As the saying goes, “If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.”
Early in the year I posted my (mostly) financial goals for 2022. Looking back on those goals makes me realize how optimistic I was coming into this year…and what a shit-show 2022 turned out to be!
So without much preamble, lets get into how it went!
Major Goals
- Pay off the mortgage or become a millionaire – Technically I did neither of these things. I say that because I do have a $1.1M net worth right now, but $300k of that is in home equity at a very conservative home value. I had hoped to reach $1M in semi-liquid assets by the end of 2022, but the market went ahead and set that back a year. I also decided that paying off my home is not a priority at this time, as inflation is way up, mortgage rates are up, and the stock market is on sale. I’m putting much of my available cash into the market and cranking up my emergency fund for the short term.
- Don’t do a major renovation – We did it! Kind of! Our backyard renovation that was supposed to be completed by Memorial Day of 2021 was fully completed in March of 2022. We started no new renovation projects in 2022 despite my master bathroom doing its best to force our hands. I may continue the ban on reno’s through 2023 if I can, although I’m itching to try my hand at building built-in shelving in two rooms on my first floor.
- Enjoy life – This one was surprisingly easy. Starting with our first full family vacation in March, and continuing on through an amazing summer I had a blast with friends and family all over the place. We took the kids to Great Wolf, Hershey Park and took a very long drive to South Carolina and back. Our summer was packed with pool parties, trips to the beach, big meals with friends, and relaxation in our new back yard. My wife and I even got away to celebrate our ten year anniversary with a kid-free one night trip. Despite the feeling that the world was burning almost every day, we really had an amazing time in 2022.
Minor Goals
- Lose 10 lbs and keep it off – I don’t think I did so well actually losing any weight, but I did a good job of moving it around a bit. I took exercise seriously in 2022, and our little home gym expanded from a treadmill and single pair of dumbbells in my office, to a dedicated 12×12 space in the basement with a treadmill, rower, adjustable dumbbells, two benches, exercise bands and numerous things like towels and water bottles to make working out more attractive. I’ve lost fat, gained muscle, and kept from hurting myself and setting things back.
- Drink less alcohol – I spent a lot of time being very conscious of when I was drinking and when I felt I shouldn’t be drinking. This lead to a lot of self-inflicted guilt, even if it was just a glass of wine with dinner. As with diet and exercise, I feel like there’s a happy medium where drinking in moderation should be guilt free (as long as its done safely) and drinking in a party atmosphere is less restricted. I can and will do better with this.
- Rebuild the emergency fund – This was probably my easiest goal of the year. Once we stopped paying for our renovations I started putting money quickly into our emergency fund. When the whole world started going into recession, I put even more into the fund. And when real tech companies started laying people off (not fake tech companies like Carvana), I put even more in the fund. I was also encouraged to find my CapitalOne360 account that I usually just use for transfers or payment apps, now has a 3% interest rate. So I moved the whole emergency fund out of my credit union and into CapitalOne.
Other Notable 2022 Milestones
- After kicking the idea around for months, I decided to sell my pickup truck. Although it was paid for and practical, I simply wasn’t using it. We have an Expedition with as much cargo space as a pickup and it’s much safer to drive. I had also reached a point where I felt like things were breaking faster than I could repair them. To properly fix the root cause of the issues, I would have to start doing major projects I just don’t have the time to do at this time. It’ll be a while before I get the itch to have a classic car again, but I’ll probably revisit this in five years.
- I paid off my solar loan a few months ago when I realized I still had it. This cut my electric bill down to about $30/month (that will change in summer). More importantly, I officially only have one debt, my mortgage.
- I recently got pricing for a million dollar umbrella policy because I believe we are at a point where it’s probably a good idea to have more insurance than we need. It’s a little more than I want to pay, and I’d have to change my car insurance company (I had no idea these usually go through car insurance), but we will probably set this up in January.
- I am also going to be increasing my term life insurance coverage. I currently have a $500k policy that runs until I am 65 which costs something like $320/year. I’m going to have to bump that up to more like $2M.
- While we didn’t build the full on garden this year, I did plant a number of vegetables in large pots and an herb garden, all of which was wildly successful. Next year we are going to start early and convert our herb garden to a full vegetable and herb garden.
Overall 2022 was kind of a “meh” year. I had to pivot on a lot of goals but I’m still pretty happy with my progress. I’m hoping to be a little more career focused in 2023 as I’ll have all of my kids in at least some amount of school, which will free up a lot of time and mind space. I’ll get to work on my 2023 goals just as soon as I feed the kids lunch…
Freed by 50 