December 2017 Plan Update (and 2018 Financial Goals!)

Ah… December. I do love the holidays with the kids home and Mr. T having so many days home as well. December was glorious. We really could have used more snow, but we did at least get a few good days of hoar frost where all of Anchorage was magical and white.

The Numbers:

Want to know how easy it is for us to write these every month? I literally just log into my Personal Capital and revel in all the numbers being in one place. Do you like checking numbers? Do you like graphics? Do you like playing with calculators like retirement calculators and how much your fees are costing you? Then, you should obviously use my affiliate link to Sign up here to help yours truly speed toward financial independence! (Also feel free to read my more in-depth review of Personal Capital.)

Our mortgage is now at $29,990. LET THE DANCE PARTY COMMENCE! (I’m serious. Pop on some music and just start dancing. We all need this.) I’m seriously thrilled we did this. Sure, it was the only financial goal we actually achieved this year, but it was a big one. And I’m really proud of our progress.

Investments are now at $189,565. What a fabulous year. Thank you markets for making us look great this year!

For our savings percentage, we track the percentage of our pre-tax (or gross) income and the extra payments put toward the mortgage are included in the amount saved. Savings percentage for December – 50%. Nice! It really helps that we include extra payments towards our mortgage in this number. ? Two months in a row hitting 50% savings rate. (I also can’t wait until our mortgage is dead so that 50% really means JUST money into savings!)

2017 Financial Goal Update:

Disclaimer: Other than the earnings and the mortgage, the rest of these are out the window. I’ve told you that I’m terrible at financial multi-tasking. Let’s get rid of that mortgage and then I’ll be able to move forward on the other savings!

• Earn $25,000 – ($28,154/$25,000) –  Totally beat the goal (thanks to our new shirt-selling lifestyle).
• Mortgage Balance below $30,000 – ($29,990 – WE DID IT!!!!!)
• Max out Mr. T’s 401k – Done!
• Put $5500 into My Roth IRA – $0 progress so far.
• $2500 in other investments – $0 progress so far.
• $200,000 Investment Balance by the end of the year – Had we hit any of our other investment goals, we might have actually hit this one, but it still makes me pretty happy that we’re less than $11,000 away from $200,000!

Notable Expenses This Month: The Story Our Money Tells:

These are expenses that tell an interesting story. A peek into our lives through our pocketbook:

• $100 – Babysitting for 2 date nights. – One involved going to a Christmas party and then other was us seeing a play and then the new Star Wars because the play was short and sad, so we raced over to Star Wars right after it.
• $22.50 – Tickets to Star Wars
• $70 – We went ice skating as a family the Saturday before Christmas and brought some friends along. The ice skating outside was free, but we all went out for a yummy lunch afterwards, which cost $70 for our family. The kids got to sit at their own table and were having the time of their lives.
• $49.99 – The heel of my 13-year-old black boots snapped off this month, so I bought some fancy new riding boots after Christmas. It was completely painless. I looked online for literally 5 minutes, told Mr. T I wanted to try that pair. He walked over to the store at lunch from his office, brought them home, and they fit fabulously. I didn’t have to shop. It was perfect.
• $78 – Mailing Christmas packages (mainly to my parents in England).
• $42.34 – Fabric to donate to the youth at Church that are making blankets for hospitals. And some thread so we can keep sewing our kits for Days for Girls. 
• $39.99 – Used Ice Skates + Sharpening for Florin. Living in Alaska, we make sure our kids always have ice skates that fit them so we can head out whenever we want!

Financial Phrases:

These are things said by actual people that were either talking to me or near me enough that I could hear them:

• “I believe in Dave Ramsey like I believe in the life of a prophet. I have no doubt that if I followed his advice, I’d be rolling it. I’m just not at that level.”
• “When my kids would compare notes after Christmas with a friend of mine, I’d always tell her: ‘Could you just calm down Christmas at your house? Geeze!'”
• “Close to paying off your mortgage?! We just refinanced into a new 30-year!”

Introducing: 2018 Financial Goals:

I should have learned from myself a year ago. I literally said this when I introduced 2017’s financial goals:

As I’ve thought about how to direct our money in 2017, I’ve gotten so overwhelmed. I’m really horrible at multitasking when it comes to goals. I want to just get rid of my mortgage so that I can direct all money toward investments.

Well, this year, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m keeping things simple:

• KILL THE MORTGAGE – This is my top priority since I know I’m a terrible multi-tasker when it comes to goals. Once the mortgage is gone, it will be really easy for me to redirect that money toward other goals. Focusing on one at a time is the way to go. Also, we hope to make our regular payments as usual and pay the extra payments entirely with the Merch Challenge along with our next goal:
• 27-Day Europe Trip – I’ll give a full update on the Great Merch Challenge quarterly, but monthly you can track the numbers here with me giving a simple: Earned: $X, Spent: $X with “earned” meaning the money we’ve made from selling shirts on Amazon and “spent” meaning all of the costs for the trip as well as any extra payments toward our mortgage.
• Max out Mr. T’s 401k – This is set up already and if nothing changes, he should automatically max it out this year for the first time! Yay for automatic payments! (Though there’s some question as to what happens if there’s a month where 3 payments go through and a month where only 1 payment goes through in December/January – then we either don’t max out or contribute too much! Anyone know how to deal with that?)
• Stretch Goal: Put $5500 into My Roth IRA – I am content with the financial progress we’re making, so if this doesn’t happen as it didn’t this year, I’m at peace. However, if we nail everything early this year and have some extra funds, this is where they will go first.
• Market-Based Goal: $250,000 in investments by the end of 2018 –Again, we don’t “work towards” these goals at all because they are entirely market-based, but it’s always fun to throw out a number and see how close we get. And if we could end 2018 with a quarter million, I would be THRILLED. From $250,000, it’s totally possible to hit $1,000,000 in just 6 years! That would put us at millionaires at the end of 2024 – just 2 years past our original goal of $500,000 by 2022! (markets sometimes have their own ideas, however.)