Thriftism

Happy New Year! We missed last month, but we are back will the final update on our 2018 goals. Some have fallen short and some have surpassed expectations.  How did you do on your 2018 goals? Financial Goals Gain Employment (Race) ☑ Done - Race started working in February. Save 50% of our income ☑ We rocked this goal. It did bounce around quite a bit throughout the year, but we finished much higher than we planned with a total savings rate of 84% for the year! We focused the most on this goal to set us up financially to be better prepared for future years and to focus on our other goals as well.  Increase passive dividend income by 25% We didn't quite make this one. As of December 31, we increased our dividends by 23%. This wasn't quite where we wanted it to be, but still a substantial increase. The main culprit behind us missing this number was due to diverting investment savings contributions towards paying down the mortga...

As, promised, we are back checking in on our yearly goals to stay accountable. Here is our March Goals Report.  Financial Goals Gain Employment (Race) ☑ Accomplished in February.  Save 50% of our income At the end of March, we are at 65% if you include the mortgage or 35% if you don't include the mortgage. We have been counting the mortgage as we are trying to pay off the house to allow us greater financial flexibility and allow us to save more money in the future.  Increase passive dividend income by 25% Year over year for March, our dividend income has increased by 37.4%. This is a major increase compared to the first two months of the year, but still not the best indicator. Our goal is to increase dividend income for the entire year and thus a YOY analysis is not the best estimate. We have earned 22% of the total amount needed to hit our goal this year. This is almost on track for 1/4 of the year having passed. If we do not contribute an...

**Please excuse the formatting - blogger is not cooperating and for some reason will not let me use default colors for this post. This will be fixed for next month's goals post** Every year we set goals to improve ourselves, our situations, or to help those around us. While setting goals is the first step (as Tony Robbins said in the quote above), accountability is what holds us to these goals and pushes us to achieve them.  This is our February Goals Report. Financial Goals Gain employment (Race) 🗹 Race signed a job offer in mid January and had his first day of work January 31.  Save 50% of our income For the first two months of the year, we saved 72% of our income if you include the mortgage, but only 36% not including the mortgage. So either we are not quite there, or really overachieving depending on how you look at it. We have been counting the mortgage as saving since it is increasing our net worth, but will continue to provide both numbers. Our bu...

Can you believe January is already over? That means it is time to check in on our goals. Financial Goals Gain employment (Race) 🗹 Race signed a job offer in mid January and had his first day of work January 31!! This is very exciting to check this goal off this quickly as we will be much more able to accomplish our remaining financial goals. Save 50% of our income For the month of January, we were able to save ~55% of our income when we included the mortgage payment. So far so good, but our savings amounts will be stepping up once Race starts getting paid again. While more pay will make it easier to save, it will increase the amount we need to save to hit the same 50% goal. Increase passive dividend income by 25% Year over year for the month of January, our dividend income has increased by 8.9%. Our goal is to increase dividend income for the entire year and thus a yoy of a month is not necessarily the best estimate. In January we earned approximately 4% of th...