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Archive for January, 2013

Year in Review and New Long Term Goals

January 10th, 2013 at 03:57 am

A review of my last year's financial highlights:

I haven't been writing much as my finances are so streamlined right now, I don't see how I can make them much better (Not bragging, it is what it is, and its taken a long time to get here too!) The new year has started, and my retirment plan (457) deductions have started again for the new year. They are taken out at a pace that I will max out the $23,000 limit by mid September. It makes my current paychecks relatively small, but that can't be helped, and yet I am still able to have my liquid savings grow at this time (so no complaints here - for the moment!).

I am trying to keep my expenses very low. Before my complementary warehouse club membership ended, I got enough brown rice and workout whey protein to last me until at least June of this year. Also got enough chicken (cleaned and frozen already!) at Aldi's to hold me through April. I still have plenty of home made jams in the fridge (mullberry, plum, pear) and I use them with peanut butter for breakfast with almond milk (better for me and less expensive than cereal). My last heating bill was less than $50, at worst it shouldn't hit $100 for any month. I just cancelled (today) my Sirius XM subscription (they were going to up my rate this weekend!)

Some other areas of minimal expenses are:
My phone (cell and computer based phone) is costing me about $140 / year, no cable, and no trash pickup (reuse / recycle / compost - what's left is near zero). Last year the total utils (phones, internet, electricity, nat. gas) came in at about $1500. And last year I made about $1,500 from credit card bonus sign ups. (Actually I am sure it was more, but I didn't keep exact records on them - maybe $1,700?) And that doesn't include cash back, maybe another $200 there.

My investment returns I was happy with. (I calculated them as Nov. '11 through Nov. '12 since I didn't have Dec. '11 numbers to compare against.)
457 plan: +14.8%
Roth IRA: +23.7% (Was I lucky or smart?)
(Compare to Dow Jones Ind. Avg: +13.7%)

Looking Forward:

For goals, I have decided that a year long goal isn't helpful at this time, since I have my debts paid off. Instead my goals need to look further in the future as they will deal with my investments, and the market can go haywire for a year just messing me up.

So with that said here are my goals for at the end of 2015 (3 years time...)

* My retirement plan (457) + Roth IRA will make it to $400k - Currently they are around $280k (Barring a meltdown, I think this is reasonable)

* My dividend income from Roth IRA, brokerage, & DRIPs will be at an annual $5,000 - this year was about $1,700 (This is going to be hard!)

* Physical goals: None really - if I can be in no worse shape than I am today I will be happy. I currently do the following at lunch on workdays: a 20 min. workout on the cross trainer elliptical, then do abdomen work (lots of crunches - basically a P90X workout), then do 50 pushups, then lift weights for another 20 minutes. I just need to keep it up.

* Personal life: Super happy with my girlfriend. She's brought some chaos into my life, but a lot of happiness too, and she is helping me expand my horizons. Currently I am helping her with decluttering her old life so she can move in with me, hopefully long before those 3 years are up! Part of the decluttering is selling her excess on ebay, and its looking like we may be making some serious money there as well! Again, I want to keep this in great shape too!