As usual, at the beginning of the year I laid out a series of major and minor goals. Now as the year comes to a close it’s time to look back to see how things shook out. I’ve done this every year since starting this blog and while sometimes I’ve hit all my goals, sometimes it’s gone hilariously (in a very dark way) wrong.
To start, I’m both happy and shocked to see that my net worth increased almost $225k in 2023. This was thanks largely in part to a stock market rebound and my cashing out of old RSU’s I didn’t feel comfortable selling in the down market. I still value my home well below market value, so I’m technically hiding some money from myself, but I feel more comfortable this way.
On to the goals!
Major Goals
- Stay Gainfully Employed – I did it! I kept my job! Actually, I got promoted in February and was given more responsibilities. It felt great to be recognized and I enjoyed a nominal pay bump. I didn’t have to lay anyone off, which was also very nice, and for the most part it was business as usual all year.
- Seriously Focus on My Health – This was a bit of an up and down ride. I was doing great up to mid-August when I saw a doctor about shutting off the baby factory. Recovery from the surgery took way longer than expected and I was unable to perform strenuous physical activities for a very long time. Bad habits crept back quickly and I noticed my belts getting a lot tighter than they were before the surgery. I also started working with a regular GP to resume normal physicals and blood work and it turns out I’m a pretty healthy guy. And finally after almost 20 years of suffering from pollen allergies I let my allergist talk me into getting shots. I’m halfway through the process and looking forward to Spring.
- Beef Up My Emergency Fund – Mmmmmmmm beefy! I’m currently sitting on about eight months of expenses after paying for some big ticket moves mid-year. I plan to slim that down a bit come February in order to do a major renovation of my master bathroom.
- Complete a Small Renovation – I’m an over achiever so I didn’t just pay for one small reno, I paid for two! As stated in my original goals, we paid almost $5k to have four rooms, including a two story entry, painted and brought up to date. To me, it was worth every penny. We also modified our two year old patio to include drainage where water was pooling, and three 55 gallon dry wells. This reno cost a little over $7k, and since it was a net improvement to our lives, I’m very happy about it.
- Stay the Course but Have a Little Fun – After re-reading Die With Zero earlier this year I really wanted to focus on doing some of the things I’ve been putting off in the name of frugality. We traveled quite a bit this year, and I wound up working only eight days in November. I also bought a massive 12 burner stone island BBQ and a Traeger Ironwood XL smoker to really up my grilling game. I also used my promotion as an excuse to finally splurge on a nice watch, which reminds me every time I look at it just how much work went into being able to afford it. We’ve already booked a couple of family vacations for 2024 and we’re working with a Disney planner for our first family trip to Disney. I still have a hard time spending frivolously and find it distasteful, but I’m getting better at loosening the purse strings.
Minor Goals
- Get Serious About Gardening – This was a massive improvement over last year. Having expanded the garden in the early spring, we wound up growing a lot of food. Too much food. I had eight tomato plants, two bell pepper plants, a jalapeno plant, two blueberry bushes, four strawberry plants, eight heads of romaine lettuce, a summer squash plant, plus oregano, parsley, basil, and rosemary. Some lessons learned: We need to harvest romaine much more often, we need significantly less tomatoes, we need a lot more bell peppers, blueberry bushes take a long time to grow, strawberries are more trouble than they’re worth to grow yourself, and squash plants SUCK! We will tweak this for 2024.
- Get the Garage Under Control – I was so proud to install my Huskey cabinets and workbench. I wired everything up nicely to hide all of my chargers, a Sonos, and plenty of lighting around my workspace. I installed a large hanging rack for chunky stuff, a bike rack for the bikes, and additional shelving out of the way for stuff we don’t often use. And then my family saw all the open floor space and filled it right back up with crap. This went on for most of the summer. I cleaned up and reorganized, my family used up the space immediately. I’ll continue to fight this fight but it’s starting to piss me off.
- Buy out or Replace My Car – Massive failure. I learned some painful lessons here. First, having equity in a car doesn’t mean you’ll profit from the sale of the car, thanks largely to taxes! My $6k in equity would have amounted to a wash at best had I tried to buy and resell the car. Second, my existing car started having weird transmission behaviors that I’m not keen to see long term. Third, my wife won the argument about a larger vehicle. Ultimately we compromised and went her way. We’ll be leasing a new vehicle and I’ll be buying what I want in cash when the other car’s lease is up next year.
- Attempt to Write a Book – I successfully expanded my outline but otherwise made zero headway on this one. I will revisit this in 2024.
Freed by 50 