Is it just me or has this year gone by EXTREMELY fast?
Since we’re more than halfway through the year, I wanted to sit down and do a fall financial checkup.
Today that means looking through my goals for this year and checking my progress!
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Goal #1: Make money from our rental property
My husband and I bought a rental property in an up-and-coming neighborhood in Cleveland last year in June.
We took a $20,000 mortgage on a 3 bedroom/1 bathroom ranch, and then we poured quite a bit of money into updating it to code, fixing a sinkhole, tearing down the attached garage, and replacing/repairing the entire house after someone broke in and stole copper.
It has been a heck of a journey, to say the least.
But the good news is that we officially have a tenant as of August 9th AND rent that has been paid!
Now we can start paying ourselves back for the mortgage, utility, and insurance payments that we’ve taken over the past year that we didn’t budget for!
Status: Complete!
Goal #2: Buy a new home without becoming house poor
I’ve been sharing our home buying adventure with you all over the last few months.
Currently, we’re still out looking for a new home that checks all of our boxes and keeps us in budget.
In the meantime, we’re getting our current house ready to sell and making plans to use our HELOC to renovate our kitchen so we can get top dollar.
Hopefully this goal can have its own checkmark by the end of the year!
Status: Still in progress
Goal #3: Max out my Roth IRA for this year
2020 was the first year that I had ever contributed to my Roth IRA.
I have a 401K through my job, and I have a traditional IRA that I rolled over from my previous job 5 years ago- but I had never invested in an IRA outside of my job.
For 2020, I took $6,000 from some restricted stock units (RSUs) that I had been holding onto and filled up my Roth IRA.
I invested all $6,000 in VTI (Vanguard Index Funds Total Stock Market ETF), and I’m already up 10% over the last 6 months (more on why I like low-fee index funds here).
Since most of our spare cash is going towards our home improvement fund right now, I haven’t made any contributions for this year yet.
But the best part about IRAs is that I have until next April to find the money to fund it!
Status: In progress
It’s always nice to have checkmarks on your to-do list, but it really feels good to have goals moving forward and being able to see some progress this year!
What big money goals are you working on right now? Would you like me to share the steps of my fall financial checkup? Leave a comment below and let me know!
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I’m cheering for you and wish you the best of luck in hitting all your money goals! 1 down and 2 more to go!!
Wow these are great goals! As a financial nerd, this was so much fun to read. Contributing to Roth IRA is my husband’s and my goal. Also paying off the mortgage as well! Great post! 🙂
very nice money investments you have here.
Congratulations on checking off the #1 goal. Real estate investing can be fickle, especially if you have some fixing up to do.
I commend you on making room in your budget for the Roth IRA and the 401(k).
Thanks for sharing your goals and progress on them! I cant wait to celebrate when you hit them!
Those are really great money goals! I have been working on coming up with some new money goals for myself lately, too! 🙂
Thanks, Maddie! Good luck picking your new goals- hopefully my site can provide some inspiration!
These are really great goals. I truly hope you hit them. I’m cheering for you
Thank you so much!
Wow, great goals!!! Sounds like you are making it work in this crazy world! The year did fly by and when I look back at our goals, I would say we had some wins and have some things that didn’t work out as planned and we need to keep pushing forward!! Great tips!!
I’m doing what I can! Definitely giving myself grace that everything hasn’t gone perfectly… all we can do is keep pushing forward!
Wow, great tips on money budgeting. I like the idea of buying the house and put it up for rent. This can help you gain more than you spent in few years. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! The rental property should definitely pay for itself pretty quickly- I’m looking forward to it. Glad you enjoyed!
I love the max out your Roth IRA. That is so amazing if you’re able to do that! I sometimes forget mine even exists, mainly because it has such a poor interest rate. Instead I use a CD for my retirement and just keep renewing it because it has a better interest rate, but I still forget sometimes!
Thanks, Alexa! If your Roth IRA has a poor interest rate, it might be worth checking what you can invest it in- you may only have it in a money market right now, which is why your CD has a better interest rate. I don’t have any resources for this yet, but you may want to contact the company that’s holding it and ask them how you can invest in ETFs, which are a good diversified options with solid returns (https://www.bankrate.com/investing/how-to-invest-in-etfs). They’ll try to convince you into something with high fees, so check their options for low expense ratios to save more long term (http://leveluppersonalfinance.com/investing/expense-ratio). Happy to chat through all of this with you and get you some better returns!