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Archive for March, 2019

March 2019 interim retirement goal result & new goal set

March 31st, 2019 at 09:02 pm

March 2019 was where I set our first retirement goal milestone, since I turned 45 and AS turned 40 this year. (NT turned 46 but I'm weighing his assets by the same measurements as mine, to keep things simpler.)

Goal: $563,540 by March 2019

Final balance: $452,766

Result: Fell short by $110,774. Now, starting January our goal got about $50K more ambitious due to AS's income increasing, so about half of that shortfall was due to that.

This was an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement It aimed to get me and NT to 3x our income, and AS to 2x hers.

Anyway, it's time to set our next incremental goal! The new goal is based on getting my and NT's retirement to 4x our salaries (currently $75,120 and $62,100) by the time we turn 50 and AS's retirement values to 3x her annual income ($75,940 in 2018) by the time she turns 45.
$75,120 x 4 = $300,480
$62,100 x 4 = $248,400
$75,940 x 3 = $227,820

So our new goal is...$776,700 by March 2024! (And of course it will shift anytime our salary/annual income changes.)
Current retirement balance: $452,766

Still needed: $323,934

There are 60 months to go before March 2024, so that means we need assets to appreciate $5399 per month on average to meet our goal.

So, here we go!

March 2019 net worth update

March 31st, 2019 at 08:40 pm

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
AV: 17,967 pounds ($22,459)
SW: 28,134 pounds ($35,168)
FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078)
NT's 401(k): $72,797
NT's Roth IRA: $33,475
AS's trad. IRA: $19,642
AS's Roth IRA: $53,167
AS's SEP IRA: $31,640
CJ's 401(k): $138,748
CJ's Roth IRA: $37,592
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $427,281 ($454,554 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $1,092,547

Debts:
US Mortgage $380,958
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $30,869
UK Mortgage 2 $6,508
UK Mortgage 3 $6,853
---
TOTAL DEBT $434,188

Current Estimated Net Worth: $658,359

January 2019 estimate: $652,740

Change in net worth: +$5,619

Summary: Most of our retirement accounts stayed flat but we eked out a modest gain this past month.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. (I do have my eye on a comparable listing for the UK flat, but it's been on the market a long time.) UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound.

March 2019 debt payments

March 8th, 2019 at 07:09 pm

Finally getting around to this ... it's been a very busy weeks, with three of our five household birthdays hitting one after the other! Lots of parties, gifts, spending, fun ...

Anyway, I finally checked our mortgages and all our payments hit.
US: $741
UK1: $184
UK2: $38
UK3: $41
In total, that's $1,004 to principal. Yay, our minimum payments finally add up to more than a thousand bucks! Smile

Current household debt:
US Mortgage $380,958
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $30,869
UK Mortgage 2 $6,508
UK Mortgage 3 $6,853
---
TOTAL DEBT $434,188

Murphy hit in a big way

March 3rd, 2019 at 10:51 pm

Things have been going along pretty well so far this year. It's been a spendy few weeks, with all our birthdays hitting in month (we planned a big blowout for AS's 40th that will run us about $3K; everyone else's parties are more like a few hundred each) and signing the kids up for spring swim, theater and art classes. And a few other things have cropped up here and there. So our shared spending was running a deficit of a few grand (about $5K), but we could easily float it and I felt like we'd be able to chip away at it over the next couple months with AS's expected checks and our usual budget surplus.

Then we got our first tax return news; NT and I owe about $2400 between state and federal. We don't yet know if AS will owe; I'm hoping for some benefit from the tax deal since she's a business owner, but she also made a lot more money in 2018, so I kind of expect her to owe but don't know how much. We have $4300 set aside for taxes, so if what she owes plus what we'll need to pay our tax guy comes to less than $2K it won't be a big deal, but I'm not sure.

So I was already thinking I need to adjust my withholding and take home about $200 less per month. That was going to eliminate/reduce our monthly budget surplus. Then our downstairs neighbors' boiler broke on Friday.

The estimates of various options ranged from $5K to $20K. It was a bit of a shock. But I finally asked NT and AS to come to a decision with our neighbors which option was best bang for buck, and I'd work out how to pay for it.

They came up with one that's about $8600. Yikes, but it's gotta be done.

We had about $36K saved up for our kitchen reno. Early rough estimates (depending on how drastic we want to go) were $45K-$80K. We were mulling our options; do we save up the full amount, think about financing, try to sell the UK flat and use part of the profits? But I ended up pulling $11K out to handle the boiler and also reduce our shared spending deficit. I also took $2K from vacation savings and wiped out the deficit.

So now we only have $25K in reno savings. And we heard from the UK property manager that the market is really bad, the worst he's ever seen. Plus he says we'd have to have the place vacant if we hope to sell it, which would mean having it sit not generating income. So it seems like with everything else happening, we should probably not list it at this time.

I don't know what to do about the kitchen reno. I wouldn't mind financing a small amount but I don't want to do half of it or anything. So I think we just sit back, wait for AS's tax return results, wait to see if NT and I get raises this year, wait to see what kinds of jobs AS books this year. Slowly start rebuilding our reno and vacation savings in the meantime.

Although we're very eager to fix our kitchen, I don't want it to put us in a place of financial insecurity again. So we'll take some breaths and decide later what we should do.

I feel good that we have the money in savings to deal with this. I'm choosing to look on the bright side!

Anyway, I've been having a very fun, active, busy year so far otherwise. Lots of exciting things happening on the "chase pleasure" new year's intention for sure! I'll try to check in with some of the happy stuff in my life.

February 2019 net worth update

March 2nd, 2019 at 03:51 am

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
AV: 17,967 pounds ($22,459)
SW: 28,134 pounds ($35,168)
FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078)
NT's 401(k): $71,789
NT's Roth IRA: $32,737
AS's trad. IRA: $19,485
AS's Roth IRA: $52,785
AS's SEP IRA: $31,416
CJ's 401(k): $136,909
CJ's Roth IRA: $37,325
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $427,281 ($454,554 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $1,087,932

Debts:
US Mortgage $381,699
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,053
UK Mortgage 2 $6,546
UK Mortgage 3 $6,894
---
TOTAL DEBT $435,192

Current Estimated Net Worth: $652,740

January 2019 estimate: $638,085

Change in net worth: +$14,655

Summary: We reached our 2018 goal, 2 months late, temporarily anyway: over $650K in net worth!

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. (I do have my eye on a comparable listing for the UK flat, but it's been on the market a long time.) UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound.