We’re about halfway through 2021 and I think it’s a good time to revisit my 2021 financial resolutions that I set for myself. I don’t know about you but more often that not I’ll forgot about my resolutions and finish the year without having really revisited or given them much thought. So with that in mind, here are my 2021 financial resolutions and the progress I’ve made so far:

Grow net worth by 25% – Achieved

Wow, I thought that this was a fairly lofty goal when I set it but so far this year our net worth has grown by 30%. If you don’t know, I monthly track the balances on all my accounts in an effort to keep an eye on things. It also helps me because by doing it monthly, I don’t feel the need to do it every few days, as I used to obsessively check all my accounts.

I’d say we were able to make good progress on this thanks to our retirement (15%) and my ESPP contributions (15%), so honestly maybe just by saving that much out of our income we were already making good progress towards my goal of 25%. The stock market has also done quite well this year, and as I have a lot invested (retirement and non-retirement), it helped. The housing market has also been on a huge run, and the value of both our rental property and main property has grown.

It feels a little unsettling thinking things have grown this month – like am I missing something or is there a big reset coming but I think if you do the right things consistently (save and invest for me), then hard work pays off!

Focus more on investments vs savings – Making good progress

At the time of me setting my financial resolutions in January 2021, I was about 45% real estate, 46% equities (stocks/mutual funds) and then 9% cash. That amount of cash felt high to me, I think that at this stage of being a young professional, it’s better to invest more. I’ve already got a strong emergency fund and we’re saving for big purchases in the near future (car and house updates) so that feels good to me. As of right now, we’re sitting at 6% cash, 45% equities and 48% real estate. So we’ve decreased our overall portion of cash by 3%. I’m happy with that progress!

I’ve also tried to be a lot more focused on investing and instead of putting a few hundred or so each month into a savings account, I put it in the stock market (index funds for me). My thinking is that if I need it for a larger purchase (i.e. car or house work), I can always pull it out of equities, and keeping it in equities where historically it’s done 8% year over year (average) is much better than the 0.4% I’m getting in my high yield savings account.

For the 2^nd half of the year I’d love to continue this trend!

Get more realistic with my budget – Work to be done

I set this resolution as in the past I’d set these super lofty saving/investing goals for myself and would rarely achieve them. This recurring ‘failure’ would bum me out and I’d feel bad about my progress and myself. I wanted to be more realistic and try to stress less about money each month (yes even a financial blogger stresses about money).

I’d say that I’ve made some progress on this goal, but I’m glad there are a few months left in the year for me to keep working on this. I made progress by increasing the ‘general living’ and ‘fun’ buckets of my budget probably by 10-20% compared to where they were last year, and decreasing my savings goals. I tried to remember the fact that before the paycheck hits my account I’ve already saved 30% and so really much more saving is nice but I’ll survive without all of it.

I’d love to continue refining the budget to better reflect my current situation as I think I’m close but not quite there!

Close or downgrade a few credit cards – Achieved

I wrote an article a few months ago about my $959 credit card problem. At one point in time, each of those cards I held delivered a lot of value but now that I’m not traveling nearly as much for work or fun (thanks COVID) and that fact that we have 2 kids and won’t be jumping on planes as much anymore, it just didn’t make sense for me to keep them all.

I did end up downgrading my $250 Delta American Express to the free Blue Delta Amex card (shameless referral link) and downgraded my $69 Southwest card to the lowest tier $39 card. So, I was saving myself $280 extra dollars this year, so not a bad start!

I’m still torn though as unfortunately it seems that travel might not really return until 2022. We got a little taste this summer and I took a few flights but I think COVID will linger around for longer than any of us would like. Just the nature of the situation right now I think will be less travel for me. So, I have a few other cards on the chopping block – the Southwest card altogether, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with my Chase Sapphire Reserve. We did sign Mrs. Money up for the gold Amex card after she got an incredible 80K signup bonus. It’s a $250 annual fee but it’s pretty easy to get $240 back in food delivery credits. That seemed to scratch my itch for credit cards for a while!

Save for 529 – On track

Saving for college is a tough thing to think through, will both BabyMoneyFinance and SegundoMoneyFinance go to college, will they go in state or out of state, do I want to pay for out of state or just pay for their in state rate, will they get a scholarship, how much will college be in 18 years when they go, etc. There’s a lot to think about but I feel very blessed that my parents paid for my college tuition and allowed me to graduate debt free and would love to pass that onto my kids.

I set a goal of saving $4,000 per year per kid, so that’s $8,000 I need to set aside annually. Over 18 years that will be $72,000 not including growth, which as I’ve invested in the stock market, I hope it’ll grow by a fair amount when it’s time for them to go to college.

Right now I’ve saved about $6,000 of my $8,000 goal, so ahead of schedule with it being halfway(ish) through the year. I’ve got plans to hit my goal and believe that I’ll be able to!

Save for winter in the summer – a little progress but need to ramp it up

November-January always seem to be an expensive few months. Trips, holidays, gifts, donations, end of year/beginning of year expenses, and just what seems like a ton of get togethers and social things happening. I absolutely love this time of year and treasure each of these activities, but they’re not cheap! I’ve had a bad habit of not saving for these months and then October rolls around and I stress and stretch the budget way more than I’d like to do.

My plan was to start saving for the winter in the summer, which I’m realizing is now, ha! To date I’ve set aside a little bit of money but not nearly enough to where I’d like. I’m not sure how well I’ll do on this goal seeing as it’s August already but I’m hoping I can put aside a little more, and at least I’ve already saved some, which is more than I’ve done in years past!

Keep doing more of the same and stay hungry – feeling good

I’ve definitely stayed hungry for growth this year. I’ve (slightly) increased both my retirement contribution amount and my ESPP contribution amount in 2021, and have been more aggressive in investing. I’ve also sought advice from friends and (I hope you’re sitting down for this as this is very unlike me) – a financial advisor. We get free access to them through work, and they’re fiduciaries (meaning they only give me advice in my interest not based on who is giving them the most referral money) and not life insurance sales people in disguise. I brought a lot of good questions and actually learned a few things. I’ve been reshifting my thinking around investing more vs saving more, and trying to focus on maxing out tax favorable accounts wherever possible. I’m glad I’ve stayed hungry and plan to continue to do so!