2015 Goals (3rd Quarter Update)

In January, we set a total of 12 goals for the 2015 Calendar year.  We had made goals for our dividend stocks, P2P accounts, Blog, and Financial Milestone. 

Below is a progress report to show how we are doing on these 12 goals after 3 quarters of the year. With 3-months (or 1-quarter) left in the year, we should technically be 75% of the way towards meeting our goal. 

Based on these results, it appears that we are doing well and should be on target to accomplish most of the 12 goals we set for ourselves.  In fact, we've already accomplished 5 of the 12 goals.  It appears that goals #1, #4, and #12 are the ones we will need to work a bit harder on if want to accomplish them.  

Thanks for following along...stay tuned to see if we continue our current success! 

Regards, 

A Frugal Family's Journey

2015 GOALS

DIVIDEND STOCKS:

1.  Earn $3,000 in dividend income.

• $1,994.50 - Wells Fargo Account
• $281.77 - Edward Jones Account
• Current total: $2,276.27 (75.8% of goal)

2.  Increase projected annual dividend income to $3,500.

• $3521.68 - Wells Fargo Account
• $358.25 - Edward Jones Account
• Current Annual Projection: $3,879.93 (110% of goal)

• ACCOMPLISHED!

3.  Increase number of holdings to 40 (stocks and/or ETFs).

• ACCOMPLISHED!

P2P ACCOUNTS:

4.  Have a combined $20,000 from both accounts.

• $7,436 - Prosper
• $9,947 - Lending Club
• Current total: $17,383 (86.9% of goal)*
• *Withdrew $2,000 to open and build a new Loyal3 account. No longer happy with P2P results.

5.  Maintain an average interest rate of 6.0% or higher (combined).

• AVG return from notes is currently: 6.11% (on target)

BLOG:

6.  Write at least 84 posts (7 posts / month).

• Currently total: 102 posts (121% of goal)
• ACCOMPLISHED!

7.  Reach 150,000 total hits by end of the year.

• Current total: 148,088 total hits (98.7% of goal)

8.  Increase stock analyses collection to 800+.

• Current total: 871 stock analyses in our collection (108% of goal)
• ACCOMPLISHED!

9. Cash out my first $100 from Google AdSense.

• Currently total: $125.13 (125% of goal)
• ACCOMPLISHED!

FINANCIAL MILESTONES:

10.  Increase value of retirement accounts to $425,000.

• Current total: $397,677 (93.5% of goal) 

11.  Increase Net Worth to $650,000 (excluding home equity).

• Current total: $629,196 (96.7% of goal)

12. Reduce mortgage balance to $312,000.

• Current Balance: $319,142 ($7,142 to reach goal).

What are your goals for 2015?

How are you doing?

Net Worth (3rd Quarter Update)

Originally, I was only planning to provide annual Net Worth updates.  However, since I am now part of an active list of bloggers who provide their net worth on Rockstar Finance's page - The Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worth, I have decided to start providing quarterly updates.  Providing quarterly updates will allow us to keep our readers more updated with our overall progress towards Financial Independence. It will also allow us to stay accurate and current on the Rockstar Finance's Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worth. ;)

At the end of September 2015 (3rd Quarter), our family net worth is as follows:

Retirement Savings:                      $ 397,677

P2P Lending Accounts:                   $  17,472

Dividend Stock Accounts (DSA):     $   68,529
DSA - Surplus Cash:                      $    7,729
College Savings Accounts:              $  46,643

Cash and Savings:                         $  91,146

GRAND TOTAL

$629,196
(Decrease of $16,044 since 6/31/15)

Although we do not count it as part of our Net Worth,
it is still nice to know that our Home Equity is:

$463,671*

(Increase of $13,583 since 3/31/15)

I think I may have spoke to soon...during the last Net Worth, I said that "we have somehow managed to continue to grow our net worth each and every quarter."  Well, whether it is coincidental or not, the streak has now officially ended. 

This past quarter, for the first time since we began tracking our net worth, our family saw in shrink by $16,044.  We had gone from from $645,240 at the end of June (2nd quarter) to $629,196 at the end of September (3rd quarter). Not sure how others did but our family would like to forget about this last quarter and simply look forward to next quarter.  After all, we did have a record quarter in terms of putting new capital to work for us.  In all, we put $10,117 of capital to work for us.  The monies invested is projected to provide $531.35 in forward dividends.  Hoping we see dividends, literally, in future months and net worth reports!!  

Although we don't consider our home equity as part of our Net Worth, we understand that some people do.  So to be fully transparent, we would like to report that our home equity did grow $13,583. nevertheless, our Net Worth (with home equity included still decreased by $2,461 from $1,095,328 to $1,092,867.  It's a pretty awesome figure when you include the home equity but until we can accumulate 7 figures without our home equity, I don't consider myself a millionaire. 

* NOTE: If you follow us, you know that we do not consider the home equity in our home as part of our net worth. Although others do consider home equity, and even cars, collections, etc. as part of their net worth, it is our opinion that since these items are not very liquid and the value of these items is highly dependent on what others are willing to pay for them (at the present time), we have decided not to consider these type of assets as part of our family's recognized net worth.