Let's see what progress we made this year ...
Assets end of 2015: $986,118
Current worth of assets: $992,419
Debt end of 2015: $482,768
Current debt: $460,445
Net worth end of 2015: $503,350
Current net worth: $531,974
Emergency fund end of 2015: $0
Current EF balance: $3,312
Not bad, especially considering we had to downgrade the worth of our assets due to Brexit gutting the pound's value.
2016 goals and results
- Fully fund a trip to my 20th college reunion in New York for me, NT and AS. DONE!
- Fully fund a 2-week trip to England late June-early July for all five of us. DONE!
- Fully fund a side trip to Barcelona for me, NT and AS during the England trip. DONE!
- To continue home renovations. NOPE. We did renovate the basement bathroom because we were required to by the County. That and other expenses made it impossible to do any of our desired renos.
- To max out our 2016 Roth IRAs. DONE!
- To get my and NT's 401(k) contributions up to 10%. Not quite: Mine is up to 9.5% including match, and NT's is now at 8% including match. So we did up them both a bit but not quite to 10%.
- To continue exploring the possibilities of selling part ownership of the duplex to my downstairs neighbors, and of converting our garage into an accessory dwelling unit. Not quite. I concluded the ADU wasn't financially or practically feasible, at least not for the foreseeable future. And my neighbor promised several times (but did not deliver) the first draft of the sale document. Anyway, I'm not going to agree to anything until he sorts out his back taxes, renters insurance and other financial issues, and we have not had that conversation yet.
Non-financial goals, Make every month a "do something" month in 2016. In other words, to come up with a creative or outside-the-box goal for each month of the year. SORT OF. Some months were more successful than others, but I did do something extra about 6 of the 12 months.
Other notable occurrences in 2016:
- NT's collarbone surgery (about $3500)
- AS's tooth replacement (first half done, about $1,500)
- Basement bathroom renovation (our share about $2,000)
- Tax bill (about $10,000 more than we expected)
- NT became a U.S. citizen!
- Had TWO trips away from the kids: 3 days in New York and 5 days in Barcelona & Oxford
- Conversely, hosted their first sleepover, with 2 6-year-old guests. Intense!
- NT got 2 raises (1 in June and 1 this month, effective Jan. 1) and a big bonus (net $4,500)
- NT started a hat business that has possibly broken even by now (I don't track his bookkeeping)
- AS got a few $100-an-hour clients; hopefully portending good things for her 2017 earnings
- I completed my 4th novel during NaNoWriMo
- Saved up enough money to do our next renovation (upstairs bathroom), hopefully in January, as well as getting insulation for the house
- Kid milestones: AA graduated from kindergarten, lost three baby teeth and learned how to tie her shoes. SL learned how to read (at age 4!) and write a bit, and has a loose tooth.
2016: Year in review
December 30th, 2016 at 10:12 pm
December 30th, 2016 at 11:15 pm 1483139716
December 31st, 2016 at 09:32 pm 1483219960