2014 Wrap Up

Well 2014 was a great year! It went by way too fast for my tastes though. This year I switched to a new group at work, went to weddings 4 weddings, traveled to Boston, spent Thanksgiving in Mexico, attended a family reunion on the Oregon coast, moved in with my girlfriend, ran a half marathon and the Tough Mudder, started this blog, and I am currently spending some time with my brother and his family in Utah.

With the year over its time to review my budget and goals to see how I did.

Income/Expenses:
My expenses are listed to the side. On each line I have the budgeted amount per month, the actual
amount spent for the year, and final the percentage of my yearly budget spent (where numbers greater than 100% means I spent more than my yearly allotted budget).

The Good: (Green)

Groceries, Movies, Healthcare, Student Loan, Gas, Travel, and Vanpool categories all came out under budget.

The Bad: (Yellow)

The following budgets were slightly over my yearly allotment (so calling them "The Bad" is an exaggeration):

• Phone: purchased a new $100 phone but averaged over the year it only put me a little over.
• Clothes: $3 over budget, I can live with that.
• Car: I did not factor maintenance into my budget so this went just slightly over.
• Rent: Slightly over due to moving expenses and incorporation of some utilities.

The Ugly: (Red)

The last set of budgets were definitely ugly, exceeding my planned budget by a wide margin. 

• Dinner/Drinks: I think we went to a couple more expensive places then we should have this year otherwise I would have been fine.
• Other: This was my 3rd heaviest category, and is hardest to plan for because is covers a lot of random things.
• Cash: There were a couple of Craigslist items I purchased that required cash so this category was higher than I expected.
• Utilities: my worst category percentage-wise but this was due to me improperly planning my budget.

Despite some of my categories being so bad my good categories made up for it because my total expenses, $31,742, was actually $46 under my planned budget! The chart below shows my income over the year.

INCOME:
Paycheck: my net income for the year was $62,950.

% Expenses = 50%  of income. Success!


Dividend Income:
Because I have been working hard on paying down my debts, I haven't been able to add much to my portfolio this year. But the great thing about dividend investing is that its still working whether I am adding to it or not. This year I earned $1,832 without lifting a finger, not bad. Here is a chart of my dividend income over the year:

Net Worth
Net worth will always be a secondary goal for me with generating passive income being my primary goal. But net worth is something I have started tracking. Given how much of my net worth is in stocks, my net worth will have a tendency to fluctuate frequently with the market but hopefully my net worth continue an overall upward trend over time. 

Jan                                                               Dec                             
Assets:                                                         Assets:

- Cash                    $2,142                            - Cash:                   $7,782
- 401k:                   $53,967                          - 401k:                   $71,803  (+33%)

- Investments:        $54,938                          - Investments:       $63,971  (+16%)

Liabilities                                                    Liabilities

- Student Loan 1:  $20,051                          - Student Loan 1:   $0          (-100%)

- Student Loan 2:  $7,410                            - Student Loan 2:   $6,866   (-7%)

- Car Loan:           $11,995                           - Car Loan:            $9,150   (-24%)

NETWORTH:    $63,317                           NETWORTH:      $127,540 (+103%)

Goals:
Time to see how I did on my 2014 goals.

• Spend less than 50% of my net income - COMPLETE - I squeaked in with $46 to spare!
• Pay off one of my student loans - COMPLETE
• Keep taxable income in the 25% tax bracket - UNCERTAIN - My current federal taxable income is $86,779 from my day job and considering dividends, capital gains, and interest I am about 99% of the way to the 25% bracket limit of $89,350 so this is really close, and I'm not exactly sure about how much my "other" incomes will amount to but I sold some stocks for a loss (ARCP) to make up some ground. I'll probably wait until I do my taxes to see how this one turned out.
• Weight under 200 lbs - INCOMPLETE - My current weight is 210 lbs and of late I have been gaining muscle instead of losing weight. I'll be changing this goal for 2015 to reflect body fat percentage.
• Run a half marathon - COMPLETE
• Complete the Tough Mudder - COMPLETE
• Work out my legs regularly - UNCERTAIN - This was a poorly worded goal as I have no way of measuring completion. I have been working out my legs more regularly of late though.
• Increase my running pace -UNCERTAIN - This was another poorly worded goal as I have no way of measuring completion. I have not been running lately because of all of my basketball games so I need to figure some way to incorporate running back into my routine, perhaps I will start running on the treadmill at the gym as a warm up before a workout.
• Take an online class -INCOMPLETE - I simply never found the time.
• Work through my backlog of magazines - INCOMPLETE  - Unfortunately I still have as stack of magazines on my shelf.

All in all it was a great year. I had a chance to go on some awesome adventures. I had a great year financially spending less than half of my net income and paying off one of student loans to the tune of $20,000. While I left a lot of my "physical" goals incomplete, I still managed to complete my first half marathon and my second Tough Mudder. I performed rather dismally on my "mental" goals.  

How was your year?

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