Today I’m giving a mid-year update on the 2017 money resolutions I shared in January.
It’s been a busy year so far and I’ve made quite a bit of progress.
To make things simpler, I’ve divided the original list of 16 resolutions into three categories below: “Completed”, “In Progress”, and “To Be Done”.
Here we go…
Completed
- Earn extra money. I had a $4,000 “plug” for income in my retirement budget that I needed to fill. It started at $8,000 but since my spending was much lower than expected I moved it down. Since our spending has continued to be low compared to budget, I’ve more than made up that $4k so I eliminated it completely from the budget.
- Complete taxes. Our taxes were done by mid-March as was our tax planning for 2017. I will be monitoring our status throughout the year as I want to sell some appreciated index funds if we can keep our income low enough (and thus avoid capital gains taxes).
- Get new car for daughter. I have a post coming up on this issue, so stay tuned.
- Get into retirement flow. I am completely assimilated into the retirement lifestyle. I have a daily routine that remains flexible enough to allow me to do what I want if it needs to be changed. I’ll give a one-year retirement update in August with all the details.
- Finish with car accident issues. We finally settled on the injury issues from my wife’s crash. I’ll update you on the gory details in a future post.
In Progress
- Get daughter established in college. This is moving along well. She’s got her classes for the fall, has met her roommate on email, and started the internship application process (FYI, for some of the internships she wanted in DC, she had a deadline of May 1, 2017 to apply for a spot in the summer of 2018. Crazy!!!) We’re getting stuff ready to ship across country and I’ll be taking her in August.
- Update retirement budget monthly. I do it like clockwork and have seen gains every month — mostly by expenses being lower than projected. I also completed the first-round budget for 2018.
- Review investments quarterly. Haven’t made many moves (other than getting rid of Lending Club), but am keeping my eyes on some options (mostly selling funds as discussed above). My investments (and thus net worth) are at all-time highs thanks to the on-fire stock market.
- Manage donor advised fund. We distributed some of the money we contributed last year and made another contribution (of appreciated index funds) this year.
- Hit blog goals. Things are going very well and I’ve increased some of the blogging goals I set for 2017. I’ll provide a year-end wrap-up with specifics. Many of you aren’t likely interested in this, but it will become more interesting if I begin to earn some decent money at it. 馃檪
- Get son on path to moving out. We’ve been working on both 1) his education (reading books I recommend and discussing them) and 2) finding a new job or getting more hours at the current job. It’s a work in progress but there is some movement. I will hopefully have good news here by the end of the year.
- Manage real estate as needed. I review the expenses monthly with my manager and that’s really the extent of my commitment here.
To Be Done
- Update estate plan. Still working on this. We know the basic framework of what we want in the documents. Hope to do it before winter.
- Check credit reports. Still need to get to it. Easy to do.
- Update death file. I’m dreading the process of this one, but it needs to happen.
- Take pics of house for insurance. Easy to do, just need to.
That’s my status update. How are your 2017 money resolutions going?
Great updates! Best of luck with having your daughter in college. Fun time for her!
Great updates! Thanks for sharing. Looks like you have a busy year with a ton going on.
Thanks for sharing your mid-year update. I need to do a better job of writing down my financial goals for the year. By writing these goals or projects down, I can follow up by checking off what has been completed. Maybe writing out a list of yearly goals will be next years resolution.
You accomplished a lot! Funny, we have the same “to-do” stuff left on our list. I think I need an electric shock to get them completed. I keep moving them to next week’s/month’s to-do. On the estate/death front, we’ve got the wills, etc. in place but we need to continually update the “Where to Find Stuff” information for our executors.
I’m interested in your post about your blog goals. We’ve shied away from any sort of monetizing. Some of it doesn’t seem worth the trouble….Good luck with your daughter’s move. I hope your wife is taking it well!
I’m not sure I’m taking it well!!! 馃檪
Way to go with the “To Be Done” list being the shortest. It’s always my longest!
I have a feeling “Earn Extra Money” and “Hit Blog Goals” are somehow related.
Cheers!
-PoF
Ha! Yes, they are.
Prioritise your Death File and Will if not already done. I read last week that people with Wills tend to live longer.
To help you get the procrastination stuff done – for all that wrote in and myself – Kevin Oleary (aka Mr Wonderful) writes down 3 things each day he needs to get accomplished and does these first thing before taking calls, responding to emails, etc. Says it makes him ultra productive. So just a thought for a tool to help. So you can use this at work, home, anywhere you have tasks to do.
As for me I dont have a list. I do have a detailed budget. Have flipped around month to month due to some purchases occurring earlier (ie vacation paid before vaca month and have delayed purchasing a couple suits in my clothing budget) but am happy to say I am within $117 of my expense budget through June. Yes I am over, and will go over a bit more, probably to the tune of $400 by end of June. But make it back up in Jul and Sept. Financially due to the market I am $88k ahead, including today which is taking a beating. So, so far so good.
Great job on knocking out so much of your list.
Did you end up selling all of your Lending Club notes, or have you just stopped investing/reinvesting?
In the process of selling them off as they mature.
Ahhh the joys of getting someone settled in college….I have done that 16 times with my two sons and only have two more to go. Both are takinig 4 1/2 years.
Enjoy your adventure of the trip there….
Hi ESI, I’m making this same pilgrimage with our one and only child (daughter) to Pennsylvania the third week in August to get her settled into her new university. I’m not taking it all that well either ;(
Thanks for the update! I’m sure getting your daughter ready for college is bittersweet. Best of luck to her (as well as you and your wife). Jake’s talking about enlisting in the Air Force next June – I’m happy he’s excited about it, but not sure I’ll ever be able to prepare myself for it.
That death file! I need to update ours too – it’s just no fun to deal with. But such a necessity!
Will he go to the AF Academy? If so, it’s in my town! 馃檪
How often do you review your goals?
I wrote goals down at the beginning of the year and look at them periodically, but I sense that I’m not doing that enough.
As always, your work is something to aspire to!
I have a spreadsheet that lists daily, monthly, and annual goals that I review every day.
In addition, I use Todoist as a task tool and have tasks listed there to make sure I accomplish what I want to.
Thanks ESI.
OK, time for me to start reviewing goals every day. Too many successful people do it for me not to give it a try.
Todoist is great; I use it too.