closing the old account.

5. Set up a non-retirement investment account.
- No, and probably won't at this rate. I did nearly double my retirement contributions though so I think that was good enough.

6. This one is only sort of MM, but I really want to create a will and get organized in case of sudden death.
- I still have not done this. I was actually thinking about how I should do this when I'm recovering from surgery later this month (hopefully I won't die during surgery, I guess. Lol.) I will have a couple of weeks where I don't have much else to do so it would be a perfect time to get all that organized.

[quesyrah]

My goals were to increase DH 491K contribution from 15% to 20%, increase contributions to my IRA and star saving to have our house painted.

He had been furloughed from March 2020-April 2021 so we aren’t as far as I had hoped.

His 401K is at 18%, no contributions to my Roth (making it through the furlough became our only real goal), and we only have $200 saved towards getting our house painted.

He is getting a raise so we’ll bump the 401K again, and we will likely be getting a tax refund in 2022 so we’ll split it between my Roth and the house painting fund.

All in all we could be in worse shape.

[jwright]

Well, I didn't make formal goals but am pretty satisfied with our accomplishments:

1. Refinance mortgage; went from 30 year at 3.625% to 20 year at 2.25%
2. Pay cash for full house siding (this ended up being $$$$); done and it looks nice
3. Contribute to taxable investment accounts. I was so risk averse on this (didn't want to "lose it", thought we were at the top of the market every month, etc) but I have transferred $2,500/month since August. We need to up it, but I'm happy that we at least pulled the trigger.

Not accomplished:
1. Figure out what I want to do now that I quit my 9-5 job. I did a bit of freelance tax work and some personal projects; really increased my running and reading, but I am starting to feel like I need more of a plan.
2. Purchase investment property - meh, been casually looking but not the best market; I'm not worried about it.
3. Pay cash for backyard patio project - been putting this off but costs continue to increase so I'm not sure when we will tackle this.

[ssmjlm]

Still not doing anything but watching my savings account increase with a crap interest rate.

I think we're going to switch from Vanguard to my dad's FA. He will be the one I have to deal with when my parents pass, so the thought is to keeps things together. He's also well versed in the weird stuff they inherited and has grown them exponentially.

But I still NEED TO EMAIL HIM.

DH is a no go on the truck, so that's $$$ sitting and growing until cars get figure out or decides it's worth trying to buy a new truck.

[gt7301b]

I didn't make any goals for the year, but we have made some progress on the following:
- Refinanced at 2.00%
- Funded our pool renovation with cash

- Goal 1 - cost out kitchen remodel/ possible home addition. Timing to start TBA, but maybe after Christmas
- Goal 2 - develop strategy for DH's pension. It looks like we can buy back several of his years, but at this point it won't be cheap. The easiest thing might be to take additional money out of our home and buy back his years.
- Goal 3 - get DH to update all beneficiaries

[dr.girlfriend]

Weird, I thought I participated previously but I guess I didn't.

Overall, good news for 2021 -- DH went completely freelance, and he's doing amazing. He's making more income freelance than he ever did working full-time at a job he didn't like even a fraction as much.

Tops on the list of things to get accomplished for 2021 -- We *really* need to get our retirement stuff in order. We were doing well maxing out 401k/403b when we were both working full-time, but then my payroll stuff switched and DH went freelance and now I honestly have no idea what we are contributing or what we should be contributing especially for him. DH also had several different plans with different prior employers and I really want him to rollover and consolidate these all in one place. If there's one thing I learned from my father's death it's that it's hard enough to do inheritance stuff even when things are very organized.

[niq]

I set up brokerage-to-brokerage transfers so I can move money between the post-acquisition and pre-acquisition Stock Plans, and brokerage-to-bank transfers with our regular Checking + Savings CU.

I found an actual in person accountant, not H&R Block, for next tax year.

We finalized our wills. We are finalizing mom's advanced directives.

Contractors are finishing the walls in the garage right now, we have signed contracts and put down deposits for 3 interior closets and garage storage with California Closets.

MSNIQ IS SIGNED UP FOR DRIVING LESSONS **sirens** **airhorns** of course for the time being I'm still 100% remote so it doesn't really matter much.

Really we've done most of the stuff on the todo list for this year.

[simpsongal]

I love a check in - esp when things have changed dramatically!


1. Pay down/off heloc. Revised - we ended up doing another essential project ($13K basement walkout), which we bankrolled w/some cash and HELOC. Took the HELOC up to ~$53K. As of today the HELOC is at $46K. Hoping to make a bigger dent w/DCFSA payments and other cash expected to roll in.
check in #3 - NEWP (see below)


2. Help mom with finances (taxes, home sale, estate planning, renegotiating insurance, buying supp med insurance). In progress....(this is probably a 2 year project).

check in #3 - I talked to her, she actually has a will but we need to tackle other stuff....next year


3. Minor home stuff - landscaping, maybe buy basemt couch - DONE (doing DIY projects too)


4. Rebuild savings - next month (ended up making more HELOC payments and fully funded DS's 529).



I really want to renovate our master bath and office, but unless that HELOC goes down much farther, the project is on hold

check in #3 - there's no savings or HELOC pay off b/c we're doing the primary bathroom reno and adjacent spaces.  I'm losing track of the cost but it's around $40K.  We may be taking the HELOC up to the max (!).   But it's going well and we're so stoked about the new/finished spaces. 

[midwestmama]

I'm new and would like to jump in.

-Increase 401k contributions. I am behind for my age (39) and wanting to retire in the next 15-20 years, but I feel like I've made progress this year. When I started a new job with a new employer in early 2020, I started contributions at 8%. I recently got a promotion, so I've bumped it up to 9%. (For reference, I'm now contributing about twice the dollar amount I was when I left my last employer.)
-Rollover retirement savings from old employer into my 401k with my new employer. This was just completed this week.
-Pay down mortgage more quickly (goal of paying off in 2028). We refied to a 15 year mortgage last year which will help pay it off faster. We also plan to pay an extra $300 each month, plus a lump sum from our annual bonuses. We have annual mortgage balance targets, but I don't think we'll achieve this year's target, so we'll have to try to make it up next year.

[heygrey]

Canadian Citizenship - awaiting invitation to ceremony, which is the very last step!! It means I'm approved and this is the final formality. Apparently having IRSS lose my application was good because it got me on the fast track when they found it.

Yard makeover - we did A LOT, but there is still so much to do. We've wrapped up for this year and will continue in the spring.

Car replacement - $0 saved. need to work more on that this winter.

House projects - have completed more than planned which is why we have nothing saved for the car.

Understand pensions - H's changed this year so it made me research more. We're on track and have upped our personal retirement savings.

In-Case-I-Die File - not updated. H is still hosed if I'm not here



A non-goal victory - I streamlined our finances by getting all auto pays on one credit card and creating separate chequing accounts so we have bills in one and spending money in another. We save a month ahead for our budget and I really like looking at one account and seeing how much money is left for the month without having to subtract out bill payments and such.

[dutchgirl678]

I didn't participate in the first post and didn't have any specific goals but I feel good about what we have accomplished this year.

- I started using YNAB at the end of last year and it has helped me see where all the money went. A lot is going to eating out and groceries.
- We refi'd our main mortgage in March from 3.99% to 2.875%.
- We bought a car in October 2020 and planned to make extra payments where possible. We managed to pay it off this month which means we will have no car payments for the next few years.
- I consolidated an old previous-work 401a and a Traditional IRA into a Rollover IRA last month. I intend to start contributing to it more to increase my retirement contribution.
- We saved money on TV streaming. We already saved money when we went from Comcast to YTTV for streaming. But we weren't using YTTV much. We figured we could watch the few shows we were watching either on Hulu or Peacock Premium or Paramount Plus. Because our internet is still Comcast, we were able to get Peacock Premium for free. We have a lot of options now, but take all together we are still paying only $40 a month.

[fryjack2]

The bolded is all that we have done for our 2021 goals  We both got significant raises but continue to just dump money into our savings account without making sub accounts. I think I may just give up on that. We have increased what we put into general savings each month by a good amount.

I also haven't invested in the market outside of retirement accounts. There is still time for that though!

-In addition to the money that gets auto deposited into savings, put one entire paycheck of mine into our general savings each month. I get two paychecks, sometimes 3.

-Save with intention. Our E fund is fine, our retirement is fine. We set clearer goals for post bills monthly savings last weekend because we just dump it all into one account and use it for everything. They include:
--set X amount into a 2nd home fund
--set X amount into our DAF
--set X amount into an account to use for a vintage car I want
--set X amount into a travel fund

-Pay cash ( ~16k) for a home project that's on the calendar for this spring

-Lower our grocery spending by 25% by doing a better job of meal planning.  I haven't tracked to see if we did this. 

-Invest in the market. This wont happen as neither H or I have the time or a clue how to do that. I thought about just buying some Apple or Google stock but not even sure how to do that. I'm sure google can help. Ha

[minzy]

I don’t think I posted originally but my goals have been to save more and give more away. The big thing is that I have started back to work midway through the year. I am on track to hit the IRS max for retirement for 2021. I took over trying to have us max the annual HSA contribution (I think I get some kind of contribution from my employer whereas my husband did not). I’m also covering our family’s health, vision, and dental. My paycheck “feels” kind of reduced as a result, but doing it this way lowers our tax liability, which is my husband’s goal.

I am giving money away whenever I get the chance, too. We should easily give away more than in previous years (always my goal) but I haven’t done the math on it lately, and I always tend to do a lot of giving at the year’s end. I am one of the Combined Federal Campaign point people for my office so will probably start utilizing that for next year as an additional consistent donation tool.

[aspentosh]

1. Help H get a job so we can have an income again. Support him in the new job role. Check. 
2. Set up new budget once he has a new job. Check.
3. Increase charitable donations, especially to Black owned businesses. Check. Would like to do more but isn't that the norm?
4. Redo master bathroom Check.
5. Stop stressing about money. One of my worst fears happened last year (H lost his job 3 weeks before Christmas) and seeing how ok we are makes me rethink my stress a bit.  Going a bit better. Trying to be a little looser with the budget and say "yes" to things like golf outings for DD and H, or getting a new piece of technology because it would be fun. 
6. Max his 401k and Roth IRA contributions for both of us. We are going to fall short on the 401k by about $4000 unless something drastic changes. But considering he was without income for over a quarter of the year, I'll call it a win that we could save as much as we did both in retirement and not.

Super stretch goal, especially with the job loss, is getting H a new car. It's a want, not a need, so we'll see. Neither of the electric trucks he likes are available yet and won't be for months, so we continue to saving. 

Overall I feel pretty good about where we are, especially considering how the year started off. 

[ellipses84]

I think I’ve felt so overwhelmed over the past year that I never managed to post goals or in the update, but I’ve actually done a lot on my MM to do list this year.

We still have some debt since Covid layoffs were a huge setback in getting it all paid off. However it’s all low or no interest so most of our payments go to the principal and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel to pay it off. Counting down the months until we have no car payment and hoping some of my student loans are forgiven.

Despite that, we’ve still been trying to make sure our credit scores are as high as they can be for home-buying. In a few months we may casually start looking for a fixer upper because it would be great to get one while interest rates are low and housing prices have started to come down from their spike. In our area they will go up more eventually. No rush, though and we’ll only buy something that is a great deal and perfect for us. We are pretty happy where we are at but I’d rather invest my time and $$$ in our forever home.

We’re working on some 401k catchup, particularly for DH’s accounts. I have some old retirement accounts from my pre-Covid job that I want to rollover (not 401ks).

One thing I still need to do is check insurance rates and likely switch insurance to save $$$.

[ohgillian]

Oct 13, 2021 11:42:48 GMT -5 midwestmama said:

I'm new and would like to jump in.

-Increase 401k contributions. I am behind for my age (39) and wanting to retire in the next 15-20 years, but I feel like I've made progress this year. When I started a new job with a new employer in early 2020, I started contributions at 8%. I recently got a promotion, so I've bumped it up to 9%. (For reference, I'm now contributing about twice the dollar amount I was when I left my last employer.)
-Rollover retirement savings from old employer into my 401k with my new employer. This was just completed this week.
-Pay down mortgage more quickly (goal of paying off in 2028). We refied to a 15 year mortgage last year which will help pay it off faster. We also plan to pay an extra $300 each month, plus a lump sum from our annual bonuses. We have annual mortgage balance targets, but I don't think we'll achieve this year's target, so we'll have to try to make it up next year.

Hi and welcome! We always need new people. 🙂

[dr.girlfriend]

Oct 13, 2021 11:42:48 GMT -5 midwestmama said:

I'm new and would like to jump in.

-Increase 401k contributions. I am behind for my age (39) and wanting to retire in the next 15-20 years, but I feel like I've made progress this year. When I started a new job with a new employer in early 2020, I started contributions at 8%. I recently got a promotion, so I've bumped it up to 9%. (For reference, I'm now contributing about twice the dollar amount I was when I left my last employer.)
-Rollover retirement savings from old employer into my 401k with my new employer. This was just completed this week.
-Pay down mortgage more quickly (goal of paying off in 2028). We refied to a 15 year mortgage last year which will help pay it off faster. We also plan to pay an extra $300 each month, plus a lump sum from our annual bonuses. We have annual mortgage balance targets, but I don't think we'll achieve this year's target, so we'll have to try to make it up next year.

Welcome!  And don't forget about Roths if you're eligible!

[midwestmama]

Thank you, ohgillian and dr.girlfriend!

dr.girlfriend, good idea - I will need to check into a Roth - I can't remember if my employer offers it or not.

[whitemerlot]

Oct 21, 2021 15:37:00 GMT -5 midwestmama said:

Thank you, ohgillian and dr.girlfriend!

dr.girlfriend, good idea - I will need to check into a Roth - I can't remember if my employer offers it or not.

You can open a Roth IRA in your own through a brokerage firm. We used Vanguard and like their target date funds. Ask here if you have questions on how to do this. I stated a Roth many years ago because of this board and only wish I had started sooner!

[ohgillian]

Oct 21, 2021 16:12:26 GMT -5 whitemerlot said:

Oct 21, 2021 15:37:00 GMT -5 midwestmama said:

Thank you, ohgillian and dr.girlfriend !

dr.girlfriend , good idea - I will need to check into a Roth - I can't remember if my employer offers it or not.

You can open a Roth IRA in your own through a brokerage firm. We used Vanguard and like their target date funds. Ask here if you have questions on how to do this. I stated a Roth many years ago because of this board and only wish I had started sooner!

midwestmama, yep, she's right -- you can just do it on your own. Your employer might offer a roth option in your 401k, but you can also open a Roth IRA on your own at any brokerage. I use Vanguard, personally. The advantage of the Roth, as you might know, being that you put in after-tax money, and then it grows, and then when you take it out, you don't pay taxes on the (presumably larger!) balance when you're in retirement. 

[dr.girlfriend]

Oct 21, 2021 15:37:00 GMT -5 midwestmama said:

Thank you, ohgillian and dr.girlfriend !

dr.girlfriend , good idea - I will need to check into a Roth - I can't remember if my employer offers it or not.

You don't usually (to my knowledge) do a Roth through an employer.  You fund a Roth with post-tax income, so you basically just open an account at a place (mine was TD Ameritrade, but if I was doing it now I'd probably do Fidelity or Vanguard) and write them a check (or I'm sure there's ways to transfer funds digitally now).  It's got a lower limit (like $5k per year for each person), has to be earned income, and if you make too much money you can't do it anymore.  BUT, what you invest in a Roth grows TAX FREE.  When I was a poor grad student I had about $5k in the bank total, but I put it in a Roth thinking that I could always access it if needed.  I mean, that was during the recession, but that money had multiplied several times and I won't pay taxes on it.  PLUS, if your incomes really grow at a certain point you won't be eligible to contribute to Roths anymore, so it's important to fund it while you can.

The typical advice on this board used to be:
1. Fund your 401k for as much as your employer matches
2. Fund your Roth if you're eligible
3. Go back and increase your 401k until you're maxed out

I know that personally, because the 401k limit is like $15k a year and the Roth limit is like $5k a year I always considered the money I put in the Roth to be more like "bonus" funds, so I was a little riskier with how I invested it.  Some of those gambles have really paid off -- my $5k in Tesla stock is worth around $50k now.  It definitely could have gone the other way, but I definitely felt more comfortable investing in single stocks within my Roth, whereas my 401k is all in "safe" target funds, etc.

Here's some info from Vanguard about Roths:

investor.vanguard.com/ira

[ellipses84]

This probably wouldn’t be a MM or GBCN approved goal considering our overall financial picture and Covid, but I accomplished a big spend goal! My bday has always been lame due to the time of year and life circumstances. I had infants at the last two big milestones and did nothing special.

My BFFs bday is 2 weeks after mine. Several years ago we decided to take a milestone bday trip to Europe this year. It was supposed to be a big college friends group. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to swing it financially, logistics or time-wise with work and family when I agreed to go. Then Covid happened, so it was totally up in the air for over a year and most people weren’t willing or able to go. We started tentatively planning a couple months ahead of it when it seemed things were getting better. Then delta hit and the last friends bailed except me and my BFF. Luckily we kept plans mostly refundable and flexible so they didn’t lose much money and we could rebook size appropriate, more affordable accommodations. We debated postponing but there was no time in the next year + that would work for us. Remote work related to Covid made the time more possible. We finally committed to going like a week ahead of time when we were sure we’d be allowed to travel to our destinations.

It was amazing and totally worth every penny! We are extreme planners and had to figure out a lot on the fly. The travel was more stressful and complicated due to Covid but we tried to be as safe as possible and our destinations felt pretty normal with mainly outdoor activities. We made it back home healthy. DH chose to stay home with the kids which made it feasible, more relaxing for me and 1/4th the cost compared to us all going (which wasn’t even possible for many reasons). Plus I split everything 50-50 with my BFF and we stayed in Airbnb’s where we could cook some meals. Our post Covid financial situation with job changes is much better than it was before. It was definitely the trip of the decade, if not my lifetime!

[chpmnk1015]

Another mm goal... I accepted a new job yest and start 11.1. So excited for it! More than my old but insurance is crazy so it kind of evens out. Better bonus potential. And wfh so not hour commute each way.
6 month on ue for the first time ever... we were able to still save and hit other goals so we made it work. And I had a great 6 months w my kids