9 New Year Goals For 2016 – Half Way Point
Now that I am firmly back from holiday, I thought it was a good time to quickly check in on my new year goals from the start of the year and see how I am going.
So how are my 9 new year goals going so far, and what has changed…
1) Increase Net Worth By $100k
After a stellar August (that was good enough that I may post about it separately), I am $66k towards the $100k total. So this goal is going quite well. Lets break it down further, however the original goals are not quite how I track my numbers, so I am combining a couple of them.
- House increase of 4% = $25k
- So far this is up $4k rather than 4%. Possibly a bit optimistic, but you can’t win them all.
- Super increase of $37k
- Super increase by 5% after fees = $12k AND
- Super contributions = $25k (maximum salary sacrifice amount after 15% tax)
- So far this year Super is up $39k. I am amazed at that number, and it really shows how money can grow for you. It is not quite September and my hope the the years super increase is complete. Hopefully the market doesn’t cause the balance to fall drastically in the next 4 months.
- Additional Savings/Investments/Interest/Income of $38k
- Cash and investment increase by about 4% = $8k
- After tax savings/additional investments = $30k
- This is on track. I am up $50k on the investment and interest/income side, however cash savings are down by $27k (yes negative $27k). That is because a bunch of that cash has gone towards buying some of those investments that make up part of the $50k rise. Overall position is up $23k which is just under half way.
2016 doesn’t seem to have been too slow (which was a risk), and house reno has not started yet – so that may put a dent in the goal (see goal #8). So far very happy with the progress on this one.
2) Purchase A Rental Property
Put on hold for a year or two. There will be no rental purchase his year. Everyone seems to be talking about the oversupply of rental units (less so with houses). This even includes my friends who already have rental properties. I know one who has dropped their rent by over $50 per week and still can’t find tenants! Going to fail this goal, but happy with that.
3) Sell Our Grandparents Land
Pending. Some progress made so far, but far from anything to write home about. Need to get into gear if I am going to achieve this one.
4) Begin Dollar Cost Averaging
Going well, but could use some work. The regular intervals that make dollar cost averaging work are not quite regular enough at the moment. They are a little too haphazard. It has been sort of working, and I have been using extra cash to buy when things drop (so far so good). However I would like to increase the consistency a little more. At least once every two months would be ideal. So the goal is on track, but not perfected yet.
5) Max Out Super
This goal is on track. At the end of last financial year I was about $3k off the $30k limit. By the end of this calendar year I hope to be well on the way to the $30k limit again before the super cap heads down to $25k. I used to try to do this in larger chunks, but am starting to find that too difficult for cash flow. So I think I will move to smaller more regular contributions over the year.
6) This Blog
I have six things listed for this blog. Lets see how each of them went:
- more frequent posting
- Mostly going well. I took a nice long holiday in the middle there resulting in almost nothing for June and July (no the holiday was not that long unfortunately). Getting back into the swing of things now.
- better categorisation
- Mostly check. I have attempted to categorise things better, but I am not sure how much that actually matters anymore.
- getting some better stats
- Defiant check. The stats I can now get from Google and WordPress are fantastic.
- actually allowing comments (should anyone wish to)
- Check – an easy one to do, I just turned on comments. Big thanks to everyone who has left feedback and comments.
- looking into whether it is worth putting some advertising on the site
- Hmmm. Now sure about this one. Google Adsense is easy to set up, but so far is not worth it. If anyone has any other ideas how I could generate enough from this site to pay for the hosting that would be fantastic. I will call this one a fail so far.
- create more posts using the financial statistics we have been capturing over the last 10+ years
- Not doing so well. Hopefully the second half of the year will being better stats usage and posts using them – assuming people would be interested in them.
7) Increase Charitable Giving
Last time I mentioned the billionaires who have joined the giving pledge. While we are not anywhere near that level of giving (either in dollar terms or percentage), we do aim to give 20% to 25% of net salary to good causes. I know previously we got close, and I am going to leave this goal unchecked at the half way point to allow for some currently ongoing discussions to conclude. So I think we are on track for this, but will know more later in the year (and in time for a final score card).
8) Renovate The House
So this goal is sitting in the not started bucket, but we are again getting close. I did aim for only 2 this year, but I think we may hit 3 or 4 (with a new addition). The new addition is to paint the house, which is going to be first cab off the ranks.
- Landscape yard
- Half way complete for this one. It is not as large as it could be, we have a small block that doesn’t have much yard. All that is left to do is add some plants. The earth moving and creating a garden bed parts are complete.
- Renovate 2 bathrooms
- One or two of the bathrooms is still on the list to complete this year. It will be towards the end of the year, and may slip into next year, but one way or another bathrooms will get renovated; even if I have to (try to) do it myself!
- Renovate kitchen
- Crossed off the list. The kitchen is still working well, and will easily last another few years if needed. While the cost of doing this is a bit off-putting, the time required to make sure it comes out both as we like it and better than it currently is, is more than we will fit in this year. Thank goodness I only had a goal of getting 2 of them done.
- Paint the house (new)
- New goal added, and half way complete. Go me for choosing to add a new goal rather than picking an existing one. However it is better than doing nothing!
9) Holiday
Goal number nine achieved! We had a wonderful holiday during the year. Far too relaxing, too much fun (and too much food). Spent lots of time at the beach and loved it. I would highly recommend taking a holiday over getting a fast car like we did.
Congrats on all of your progress with all your goals so far Tom, particularly your net worth – your super contributions (which is all from your active efforts) have made great progress!
I agree with your rental property non-movement, nothing wrong with biding your time for a better time to buy with such a huge purchase.
Your charity goals are very generous, you’re good people 🙂
Your blogging questions/goals are worth thousands of words on their own. We’re having some decent luck with Adsense, but other areas still a fair bit to go. Would love to chat with you on Twitter DM about blogging stuff if you’d like?
Tristan
For #7, while the heading is “charitable giving”, it is actually just what we consider good causes. So not everything is an official charity. While it may seam a minor point (and in most ways it is) it does mean that we can include more things into that category. When it is an official charity, it also means we can claim a tax deduction (which is nice).
And yes – very happy to chat on Twitter DM around blogging. I have just added bluehost, because while I don’t use them any more they were a good reliable platform. Nothing fancy, but at the price that is what you want. Plus if only 2 people a year signed up it would cover my costs 🙂
I’ll have to hit you up as well Tristan! 🙂
Would love to switch ideas on blogging or even continue to create our own Aussie community
Man that’s a heap of goals you’ve got going on there.. I particularly like #9, looks like the holiday was great 🙂 & #7, that’s an impressive giving rate & good on you, that’s awesome!
Nice little update here & looks like most things are tracking well 🙂
Thanks Jef! #9 was fantastic, I had a great holiday. Very much needed, and even though going back to work was not “fun”, it was much easier than I thought it would be. I was refreshed and ready for more challenges (which I got). I had sort of forgotten what it was like to enjoy your work (well, most of it anyway). And for #7, we will see if that goal gets reached or not, it is a target like a savings goal, that we have been working up to.
Agree on the holiday thing for sure.. Not sure about you although I’m so much more motivated after that decent break.. Where did you end up going anyway?
Sounds great on #7 as well & all the goals in general!