Happy September!
August turned into such a blur! Between budget season at work, transitioning to working under a new boss, getting back into a regular workout routine and joining not one but two women entrepreneurship groups, I’ve been running all over the place, literally and figuratively. Since I got my life and house pretty well organized in July, I’ve just felt empowered to take on more of the things I want to do and empowered to be more active.
It has been a great month financially as well, so onto the financial goals.
2018 Financial Goals:
Goal #1 Make an extra $15,001 to remain the primary wage earner. Good news! I did a year to date roll up of our incomes and realized that I am actually $442 ahead at this point. I forgot that Joe worked limited hours in January and February due to our Asia adventure in January and a transition period from school to his full time job. It is unlikely that I will be crowned the bread winner of 2018 since I would need to make an extra $834 per month for the next four months, which is steep since I’ve averaged $310, but at least I’m not as behind as I thought I was. Next year the $15001 will apply.
Goal #2 Save 50% of our gross household income from March through December. In August we saved 68.01% of our pre-tax income. I read recently that a lot of people calculate their savings rate based on their take home pay. This is alright since taxes are likely a small portion of their expenses but since taxes are our biggest expense I include them in our spending total.
Here are our savings rates by month:
March 58.97%
April 64.94%
May 53.90%
June 74.28%
July 58.64%
August 68.01%
Goal #3 Max out everything. We set our percentages at the beginning of the year so we are on track to max out our 401Ks, 1 HSA and our Traditional IRAs.
Goal #4 Improve our asset allocation. Traditionally, this term “asset allocation” is used to define the mix of investments in a portfolio (example: 90% stocks, 10% bonds) but I’m using it here to describe the percent of assets that are generating income (401Ks, CDs, taxable brokerage accounts, etc) compared to assets that do not produce income (vehicles, cash and our house).
Starting asset allocation:
17% Income producing assets
83% Non-Income producing assets
Current asset allocation:
27.56% Income producing assets
72.44% Non-Income producing assets
Goal asset allocation by 12/31/18:
30% Income producing assets
70% Non-Income producing assets
In August we invested some of the cash from our old farm account which improved our allocation from 78% Non-Income producing to 72% Non-Income producing. Getting close to having this goal achieved!
Goal #5 Spend 100 hours providing financial coaching. Logged 14 hours of coaching in August for a total year to date of 44 hours. Currently there are three ladies that we are coaching through the nonprofit I volunteer at. I’m thinking about creating a Fiverr account and posting a coaching gig to find some additional clients to coach since I’m a bit behind on this goal.
Goal #6 Set financial boundaries and communicate them to family members. I didn’t make any progress on this goal in August. I need to have a more in depth talk with one of my brothers that I have been dreading and procrastinating on all year. Perhaps September will be the month to slog through this quagmire.
Goal #7 Monthly net worth updates. Still crushing this goal by updating our net worth tracker on almost a daily basis.
Cheers to September!