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A couple days late, but I wanted to write out all our year end financial numbers.

Cash/Liquid Savings:

$590 Animal Fund
$690 Escrow Fund
$1,000 EF
$1,205 Car Fund

$3,486 Total Liquid Savings

Retirement:

$16,930 DH's 401K
$3,400 DH's IRA
$8,630 My IRA

$28,960 Total Retirement

Liabilities:

-$114,713 Mortgage
-$6,818 Home CC #1
-$5,542 Home CC #2

-$127,073 Total Liabilities / -$12,360 Non-Mortgage Debt

Our retirement accounts actually went down this year despite contributions, due to the bad market.

Our mortgage and debt went way up because of the home remodel.

Goal is to be back to no non-mortgage debt by April 2020. But it would be REALLY amazing to pay off the credits cards by the end of the year... We'll see. It would be tough, especially since we are missing the entire month of January pay from husband.
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2018 TALLY:

$561 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
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$561 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$150 Citi Price Rewind
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)

Ongoing rewards:

+$315 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$88 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$149 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$823 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that...
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My husband walked down to the liquor store and bought a beer. He made dinner for his BFF who lives around the corner. He had knee surgery and his wife went out of town to watch their granddaughter the rest of the week.

We took the dog for a good walk today. We worked a bit on end of the year stuff for the business.

DH made himself a grilled sandwich for dinner and I ate another leftover serving of lemon chicken.

Edit to add 1/2/19: Well apparently I was so sleepy...
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Happy New Year everyone!

Going into the new year with a bang, just paid $502 to CC9 😀. Goal is to have this sucker paid off by the start of the second quarter.

I took a look at my year end and realized I paid 50% of my CC debt in 2018. That’s really motivated me.
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One thing I have noticed on this website is that in Australia it is hard to be able to get any sort of credit unless you have a great income...if you don't work yu will never get a loan for a car/house or even a personal loan or CC....Our banks never offer any incentives to stay with them at all...so in a way I think it is a little easier to save and stay out of debt over here as we know we won't get all the credit you get in America....but in saying that it is so hard to save...
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So I've been doing some banking today.

First, I decided to transfer the funds from my Brink Mastercard account back to my credit union. My CU is paying 4% now, so the hassle of the Brinks card for 5% isn't really worth it anymore. Done.

Then I paid my gas bill. (I have to do this manually each month to pay via my US Bank Cash+ card for the 5% back.) It's on budget billing. I decided to look at our energy usage - it was pretty obvious that we've been using a lot less energy...
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I have a goal of no eating out for the next two weeks and then will hopefully continue that for the whole month. I'll take it one step at a time, though, and the first step was planning out all the meals for the next two weeks. Part of me wanted to do the eat from the pantry challenge that some of my youtube buddies are doing, but part of me did not want to add that on top of my recovery. I am still weak from that illness and still very tired. I don't think I should make things...
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Looking back at 2018 financially …

We increased our EF by $1200.

I had a goal to increase by $3000, but we had several weeks where DH was off work due to his heart attack, plus lots more medical costs. So I'm ok with it only increasing that much.


We fully funded both of our IRA's to the tune of $12k. ($1k of that funding did come from selling non-IRA stock the month after DHs hospital stay.)


We sold all of the electric car stock at $350/share. It went up to $369...
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Does anyone else do a personal balance sheet? Last year (yes, 2018), I started to do one quarterly. It looks great when you don't add on debts and the market is up.

But the market is down compared to the prior quarter end and we made an expensive purchase late yesterday. This past week, we noticed that our 2008 Honda Odyssey (with over 200K miles) developed a strange sound and started having a burning smell. We took it to the mechanic and the diagnosis was not good. Front...
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We got the tickets!!!! Row G orchestra, right on the aisle so F and I can actually see. We got on this website which shows you the views posted by people from various seats. OMG! As FrugalTexan I think correctly guessed: HAMILTON! We are so excited!!!!!!

Not sure if we can stay with my brother (and I wouldn't want to burden him with that), we got a hotel on booking.com. It was less than we could get on the hotel website, and we can cancel up to two days before. It's not...
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Par for the (recent) course, I'm a day late. But here are my 2018 financial wins and fails. For ease, I've picked my 3 biggest of each after looking back at the year.

Financial Wins:
1) YNAB - I cannot even begin to describe how eye-opening it's been since YNAB has finally clicked. It took several tries, but last March, it finally stuck. It's enabled us to save for several goals, build our bank account to its largest ever balance, and meet financial win #2.

2) Debt Payoff...
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I haven't been able to do it for a while. If I make changes to it, I click Save but it doesn't take.
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Happy New Year to all at SA, and may your financial resolutions come true!

It being January 1, I took a peek at my investment portfolio to assess the damage.

It actually wasn't TOO bad since my portfolio mix has been 45% stocks/45% bonds/10% cash for a while (an asset allocation I wouldn't recommend for most people under 50.)

Most recently, in October, I moved another $8,000 of stock shares to 'safe harbor' at the persistent recommendation of my late friend, R. I will...
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It has not been an auspicious beginning for me. I was unable to fall asleep last night -- probably did not drop off until after 2 a.m. But I got to see (and hear) the new year come in! Lots of noise -- I hope they weren't guns!

In the morning, I was putting away a baking pan and brought down a bunch of tins on my head. I have a lump on my head. I shouldn't have tried to do that without getting on a footstool.

I always love New Year's Day, though, because it is a day...
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I like to post our interest earned each month. I'm sure I forget some months, but I try. In December we earned $118.80 on our interest bearing accounts.

Now to total up ALL the interest.
$582.52 Navy Federal Credit Union
$632.16 First National Bank Omaha Direct
$1.04 USAA Checking
$1,215.72 TOTAL

Wow look at that! Over $100 per month on average. We saved every single penny of our interest. (We usually do.) It's currently going towards are Big Goal.

I'll update the...
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Hits:

We paid of $10,750 on our last debt, the Monster Mom Loan. And that was only from April to the end of the year, as we weren't able to make any payments the first quarter of the year due to an $8000 hospital bill that nearly wiped out our savings.

We were able to pay all of our medical bills in full without taking out any more new debt or having to pay any interest. I did have to play with the credit card a little to manage that, but we paid it off before the interest...
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2018 Wins:
1. Mortgage under $100,000 (by $1), paid an extra $22,000 on principal.
2. Contributed maximum IRA funds for DH for both 2017 and 2018 in April 2018.
3. Able to cover all medical bills in full.
4. Celebrated our middle daughters wedding in May, gaining not just a new son, but a new granddaughter too. (Last of 3 daughters to get married).
5. Celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a paid for cruise to Alaska.

Losses:
1. Both my husband and myself had vehicles...
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Wins for 2018
1. Hit stretch goal for debt payoff
2. Hit step goal for the year

Losses for 2018
1. Did not lose any weight
2. Emergency fund is dwindling from overspending.

Have a Happy New Year everyone.
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I have few final snowflakes to report for 2018. A full tally coming soon!

$100 Christmas gift from my parents
$24.81 Ibotta proceeds
$1.89 Starbucks (Amex reward offer)
$5.00 Hulu (Amex reward offer)
$2.91 Verizon (Amex reward offer)

It's been a good year for snowflakes (extra money)...all have been added to our Big Goal. More about that on the sidebar and an update soon.

Happy New Year, Saving Advice bloggers and readers!


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