Happy New Year!
I love the feel of starting a new year. It’s brimming with anticipation; for a short time, anything is possible and I get excited thinking about what’s to come in the months ahead. And if I’m being really honest, I mentally cross off another year on our goal towards financial independence. 😉
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
As I’ve said many times before, we have a goal that at some point in 2021 we will either be partially retired or fully retired. But reaching this goal takes focused effort, of course.
Fortunately, as time has passed, we’ve become better and better at striking that perfect balance; putting away more than half of our income while still spending just enough in a few key areas that we never feel deprived. In fact, there are times when we feel downright indulgent. We travel, eat quality food, and frequently enjoy fine wine and good coffee.
And if I may, I’d like to take a moment to congratulate some dear friends of ours, the 1500’s, who blog over at 1500Days.com. Like us, they are striving towards early retirement, and they have a personal goal of reaching the $1,000,000 mark by February 2017. But, they reached their goal early…on November 26th of this year! Their investments reached $1,000,000! I’m so excited for them. (And check out their blog when you can…they’re endlessly entertaining.)
And while we’re quite a ways off from $1 Million ourselves, at the end of every quarter we always check to see how things measured up. Our goal for the end of 2014 was $174,153. Here’s our milestone benchmark grid again…
Did we meet our goal…?
YES!
You can’t tell from the results above, but 4Q 2014 was actually a little different than usual for us. We bought a used car for $15,000 so that dropped our balance a bit, and the stock market still didn’t do quite as well as we’d hoped, so we would have been behind the mark this quarter. But…Randy received that unexpected lump sum payout of his pension which made up for it and then some. So thanks to that unexpected windfall, we still made our 2014 benchmark! Yeah, baby!
(We also track our Net Worth as well…we went from $269,888 at the end of last quarter, to $318,683!)
If you’ll let me get sappy for a moment, can I admit that I can’t stop looking at this number?
It wasn’t that long ago, February of this year actually, that we were celebrating our portfolio reaching $100,000 in investments. At the time, a benchmark of $174,000 by the end of this year just seemed near impossible. But here we are. Slowly…month by month…our portfolio balance went up.
And if I go back in time just a bit further, it was April of 2013 that we became officially debt-free. To see where we are now is mind-blowing. We’re debt-free, have money in the bank and are in the process of buying a business. I have a feeling that 2015 is going to be our best year yet.
What are your financial goals for 2015?
And what changes will you make to get there?
(Wouldn’t it be awesome to look back and say that 2015 was the year when everything…changed?)
slowlysippingcoffee says
Congrats on exceeding your goal! We never set a goal in 2014, as we didn’t really have a financial freedom epiphany until early in 2014. For us 2014 was more about setting up a structure and plan to get to early retirement. So, for 2015, I set some pretty lofty goals for us. I only give us a 50% chance of reaching them… because it will take us out of our comfort zone, which I think Mr SSC is still not happy with. But we shall see! Good luck on reaching your goals!
Rob says
Happy New Year Laura and congratulations for a great 2014 to you and Randy. Our Total Investment Increase for 2014 was about as much as your’s was, all from passive investment income (as my wife and I are both retired). So our financial goals for 2015 are to stay the course. Don’t mess around with what’s already working well, I say.
Jenna (@pfjenna) says
That’s fantastic progress! Here’s to an even better 2015.
dojo says
Great job 😉
2014 was pretty hectic, we were able to save a lot, but we also spent a lot (birth, stem cells bank, new baby expenses etc.)
I hope to be able to save more this year, both I and husband are stashing 25% of any income to be saved, so let’s hope it will make a difference
Britt (@brittandtheb) says
Just stumbled across your blog – this post is inspiring! I’ve been at my own blog for a little over a year, so my 2015 goal is to start making some side income from it. I hope to put that towards my retirement fund as well! Look forward to reading more from you 🙂
Gen Y Finance Guy says
Lets race to see who crosses $200K first 🙂
No but seriously great work.
We have a goal to increase our Net Worth by about $70K in 2015 before any market appreciation from investments. If the market continues to act well then we could see almost a $100K increase in 2015.
So far through February we have increased our Net Worth by $15,600 or 22% of our goal. Feb-April will be our lowest savings months due to some planned home improvements, taxes, and some business coaching for my wife. But we will hit it in high gear again starting in May.
One thing we are currently working on is getting our spending on eating out down. In 2014 we spent $14,000 in eating out alone. That doesn’t even count the $6,000 we spent on groceries…and there is only two of us. We have done much better this year. The goal is to cut the eating out budget in half this year.
Looking forward to following your journey.
Cheers!
Laura aka Mrs. Nickels says
Yup, we are hoping to cross $200k in investments and $350k in net worth in the next month or so! Now that we’ve taken $50,000 and invested it in the laundromat, I may abandon my annual ‘investments’ goals and calculate annual net worth goals from here on out.
And I like your plan…it’s aggressive but very possible. The eating out thing was a big one for us too. Back in ‘the day’, we were spending over $1,200 a month on restaurants alone. Makes me ill to think about it now. We still eat out, but we make it count.
I wish you luck GYFG, keep me posted!
cashflowdiaries52 says
Hi Mrs Nickels. I cant believe you went from negative 40k to plus 100k in just a few short years. And now you’re over 300k in net worth. That is amazing and very inspiring. You are on an aggressive growth which is exactly how Im handing my finances right now.
Keep it up! Look forward to future posts.
Natassia says
I absolutely love your blog, I’m think of buying A dry cleaning business in the next six months when I feel like I would have enough to a sizable down payment. I will probably need a loan for about 3 times what I put down. I’ve been looking on line and it seems like loans to buy existing businesses can be tricky. How were you able to secure your loan, which institution did you go through? Thanks
Laura aka Mrs. Nickels says
The folks at Firestone Financial are who we started with, and they were really great to work with (no, I don’t get anything for saying that!). But in the end, the seller was willing to carry a note instead of us using the commercial loan we were approved for. I don’t know if Firestone’s laundry financing extends to dry cleaners, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Google their name, you’ll find their website and contact info.