2016 Financial Resolutions Results

At the beginning of last year I posted my 2016 financial resolutions.

Today I’ll review how I did. Next week I’ll share my 2017 money resolutions.

Before we begin, let’s quickly list what the 2106 resolutions included.

They were:

• Meet net worth goal
• Review/manage investments
• Earn extra money
• Complete death file
• Update will/estate plan
• Review credit report
• Meet giving goal
• Earn at least half bonus
• Network at least twice a month

2016 Money Resolution Results

Here’s how I did with these:

• Meet net worth goal — I actually beat my objective thanks to the post-election “Trump rally” (and that does NOT count the big appreciation on my properties). I’ll have a post coming up which will summarize where net worth ended for the year. For now let’s just say my net worth reached its highest level ever in 2016.
• Review/manage investments — I did a LOT of this as I’ll detail below, so this was accomplished as well.
• Earn extra money — My blog did much better than expected though it didn’t earn much money. I did do better than expected with my dividends as well as the severance from my job, so I’ll call this one even.
• Complete death file — We’re now hitting the “miss” resolutions. I did not accomplish this.
• Update will/estate plan — Not this one either. Ugh.
• Review credit report — Nope.
• Meet giving goal — We did hit this and even went beyond it. We set up a donor advised fund and give through it now. I’ll be posting specifics on it separately.
• Earn at least half bonus — I earned my bonus for one of the two full quarters I was at the company, so I’ll count this as a win.
• Network at least twice a month — Blew past this. I have developed a system of networking (lunches, outside events, LinkedIn) that always keeps my network growing.

So overall it was “not bad” but also “not great.” But there’s a very good reason why I didn’t accomplish everything above…

Money Accomplishments Not on the List

I didn’t meet all my goals above because I was working on several other money goals I didn’t know I would have when the year started. Here are some of the things I accomplished in 2016 that were not on my original list:

• My wife and I got our daughter accepted to college. She’s taking online classes now and will be enrolled on campus in the fall of 2107. Her goal is to go in as a junior and graduate with $40k left over. I also completed the much-dreaded FAFSA, which I may post on in the future.
• After my wife’s car crash, I got a pretty good deal for her on a new car using my new car buying methodology.
• I retired!!! And retired early at that! That’s a big one, right? The process began with me digging through our financials and looking at a different kind of retirement plan than I had in mind (or at least different income and asset numbers). Turned out the retirement math said I had reached financial independence and had enough to quit work, so I did.
• I’m trying to figure out retirement. I gave my 30-day and 100-day retirement updates so you know what I’ve been up to. It’s going well, but is entirely new and requires some adjusting.
• I developed a detailed retirement budget and update it monthly. I’ll be giving an overview of my results later this month. In particular I focus on tracking the small spending to be sure it doesn’t get out of control.
• I taught my son how to interview and got him two jobs. I gave my daughter some guidance too (though she didn’t need much) and she has a new job too.

So, not too bad, right? I missed a few I had intended to hit, but made up for it with some home-runs I wasn’t expecting.

In addition, I had a great year hitting non-money resolutions, specifically my fitness goals.

That’s how I performed in 2016. How did you do?

photo credit: EpicFireworks #fireworks via photopin (license)