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It has been over 3 months, since my last savings goal update article. Things have gotten pretty crazy as my wife and I booked a full fall. It has been great, but exhausting at the same time! With our busy fall, I gave myself permission to not focus so much on new articles and just be fully present all the time.
Now, I have found time to sprinkle some articles in over the past 4 months. I found the time to write those articles while I was on flights by myself. I just edited and added to these articles as it came time to post.
Now, that I dug into our busy schedule and lack of posting, what have we been doing?
In July, we visited Nebraska and my wife got to experience her first 4th of July in Nebraska. This was always a huge holiday for my family to celebrate growing up and it was something that my wife and I hadn’t had a chance to do together. Thankfully, we found the time and my wife loved it.
In August, I headed back to work and the girls headed back to daycare. Our summer together was over and the dreaded commute began again. I found it harder to write articles this past summer than previous summers. I think this is because my daughters are getting older and they are at a need driven age.
In September, the craziness began. I started the month off with a trip to Washington, D.C. for FINCON19 (My first FINCON!). I got a lot of ideas and wrote a couple articles on the flight back! The following weekend my wife and I enjoyed a date night and went to a Texas A&M game (my wife’s Alma Matter).
The following weekend I made my annual trip to a Husker game. I met my dad in Chicago. We hit up Wrigley Field for the first time and traveled an hour south to Champaign to watch Nebraska beat Illinois (42-38). It was a pretty entertaining game.
In October, my mother came for a visit. She had a blast watching the girls, while my wife and I went to another Texas A&M football game. The following weekend, we took the girls on their first camping trip. It was a lot of fun and my oldest keeps asking to go back camping (I keep thinking Black Friday will be good).
Note: The above photo is from our camping trip.
For the last weekend of October, we took a road trip and the girls did great! They were troopers as we traveled 5 hours on Friday and Sunday to go to a wedding for one of my wife’s friends. The girls got their first taste of weddings and loved dancing the night away. Looking forward to our next one, so they can once again dance, dance, dance!
Anyway, that is our life update in 6 paragraphs. Moving onto the financial updates! Below, you can check out some photos from our hiking/camping trip.
GOAL #1 UPDATE:
Goal #1 is our mortgage payoff goal. At the beginning of the year, I shared that we had a goal of paying off $12,000 of our mortgage in 2019. That’s $1,000 a month towards the mortgage. Below is a list of the principal paid off for each month:
January: $982.11
February: $984.56
March: $987.31
April: $989.47
May: $991.93
June: $994.41
July: $996.88
August: $999.37
September: $1,001.86
October: $1,004.39
TOTAL - $9,932.25
We are continuing to pay the minimum mortgage payment and have not put any extra towards the mortgage this year. I don’t anticipate us putting any extra on the mortgage this year, thus we will probably come up about $50 short in hitting our $12,000 goal.
GOAL #2 UPDATE:
Goal #2 is our goal to save over $68,000 over the course of 2019. In my previous update articles, I dove into each month. With this update, I decided to just focus on our savings for the whole year. Below is a list of our savings for 2019 year to date.
Ten months into the year, we have saved over $50,000 in 2019! Now, I know that is not anywhere near our goal of 68K. However, we have save 50K in ten months! That’s a pretty good number in the grand scheme of things. We are coming up short, because of a few unexpected things this year.
From some auto repairs to a couple surgeries to some issues at our house, I lowered the amount that we are saving in my wife’s 457B. We used the decreased savings to help with the medical expenses and will use to help with paying for repairs on our house later this month.
Therefore, we anticipate saving at least another $7,000 over the next two months and should have a savings of approximately $58K in 2019. That’s $10K less than our goal, but I would rather have $10K less in savings and no consumer debt as opposed to hitting my savings goal, but needing a loan to pay for our everyday expenses.
GOAL #3 UPDATE:
This year, with our increase in pre-tax savings, we increased our savings goal from 30% to 40%. Earlier in the year, we were on a solid path to hitting 40%, but the last couple of months have hurt the savings rate. Below is a look at our yearly spending.
Not much to see here, as our yearly savings rate is sitting at 34% for the entire year. This is more than our rat for last year, but not near our goal for 2019.
2019 Savings Rates:
January: 34%
February: 40%
March: 34%
April: 48%
May: 26%
June: 35%
July: 24%
August: 28%
September: 30%
October: 25%
Year-to-Date: 34% (down 2% from June)
Twice this year, we have reached our 40% savings goal. That is not a very good percentage at hitting our goal, but that is why it is a called a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. It was ambitious to shoot for 40%, but I am glad that we are attempting to hit 40%, even if we don’t hit our goal. Our 34% for the year is much better than 10% or 15% that most Americans are saving.
How are you 2019 goals going? Are you struggling with any? Has the fall been busy for you as well? It is a great time to look at your goals and adjust as necessary.
