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I did okay this year. I plan to continue to save if the job holds up. There will be uncertainty towards the later of the year because I will most likely be relocating without a job.
The bills need to be paid but I am really focused on being happy. I do not just want any job.
I have learned sometimes we are prisoners of our own mind. Money is important but it is not everything. I need balance.
2017 was a stellar year financially, as of December 1st our net worth is up about 130k.
Unfortunately a few medical concerns but fortunate to have great coverage
2 big accidents for me: 1. table saw to the left hand, lost most of my middle finger and damaged tendons to the ring finger. 2. Fell down some icy stairs and ruptured my patellar tendon, 4 weeks post-op and hobbling around in a knee brace.
Breast Cancer for the wife: Surgery chemo and radiation behind us, some side effects lingering.
One child (only child) in college lives at home school in town, about 80% paid by an Alaska academic scholarship...but, plans to transfer out of state next year.
House and vehicles all paid for, doing minimal maintenance to keep them going.
2018 No big changes but really hoping for good health
Long Term
Planning on retirement half way into 2019. I'll be vested 100% in my current plan, added to a military retirement, 2 personal Roth IRAs and an inherited "traditional" IRA
Move from Alaska to someplace warmer!!
WOW. I really hope 2018 brings better things for you and your family.
One month remains in 2017.. How is everyone feeling about their finances this year? What are your thoughts on finances 2018? Are you planning to do anything substantially different?
We reached our annual savings goal at the end of last month and I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to articulate reasonable expectations for saving/investing in 2018. We agreed on amounts to send to three accounts for three different purposes: down payment, taxable, travel. Of course, we'll be maxing out our retirement accounts. Since we've already reached our 2017 goals I'm accumulating the rest of the money left in 2017 and I should be ready to max out both our 2018 IRAs on January 1st.
So we've never saved separately for travel, but I think it will be nice to have. I really don't know if you consider money saved for future travel as real savings. What do you think? We might spend some of it next summer and it might sit there for several more years...
Otherwise I really don't have any big plans. Just stay the course and see what happens.
I felt I did just OK in 2017 financially. I could have been more tighter, but as it is, my budget is already pretty lean. Most of the budget is spent on general living expenses like rent, utilities, food, and groceries. Near 0 on entertainment/shopping.
But my big priority in 2017 was to pay off my car loan of $17K and I actually managed to do that in August '17 5 months early! Butttttt then my car got totaled... I ended up getting the insurance payout and dropping a portion of the money onto my student loans and bought a used car for $14K. So in early 2018, my main priority in the next 3-4 months is to knock out the car loan. Then start beefing up my emergency fund from 15K to 20K and putting aside money for a home. I'd like to aim to purchase property within the next year-ish to 2 years.
Other than that, I've been setting aside 30%-ish of my income into retirement (Roth 401k w/ company match/IRA) and maxing out my HSA. Might adjust my contributions to retirement & HSA to save more money but we'll see.
First of all good wishes for 2018 for finances -- and HEALTH -- for everyone here.
2017 was a transition year for me in every way.
-- in my field for more than 30 years, and left my last employer of 21 years with in a RIF (I was MORE than ready to go)
-- AND sold my home and moved back to the family home (don't regret leaving the job and moving home for a second!)
-- on unemployment for the first time in my life. Just as that ran out I found two part time jobs (no benefits of course)
-- paying for my own health insurance (COBRA, continued the job insurance) -- cut into my savings. Plus I also bought a few things I wanted -- just because, and I put the house sale prep on credit cards.....and have used credit (instead of cash) -- I intentionally did that to hold on to cash until I saw how my job prospects would pan out.
-- So now my credits card balances are high.....
BUT, I start a new job tomorrow -- at LESS THAN HALF the pay I was earning before.
Soooo......2018 will be yet another transition year as I maneuver living off of less than half what I made before.
New job is a gov't gig, so has benefits. I'm not exactly thrilled about the job itself, but the commute is ONE MILE!!!! So there is that!
Financially, I'll tweak my retirement savings goals but stay steady on course. Because my new salary is so much less will NOT be able to sock away as much as before. But will do what I can.
I DO still have to see how much Uncle Sam wants out of me tax wise....ouch. So after March/April I'll have the taxes behind me AND will have been on the new job 3/4 months so should have a handle on how the lower salary is working out.
Every new year I pick a personal religious /spiritual/emotional goal to work on for the year -- AND a personal more practical/worldly goal.....
In 2018 my emotional/spiritual goal is "focus on gratitude at all times"...gratitude, gratitude, gratitude!!
And the more practical goal -- once again!!!! -- make losing weight more of a priority.
While 2017 was pretty good to me financially, 2018 promises to be even better as I got pretty substantial raise raise. With the raise, I can choose to not replace my tenant/roommate when he leaves the area in a few months and still be slightly better off than last year, which is a good situation to be in. However, in order to allow for even more flexibility with my funds, I'll probably rent the room out to someone else.
2017 was a good year financially and 2018 was looking good also until I was told my entire department was being let go at the end of the year. So, while I'm getting a six figure severance package, I need to find another job which will hopefully have relo benefits because it's 95% likely even with a lateral job I'd have to move to get the same pay. If I can somehow land a job in the first few months of 2018, then we'll be in good shape to take that severance and either pay off our student debt (around $55k) which would make us completely debt free, or use it as a nice down payment for a house wherever we land.
The only stinker besides the no job part is that I either have to elect COBRA or ACA for 2018. Probably gonna go with the cheap ACA plan since even without any subsidy it'd be a lot cheaper than paying full price via COBRA for a HDHP.
What's frustrating is that in my 18 year career, this is now my 3rd layoff (and 2nd in the last 18 months) and none were due to poor performance. Just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's mentally taxing. Thankfully my wife and I don't have kids to uproot and she works for herself, so at least we're able to be flexible for me.
I'm hopeful for 2018 as it will bring a new chapter for my family regardless of how it ends up and to us, that's somewhat exciting since we've been all around the country together. Worst case, I try to get a modest remote job and my wife and I will sell most of our belongings and live full time in an RV.
However, that's Plan C. Plan A is to continue climbing the ladder. Plan B is to change industries and probably take a pay cut for something that's interesting to me.
Hit all our goals for 2017. However we felt broke all year. Never knew how expensive a teenage girl was going to be. Whatever we should have left over, she seems to find some expense to fill.
2018 looks worse. Our expenses will go up by about $500 a month (increased taxes due to tax reform, medical insurance increase, new grand kid's 529 contributions, Teenagers car insurance, property tax increase, HOA increase). We are going to have to watch things more carefully to keep our current savings levels.
2017 was very rough on us financially due to lots of unexpected medical expenses. Our health insurance has a high deductible, which our previous health insurance didn't have, so we dipped into our savings, and unfortunately ran up our credit card trying to pay for the medical expenses.
We're going to be starting 2018 behind financially, but I have a plan to get us back on track and everything paid off as quickly as possible, as long as we don't incur any new major medical expenses. Crossing my fingers that we're all healthy in 2018.
I've *mostly* climbed out of the holes I've dug myself in previous years. Got rid of the car with negative equity and have no car payment. Things were going well until September. Went to Florida on vacation, then had a big legal expense come up. The lawyers are paid off, but I'm just now back to where I was at Labor Day.
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I ended up getting the insurance payout and dropping a portion of the money onto my student loans and bought a used car for $14K. So in early 2018, my main priority in the next 3-4 months is to knock out the car loan. Then start beefing up my emergency fund from 15K to 20K and putting aside money for a home. I'd like to aim to purchase property within the next year-ish to 2 years.
