Month: January 2022

2021 Goals in Review

Budget Guy Uncategorized

2021 ended with 2 goals met and 1 goal missed. I met targets for investing at least 60% of net pay and maximizing the Roth IRA contributions. I missed the cash in the bank target of $28,000, having only about $21,000.

The bank account goal was missed due to significant cash flows going to unplanned expenses. Even when the goals was set out in early 2021, having $28,000 in the bank was already at risk. Along the year, a few expenses went beyond their planned amount by a total of about $7,000: car maintenance, trips / entertainment, and pet expenses. These, along with few expenses that went under budget and not enough income to offset the increase contributed to a wider than expected reduction in bank accounts.

Head over to the 2021 goals page to get details on each of the goals.

December 2021 Net Worth Update & Year-end Review

Budget Guy Net Worth

In December I capped off the year setting a psychological milestone of having over $900,000 in total assets. While November’s net worth went negative, this month more than made up for the losses by increasing over $28,000, largely through stock market gains.

My stock market performance in my personal brokerage account for 2021 was around 21%. This differs greatly from index’s 2021 performances (like the S&P 500, which was up around 27%) because of the timing of contributions and investment mix. Here’s how the numbers break down:

Starting Balance$249,510.44
Total Contributions$45,654.23
Balance at Year-end$348,503.89
Net Gain (Final Balance – Contributions – Starting Balance)$53,339.22
Net Gain as a Percentage21.38%

See the Net Worth Tracker page for a history of my net worth.