Did everyone hit their 2023 goals?

[chpmnk1015]

I don't know how to link to the old thread..but how did everyone do?

[chpmnk1015]

We did not. But, we bought an investment property in Feb. It was not really planned but one we always said we would buy if it became available.
We only put 2k into dhs Roth and didn't do mine.
Did meet w new financial advisors which was good.
May still do Roths for the kids because they certainly earned enough

[sadlebred]

Here is the link:

pandce.proboards.com/thread/635918/2023-mm-goals

[sadlebred]

Sort of and even met a stretch goal of getting scary trees taken down.

1. Be in a better financial position. This will mostly come from trying to quit bleeding money every month and increasing savings. Also quit discresionary spending. I've just taken steps to automate the savings. I will redo my budget in Feb. once my company's HR dept. catches up with the new tax tables. I probably won't get a raise or if I do it will most likely be under 1%.

No, and things are looking to be about the same for 2024. We are not expecting much, if any, raise. I have been working on my budget, cutting a few small things, and bringing expenses & spending under control. My company is undergoing of lot of changes this year, and my job is the unsteadiest it's been in the last 8 years.

2. Try to have the side gig bring in some additional money. I run a website for a hobby I am in. I also need to identify some new revenue streams for it. I'm open to suggestions if anyone wants to DM me. The website is in the athletic/sports space.

This is still the same. I make a little bit on it, but I really enjoy doing it more than anything. Dealing with a lot of other things put this to status quo for 2023 and t least through the first half of 2024.

3. Try to get my health stable.

HA. No. See all of my previous posts about some upcoming big stuff in H&F. We are hopeful this will go a long way to making my health more stable. Hopeful is the keyword--but no guarantee. At the least it will keep it from continuing to get worse.

4 Save, save, save! I want to build back up my e-fund to 6 months (this will take me more than 2023, probably 2024 as well).

Still working on this. I had a lot of major expenses in 2023 including a dead washer and dryer, microwave, and other stuff around the house.

5. Contribute more than a token amount to my ROTH. Once I get some savings built back up, I want to start contributing to my ROTH more than the small amount I did this year.

My company cut our 401K match for 2024. I've already increased my ROTH contribution a bit starting this week. I'll do a litte more every other month until it's at the level I want it. Somehow I need to find another 2% in my budget to do this in order to keep my retirement contributions the same. I'm really tempted to do 1% to my ROTH and 1% to my 401K since I don't have to think about the later.

6. Pay off the e-mountain bike I bought (See: health problems. I've posted about a few over the years.). This should happen by the end of March. I hope to be cleared to ride at some point this spring/early summer (see number 3). I bought this before number 3 happened.

Yep. Paid off a bit early and enjoyed all year!

7. Depending on how big my bonus is--if I even get one this year--I'll put some towards my new car down payment (hopefully 75,000 miles away) and some in the "trees need to be cut down fund" that will be started.

The trees are down, the stumps are ground (grinded?), and my yard is leveled! (OMG! SO expensive!) The plumbing is fixed, and I was even able to get a new toilet in the main bathroom to replace the one that clogged with one sheet of toilet tissue--looking at you Toto, you pretty thing! The car fund also got a bit added. Probably 50,000-60,000 more miles til I'll start to need a new car.

[midwestmama]

1. Continue to pay ahead on the mortgage. Yes, we did this. We did not pay a lump sum from our bonuses (due to wanting to do #2 & #3 below), but we paid around $500 on the principal each month (which is roughly 1/3 of the monthly principal payment amount, so we made a few months worth of extra principal payments in 2023).
2. Take a family trip to Germany this year. Yes, we did this, using bonus $ to pay for it. It was worth every penny to go on this trip. I was able to connect it with a work trip, so my flights were paid for, which saved us a few thousand $.  (ETA:  The main purpose of the trip was to visit the town DH's maternal grandma was from.  We did get there, so that was great.  We also ended up doing a day trip to Salzburg, Austria, and a couple days in Strasbourg, France. Our main "bases" in Germany were Munich and Frankfurt (this was the major city closest to DH's grandma's hometown).)
3. Replace flooring on main floor. Yes, we did this, using bonus $ to pay for it.
4. Really work on decluttering and reduce impulse spending. I was not great at this. I decluttered here and there, but not enough to feel like it made a difference. I was also not great about reducing impulse spending. This will be a repeat goal for 2024.

[quesyrah]

I had to go back and check what mine was.

We did meet our goal. DH’s temporary assignment ended and when he went back to his old position his pay ended up at more than when he left that position but less than he was making in his temp role. We lost $600/month.


Luckily we did save a good chunk of that extra income, but we had let a little lifestyle creep happen and we were eating out a couple times a month, we used a lot of the extra income to travel and see the touring Broadway shows.

It really hurt when it went away lol!

[heygrey]

We did! I set the bar pretty low though and we had some unexpected support from family. 

Goals:
1) Bathroom reno, phase 1. Should be ~$8,000. Finished in April. The cost was closer to $10k, but it was paid in cash and we're really happy with it.

2) Maybe, finally pay off my student loans? They are under $5,000 now. My parents paid them off after getting a disbursement from my grandparents' estate. 

3) A few long weekend trips, about $1000 each. We didn't do long weekends overnight, but did do several fun day trips. DS and I did an amazing trip with my parents in July (again thanks to the estate) and H flew in the last weekend when we visited his sisters (paid with sister's airline points). Our OOP costs were minimal thanks to very generous family.


Reality:
Hang on and hope we continue to survive inflation. Everything is so expensive, it's really eating into our ability to save for discretional items. We actually ended the year in a much better financial position than I anticipated. H picked up a few side gigs that helped pad our savings and we both got raises. The raises don't make up for years of inflation, but they help offset it a bit. 

[melmel4854]

Not even close. I had so many financial issues in 2023. Onto 2024!

[mlkgls]

Mostly no, although I’m pretty excited about the one I did hit. 

1) Up 401k by 1-2%. Yes to this. I missed maxing my 401k by <$400, and only because I wasn’t quite sure how to hit the goal without going over. 🎉 Of course, next year I’m eligible for catch contributions so this may have been a one time thing! 

2) Aggressively save for guest bathroom makeover. I did, but several other needed, but boring, home issues have popped up where the money is probably better spent. 

3) Save for next summer’s Alaskan cruise. I haven’t saved as much as I had anticipated for various reasons, but I have no choice now. Lol. 

4) Research and finally obtain an non-employer based life insurance policy. Nope

[chpmnk1015]

Dec 29, 2023 21:14:26 GMT -5 mlkgls said:

Mostly no, although I’m pretty excited about the one I did hit. 

1) Up 401k by 1-2%. Yes to this. I missed maxing my 401k by <$400, and only because I wasn’t quite sure how to hit the goal without going over. 🎉 Of course, next year I’m eligible for catch contributions so this may have been a one time thing! 

2) Aggressively save for guest bathroom makeover. I did, but several other needed, but boring, home issues have popped up where the money is probably better spent. 

3) Save for next summer’s Alaskan cruise. I haven’t saved as much as I had anticipated for various reasons, but I have no choice now. Lol. 

4) Research and finally obtain an non-employer based life insurance policy. Nope

We are doing an Alaska cruise this summer too..and did not save as much as I wanted for it lol

[themoneytree]

I have so many goals for this year. I’m not sure how realistic they are.

1: Aggressively save in a specific house payoff account. I would love to reach $25,000 in this account this year.

NOPE. $11,000 only as of today - however we channeled a lot into other areas so I’m ok with this.

2: $10,000 into youngest child’s college savings.

YES. HOWEVER we also have unexpected private school fees so we’ve had to put a lot more into the education savings than expected.

3: This is really up in the air. Our tenants lease ends end of June. If they move out we have to decide whether to sell or rent the house. If we sell it we need to put in a new kitchen. That would be a real stretch but I’d like to pay for that in cash.

YES. We sold the house without putting in the new kitchen.
Then we bought a small house in the U.K. to be able to visit my parents more often and provide regular caring breaks for my Mom’s wife.

4: H’s child support payments stop in June. That money can be re-routed into the house payoff fund.

YES. This is why we were able to still do the college fund despite unexpected private school fees.

5: First year of college expense for oldest child start in August.

YES and second year is already liquidated and ready to go.

5: Continue to avoid looking at my dismal investment accounts. 🤢

YEP. It’s better than it was, but still not great!

[gt7301b]

We are doing an addition this year so my main goal is to stay on budget with that.

We ended up going over but stayed under my stretch budget and included a new roof and basement flooring, so I am counting that as a win.

Other goals:

- Cash flow all the items that we need to purchase for the reno outside of our contractor's bid (overhead lights/ hood/ etc)

I think I did a good job with these things.  All my purchases were reasonable and we stayed within the allowances (other than cabinets) .

- Increase my TSP contribution to the new limits Success
- Increase our charitable giving Nope
- Reduce our food spending by 5% from last year (Not sure how this will work out with the reno, so may have to adjust this goal to just during the months when we have a restored kitchen) Lol, lol, not a chance
- Use up our giftcards ( I still have 15 gift cards, was doing a good job working through them, but I always buy the ones with bonus value in Dec)Still have some

[dr.girlfriend]

1. Increase retirement to new max now that I'm 50 (yay! Work prompted me to change from a dollar amount per paycheck to a percentage, so I did this already!)

It's probably cheating to include this, since I had already done it last year.  Oh well.

2. Actually spend some money on travel! We are going on our long-delayed trip to Japan.

We definitely did this! We went to Japan and it was AMAZING. Now we're planning a trip to New Orleans for spring break and a trip to Europe as the last big summer trip before we have to spend next summer on college tours

3. Pay off both bathroom renovations in cash.

Ha, the contractor is such a slacker he still has to send me the invoice for the second one, but we're ready to pay when he is so this could be considered done.

4. Appeal DH's Wage Tax Reimbursement from 2020, what a neverending nightmare but he's owed like $2k from the city and they keep stalling us with endless paperwork

I had totally forgotten this and like two days ago I was like, "Huh. We never did that, did we?" 100% DH's fault, he did not respond in time and his case got closed.

5. Invest $10k each more in I-Bonds, start investing in a brokerage account outside of retirement (I say that every year and never get around to it)

I think we did the I-Bonds again, although I'm not sure we'll continue to do them with current rates.  Once again I did *not* do the brokerage account, but honestly I think I will hold off.  DH's freelance stuff took a big hit this year, and now that DS is a high schooler I'm feeling the pressure of fitting family activities in before he goes to college (!) so again we're probably prioritizing spending.

6. Buy an electric vehicle for DH, figure out everything we need to know about that (install charger, etc.)

I think what we figured out is that it is WAY too expensive to buy an EV right this moment. I just can't in good conscience pay $60k or more for a car that would be $20k if it were not electric. I know inflation and microchips and all that but to me a $60k car is a Mercedes, not a Hyundai or Kia or whatever. The kiddo turns 16 at the end of 2024, so hopefully 2024 will be the year prices for EVs come down and we can pass along one of the old cars to our new driver. (Eek!)

More about spending than saving this year but between pandemic and turning 50 I'm really trying to focus on enjoying the now.

I think this will be my 2024 philosophy too -- you can't take it with you!

[Susie]

It looks like I didn't post a goal for 2023, oops!

We contributed more to the kids' 529s than ever before, maxed our 401k/457bs, and paid off the windows we had installed in 2022 on the last business day before the end of the 0% promotional period (yay financial efficiency!).  All good.

We didn't meet with a financial advisor like we should have.

Our net worth grew by about $219k, and went over $1M for the first time.  This was one of our bigger growth years, but not our biggest ever (that would probably be 2021).  Those milestones feel somewhat arbitrary, but good.

[mae0111]

1. Continue to max out 401k, possibly get into profit sharing this year. I'm a contractor, and I just earned enough to max out my solo 401K, but not enough to contribute any profit sharing into retirement last year. If I work a few more hours, I can do that in 2024.

I maxed my 401k and I will be contributing via profit sharing as well. Profit sharing for 2023 doesn’t have to be done until April 2024. So I’m waiting for total earnings and will see what I can do. I won’t max it out, but I will be able to contribute.

2. Contribute something to brokerage account. This will be a challenge because we will may see a significant tuition hike if our kids get into the school we're hoping for. We are hoping we can cash flow the tuition with a payment plan, but I don't know. Our modeling has us not contributing to brokerage while we are paying this and college tuition, so it would be great if we could contribute even a little bit.

We didn’t do this because of 2 reasons - tuition payments increased significantly, and we purchased a beach house! So we pulled a bit out of brokerage, but we are almost back up to the pre purchase levels due to market returns.

3. Increase charitable donations. We hit a high mark this year, but I'd like to set the bar even higher next year if possible.

We did this! Setting a higher goal next year!

4. Contribute to Roths for 2023.

We could have done this but our CPA advised against it. DH and I can both contribute more than the standard 401k max due to profit sharing, so we did that instead. Bummer that we will be hit with taxes later, but good that we are still saving.

[plutosmoon]

I didn't post my goals in there last year because in January my only goal was to buy a house and save more money towards that. I bought my house in August with 20% down and money to spare! I had plenty of leftover funds to remove the asbestos and pay the movers without stress and I actually have an emergency fund amount of money. I cash flowed paint and some minor decorating for DD's room so far.

I always have smaller goals of contributing $1000 to DD's 529 (the max state deduction) and increasing my retirement percentage when I get my annual raise. I added the last bit of DD's $1000 yesterday using her Christmas money from my parents. My sister always sends DD 529 funds for Christmas, but she's out of the country for another week, I'll get her gift in January for a jump start on 2024. I didn't manage to increase my 403b, but I hit a more meaningful retirement goal, I regained the amount I lost in my divorce.

[simpsongal]

Almost, the mom will stuff always seems to drop off the list…..

1. Pay down HELOC (at $36K+) - done but using it for the next reno now
2. Save up for next renovation + contract w/architect to draw up kitchen plan - 60% through this reno
3. Buy DH a new car (on order, we'll take out a loan + DP)- done
4. $4K per kid in 529s- done
5. Me - negotiate a retention bonus [ DONE ]
6. finally get my 401K/TSP back where it was at the end of 2022 [lol sob...]- haha it bounced back but I took a loan out for the reno
7. execute will & power of attorney docs w/mom- not done but mostly bc mom isn’t in the headspace for it
8. pay for summer trip (flights, etc.)- done

[brooke77]

I didn’t hit most, so will probably roll a lot of them over to 2024!

Mine were:
- contribute to 529 for DS -Yes. His college savings is on track.
- set up estate plan (once we close on our house) - No. We closed on our house in late October. Will set up estate plan in 2024.
- make extra mortgage payments each month - Kind of? We have only had two payments, but I plan to make a large payment with my bonus.
- catch up on retirement savings - Not really. I need to figure out how to save separately from my 401k (which I do max every year).
- create savings account for a fun trip - No. I did end up taking a great trip to Santa Monica with my BFF, but didn’t create a separate account.

[konapoppy]

1. Continue taxable and non-taxable donations
Result:Not as much as I could/should have, but still decent.

2. Get stucco fixed and ideally redo our floors
Result: Skipped this to install French drains after the storms last year. Floors in 2024 hopefully.

3. I need to go through our recurring payments and see what we have in there as recurring to eliminate.
Result: success! We eliminated a lot, including cable.

4. Save more outside of retirement
Result: given inflation, I don’t think this happened.

[minzy]

I looked back at the list and I did mostly hit my goals - we both maxed retirement, saved the state max in the 529s, invested outside of them, and (just tonight) gave away more than the year before/most ever. I do think I donated more to environmental charities than years’ past, which was one of my goals. I inherited some money and was promoted at work, and my husband had another strong year. I had said I did not want to get my credit card hacked a second time (happened in very early January), but unfortunately I had a ton of stuff stolen in October so that wish didn’t pan out for me. At least we had somewhat recently reset things so it was still pretty fresh the second time? I had also wanted to spend more on experiences and I did have some memorable moments this year, we hosted several parties with friends, we did a little bit of travel. Mostly we were super busy with daily life. Not enough date nights/experiences in my opinion, but hopefully we can fix that this year.

[krystee]

1. Pay off bathroom remodel that went way off budget and half had to be put on 0% credit cards: DONE
2. Save additional $5K: Not quite.
3. Cash flow all travel plans: DONE
4. Plan budget for basement mini remodel: Got a few quotes and our mini remodel is coming in at over $80K if we redo the whole basement or $35K if we do part. LOL to “mini” remodel. We hope to do at least the partial next year. H’s parents inherited a decent sum of money and have offered to give us half of the partial, which is a huge help.
5. Be ready to find a new position because my company is getting new leadership, and my role is one that is often replaced when a new CEO comes on board. (Update resume and start thinking about what’s important to me; maybe do some freelance writing to diversify the resume a bit): I did update my resume but didn’t need to. I am staying at the company.

[flygirl]

I didn’t lose my job yet so that’s a good one to meet! We were a few thousand short of finding Hs catch up and a few hundred short on the 529 but overall I’d say I’m happy with where we were on the goals.

[Roc A Bee]

I think I did pretty well:

1. I recently got married- so change my name on all accounts -pretty much done. I need to update my retirement accounts.
2. Calculate what I’m saving for retirement per month and increase it to 20%. I’ve got a COLA and a raise this year, so I need to reassess. - done in July.
3. Recalculate how much I have saved in my efund. Figure out what 6 months of expenses are and reassess savings plan. - done.
4. Save $5,000 in a travel fund so I can plan summer vacations. -cash flowed all vacations!

[wildrice]

Mostly! Here were mine:


1. Finish paying off our flooring replacement. Done. Did this a few months ago.


2. Refinance my H's student loans whenever the federal payment pause ends. Along with this, continue paying at least 1k a month toward them.  Not done, but that's a good thing - he has switched jobs so we now want them to stay as federal loans so he can get PSLF. By the time I had really looked into it with refinancing to private, it didn't seem like the interest rate was all that much better anyway.


3. I'd like to get a new mattress and a new couch/loveseat set for the living room. We did both! And it was so worth it, they are soooo much more comfortable.


4. Still need to do some estate planning/will writing. This goes beyond financial but we do need to designate heirs and make more specific plans for if something were to happen to us both. Still dragging feet on this one. Thankfully we survived the year, lol. Maybe 2024 will be the time to finally do this.


5. We would like to take a vacation somewhere, in addition to the trip to Turkey that we already have planned/partly paid for. We ended up going to Colombia over Thanksgiving!

[trissie18]

1. Payoff the last remaining 0% credit cards and one balance transfer card - Done
2. We are unexpectedly replacing DHs commuter car earlier than I anticipated. We will get a small loan so we can afford a better used vehicle that will last much longer and hopefully DS1 will eventually take it over when he starts driving. All of DHs previous commuter cars have been cheap "beater cars". Paying extra principal each month to pay it off sooner. Unfortunately had to put $1100 into it at the end of December. 
3. Start a Roth IRA for me outside of my employer retirement account. We started one for DH last year that we auto-contribute to monthly. Done
4. Start in-state 529 plans for DSs to get the tax benefits (currently have out of state plans). Now that DH and I are jumping tax brackets this year we will need all we can get. Not done.
5. Add to our liquid savings. Added a small net amount.

[bee20]

1. Better focus at work --> Met, but also we realized it wasn't just I wasn't efficient, we needed more people and I'm bad at asking for help, so I got authorization for significantly growing my team and completed all my hiring. It's going so much better.

2 & 3. Still figuring out what my home maintenance sinking fund should be, but I picked a number and am setting it aside. Luckily I haven't needed to deplete it yet, household items have been able to be cashflowed.

[fryjack2]

-H is supposed to get a 20% raise. Goal is to have that happen by June. He got the title, but not the raise. It will be addressed if the compensation isn't in this month's paycheck.

-I would like to earn a specific income by 2025 and would like to be at least 15% closer to it by the end of the year. I'm 4.5% closer. I will need to either switch jobs or find a side gig to reach the income. Neither of which I want to do right now. I work for a nonprofit hospital so kind of basically impossible to negotiate salary.

-continue to pay cash for all house projects. We spent 6 figures this past year on projects from savings we had built up outside of our efund. Dumb, I know but we never got around to figuring out how to invest out side of retirement accounts and it was just sitting there and figured we should use it instead of take out a loan. We have paid cash for all projects.

-continue, but increase our automated deposits into our DAF, savings, and vacation/house funds by 10% each. Have done this.

-once H has his raise, actually meet with a financial advisor who can help guide investments. Have not done this. It's on the list again this year. Like it has been for years.  

So I guess hit about half of the goals? 

[sadie]

Still need to set up 529s for kids. Still need to replace bedroom carpets. Instead of planning 2024 Disney trip, we went in 2023.

Otherwise, we did pretty good this year!

[ssmjlm]

1. Pool and fence will be in early 2023. I'm just hoping to not pull from investments for anything.

We did not pull from investments for anything. We did use some fully matured savings bonds for the landscaping since they would have gone to savings anyway. 

2. 15th anniversary cruise, kid free. We're going to do a 10 day Panama Canal partial crossing. We're paying for this from bonds that are maxed and we need to cash in. We have so much money in savings bonds because my grandparents gave me them even when I was in grad school, so even with cashing some in, I've still got almost 5 figures still maturing.

Cruise was all cash flowed/credit card points. No bonds needed, so the ones not fully matured are still gaining their final interest amounts. It is a bit weird for a bond to be mature, but then be able to mature past their face value.

3. I would like to get our downstairs repainted, but that may be 2024 because of the 2 above.

That's on this year's list. I want to start getting quotes soon.

[lolalolalola]

Nope. We bought a new (to us) car and it totally derailed things.