Financial goals you've achieved this year (2016)?

[VagabondMD]

I am a little further along than some of you, so my financial milestones do not come very frequently.

Here's one that I am unexpectedly happy about and thankful for: I have been married for 20+ years, and for the first time, my lawyer wife's W-2 income will be higher than mine. Woohoo!

[conniebird]

Great thread. I'm about 1 year out of residency.

-Increased my net worth by almost 100K, still negative though

-On track to save/invest ~25% of gross income this year

-Paid off 10K loan @ 5%, refi'ed all other loans to 3% or less

-got disability and life insurance, working on the rest

-Met and got engaged to someone who shares the same financial goals/views as me

-Read a few more finance books

 

 

[DMFA]

• No longer negative net worth


• Debts down to just wife's med school student loan and mortgage


• Maxed tax-advantaged accounts for the first time


• Established appropriate insurances


• Resisted buying a new car


• Learned more things about money-type things

I'm mostly stoked about not being worse-than-broke, though.

[FutureDoc]

Mine are significantly less impressive, but since we started residency in July we've paid off a $1500 private loan, eliminated $2,000 in credit card debt, started a 457 and funded it $2500, put away $2000 in the HSA, and built an emergency fund up to $5,000.

Next year has some slightly larger goals, but paying off that small loan brought me a significant amount of peace of mind.  Every small victory helps.  It just still feels like a drop in the bucket besides the student loans.

[DarrVao777]

MochaDoc wrote:

DarrVao777 wrote:

This was my most successful year personally and financially to date (1st child and 1st million)

1) Expanded emergency account to 6 digits (purse strings have loosened a little fortunately/unfortunately)

7) Ended up reading all the posts on WCI and WCI’s book. Still have yet to branch out to other recommended books although hoping to start over the upcoming holidays

Congrats on a truly spectacular year thus far. I have a few questions.

How long did it take to get to that first million after residency/fellowship?

How many months does your 6-digit emergency fund cover?

All the posts on this site? That’s impressive.

 

 

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Thank you

1) 2 years. A combination of a well-paying specialty, geographic arbitrage, and appropriately negotiating a fair non-compete clause / renting in my 1st year out of training in order to leave a dead end job for a nearly dream job 50 miles away

2) It covers 5 - 6 months of expenses for us. In the event of a true emergency, I think we would be able to slash enough spending (2 mortgages + extra payments, 2 leased vehicles, countless frivolous purchases of which I am much guiltier of contributing to as compared to my wife) so that it would last us an entire year.

[jfoxcpacfp]

MochaDoc wrote:

6) Finally dabbled in individual stocks but quickly realized the folly of my ways. Now I have to decide if I should sell the under-performing stocks and claim a tax loss or sit tight and see what happens.

Click to expand...

Good for you, drinks on the house! Sounds like your focus paid off. We have something in common - I usually pay penalties every October, too (but my clients don't!!!)

Only keep the above stocks if you would buy them again given what you know. Otherwise, that is what you are doing, in effect: remaining invested in what you have already said you wanted not to own instead of selling and making a better investment. Waiting to "see what happens" ties up your money from being used more productively.

[MochaDoc]

DarrVao777 wrote:

This was my most successful year personally and financially to date (1st child and 1st million)

1) Expanded emergency account to 6 digits (purse strings have loosened a little fortunately/unfortunately)

7) Ended up reading all the posts on WCI and WCI’s book. Still have yet to branch out to other recommended books although hoping to start over the upcoming holidays

Congrats on a truly spectacular year thus far. I have a few questions.

How long did it take to get to that first million after residency/fellowship?

How many months does your 6-digit emergency fund cover?

All the posts on this site? That's impressive.

 

 

[DarrVao777]

MochaDoc wrote:

Today is Sunday, a day of worship for some, and Thanksgiving is a few days away so I thought this would be a thematically appropriate thread.

 

What financial goals have you all accomplished this year?

 

I’ve achieved the following:

1) Funded a 6-month, emergency fund.

This was a somewhat difficult task but I felt a huge sense of relief and calm once I knew I could weather six months of financial instability relatively well before having to panic.

2) Paid my 2015 taxes within 45 days of April 15, 2016.

Despite not having a very complex tax situation, I always wind up paying maximum penalties and everything else in October. My CPA, a family friend, routinely expresses his fatherly disapproval which goes something like, “You’re better than this. Don’t do this next year.” Like groundhog day, nothing usually changes but this year I “did better.”

3) Paid off two small, student loans, approximately $4000 at 5.0%.

4a) Refinanced four student loans, totaling a little over $52000, at 6.08% fixed to 3.5% fixed.

4b) Through a mixture of trial and error, bi-monthly scheduled and extra payments, and an extra lump sump payment each month I’ve gotten the refinanced term down from 60 months to 24.5 months over a 2.5 month period.

5) Set up a running bank balance excel spreadsheet for my expense accounts.

Extremely helpful for financial planning and goal setting.

6) Finally dabbled in individual stocks but quickly realized the folly of my ways. Now I have to decide if I should sell the under-performing stocks and claim a tax loss or sit tight and see what happens.

7) Read a good number of the posts on WCI, read(ing) a few of the recommended books and slowly implementing the nuggets found within.

 

I look forward to hearing what you all have been up to financially this year.

Click to expand...

This was my most successful year personally and financially to date (1st child and 1st million)

1) Expanded emergency account to 6 digits (purse strings have loosened a little fortunately/unfortunately)

2) Effective tax rate at 30% (fortunately/unfortunately)

3) Student loans all gone

4) 2 small mortgages (primary property and rental property) hopefully gone in the next 12 - 18 months

5) Linked into Mint and Personal Capital although the vast majority of my net worth is in Vanguard so I'm not sure how helpful/necessary this was. Cool to see everything all laid out though for my wife who likes looking at the big picture but not the small details.

6) Tax loss harvested for the first time and (by pure luck), happened to buy low before the early year rebound

7) Ended up reading all the posts on WCI and WCI's book. Still have yet to branch out to other recommended books although hoping to start over the upcoming holidays

Happy early thanksgiving and holidays to all

[MochaDoc]

Today is Sunday, a day of worship for some, and Turkey day is a few days away so I thought this would be a thematically-appropriate thread.

 

What financial goals have you all accomplished this year?

 

I've achieved the following:

1) Funded a 6-month, emergency fund.

This was a somewhat difficult task but I felt a huge sense of relief and calm once I knew I could weather six months of financial instability relatively well before having to panic.

2) Paid my 2015 taxes within 45 days of April 15, 2016.

Despite not having a very complex tax situation, I always wind up paying maximum penalties and everything else in October. My CPA, a family friend, routinely expresses his fatherly disapproval which goes something like, "You're better than this. Don't do this next year." Like groundhog day, nothing usually changes but this year I "did better."

3) Paid off two small, student loans, approximately $4000 at 5.0%.

4a) Refinanced four student loans, totaling a little over $52000, at 6.08% fixed to 3.5% fixed.

4b) Through a mixture of trial and error, bi-monthly scheduled and extra payments, and an extra lump sum payment each month I've gotten the refinanced term down from 60 months to 24.5 months over a 2.5-month period.

5) Set up a running bank balance excel spreadsheet for my expense account.

Extremely helpful for financial planning and goal setting.

6) Finally dabbled in individual stocks but quickly realized the folly of my ways. Now I have to decide if I should sell the under-performing stocks and claim a tax loss or sit tight and see what happens.

7) Read a good number of the posts on WCI, read(ing) a few of the recommended books and slowly implementing the nuggets found within.

 

I look forward to hearing what you all have been up to financially this year.