2018 Mid Year Goal Review

Hey everybody today I thought I would take the time and review my goals that I set at the beginning of the year. Normally I would review my goals quarterly but this year I must admit I forgot to do it. So this year I will provide a mid year update and a final update at the end of the year.

I have been setting goals for a couple years now and I have felt they have helped me improve my finances. I see my debt declining and my net worth improving. Also I set these goals and share them with you to help keep me accountable in case I stray off the path and fall into bad habits.

So this post will be my mid-year update so all numbers below are as of the end of June. For 2018 I decided to set 5 goals.

Here is my update:

1) Become debt free.

For the last couple of years I have really wanted to be debt free. My only debt is my car loan. As we all know vehicles are a depreciating asset so it would be great to pay it off. When I got the car I financed the car on a 7 year term (did this before I started improving my finances). At the beginning of 2018 I owed $13,987.16, at the end of June I have gotten my debt down to $6,959.12 slowly but surely I am getting this number down. Hopefully I can achieve this goal by year end.

2) Have a 50% rate

I must confess to you that I have never calculated my savings rate before, so this goal is going to give me an idea of how well or poorly I’m doing. By my calculation at the end of June my savings rate is sitting at 63% which is quite impressive.

3) Increase Net Worth by $50,000

At the beginning of 2018 my net worth sat at $126,641.77. I decided I wanted to go big and set a huge goal. I say huge because it took me about 18 years to achieve my current net worth. That is an average of $7,035.65 per year so $50k is a big stretch. With that said at the end of June my net worth stood at $138,488.46 an increase of $11,846.69. At this moment it appears I won’t reach my goal but I must say I am very happy with this number. I am already above my average for the previous 18 years and I still have another half a year to go. I believe my investing style is another reason for the big increase as I have been receiving more and more dividends from the stocks I own.

4) Invest at Least $10k

At the beginning of the year I had two jobs so I wanted to see if I could raise the bar and invest more to help future me. So I decided to set a goal of $10k this year this would be a boost over previous years. I have surpassed my goal already.

As of July 1st I had invested a total of $14,495.79. This number is so high because back in January/February when there was some volatility in the market I took advantage and invested money that I had saved up in my emergency fund. I broke down the numbers between two of my accounts. For my TFSA I invested $6,472.02 and in my RRSP $8,023.77.

5) Receive $6k in Dividends

Last year was a big year in this area for me, I received $4,300 my biggest total to date. An increase of about $800 so this I thought I would attempt to more than double this amount. With the addition of a third account to my portfolio and all the money that I invested earlier this my dividend total will increase significantly. As of June 30th I had received $2,818.61, I am slightly trailing my goal and I will have to see what I can do in the second half of the year if I want to reach my goal.

Well everyone there you have it my goals for the year and an update to as to how I’m doing. How are your goals looking? I hope your all doing great.

Thanks for reading

Matthew