Browse Month: January 2019

ROMT’s 2019 Financial Resolutions

Financial Independence

Back on New Year’s Day, I reviewed our financial resolutions for 2018, and, more importantly, reported on how we did keeping them last year.

Overall, I think we earned a grade of a B on the nine financial resolutions we published a year ago, but the variation in our grades on each individual line item was pretty extreme. We earned three A+ grades (maxing out our 401(k) contribution, contributing enough to our children’s 529 plans to maximize state tax benefits, and choosing not to invest in Bitcoin last January), but I think I also earned a D on my goal to blog more consistently at Retiring On My Terms.

Hopefully a year from now our grades for these 2019 financial resolutions will be both higher, and more consistent, than what we achieved last year!

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Q4 2018 Financial Scorecard: Moving in the Wrong Direction

Early Retirement

The first six times we reported on our quarterly financial progress here at Retiring On My Terms, the news was always positive.

The three key metrics we’re tracking on our path towards early retirement and financial independence – net worth, 529 account funding, and passive income – all increased every single quarter.

Sometimes the growth was fast, and sometimes the growth was slow, but fairly consistent income, responsible spending, and a generally supportive stock market enabled us to make steady progress towards our goals ever since we started this blog.

Of course, that all changed during the fourth quarter of 2018, when the S&P 500 index plunged nearly 14%. As good as we try to be at saving and spending, a quarterly decline of that magnitude, the likes of which we hadn’t experienced in more than seven years, is bound to leave a mark on just about any investment portfolio.

And ours was no exception, even though, somewhat surprisingly, we still managed to make progress on one of our three key metrics despite the market rout over the past three months.

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Solar Energy Update: All Bad Things Must Come to an End

Solar Energy

Last month, I wrote about how our rooftop solar panel production had declined from prior year levels for four consecutive months, lamenting the fact we spent most of the late summer and fall using up solar energy credits we needed for this winter.

Fortunately, our streak of weaker year-over-year solar production finally ended in December, when we experienced some unseasonably warm and sunny weather.

Our solar energy production climbed by nearly 50% in December relative to the prior year period, and was up by almost 60% compared to our paltry production in November.

Not bad for the month featuring the shortest day of the year – especially since we were still able to enjoy a White Christmas!

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So How Am I Doing? Reviewing Our 2018 Financial Resolutions

FIRE

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch famously asked his constituents, “How am I doing?” on a regular basis. 

A year ago, I posted nine financial resolutions for the new year, that I believed if followed could keep the ROMT family moving forward on our path towards early retirement and financial independence.

With 2018 now complete, it seems like a good time to ask myself the same question Ed Koch asked New Yorkers decades ago. Without further delay, let’s take a look at how we did on our financial resolutions in 2018!

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