How did 2022 treat you?

[rennigade]

With the last day of the market for 2022, how did your accounts do? Any other milestones for 2022 that you care to share?

I'll calculate how much we were down and post this weekend.

[QuarterMillionMan]

[disneysteve]

I haven't looked yet as it's only just after 4pm here. I'll take a look this weekend. Last time I updated my spreadsheet in late November, we were down about 200K for the year.

I do know that we are earning a lot more money on our cash thanks to rising interest rates, which have dipped down some now but are still much higher than a year ago. I've rolled over money that was earning as little as 0.6% and is now earning as much as 5.18%. That helps offset the poor performance of our equity holdings.

One milestone for me was that I finally got my cousin's estate closed and the money being held from that, including the proceeds from selling his house in August 2021, were released to me. That came to about 551K all together. Since his death in May 2021, that money has earned absolutely nothing. It was held in a non-interest-bearing account which is a big deal when you're talking about over half a million dollars. Once I got it in August 2022, I was finally able to have it start generating income. Some of it went into equities and some into bonds and CDs. If I average 3% on that money, that's over 16K/year in income.

The above was part of what fed into the timing of my decision to cut back to per diem at work, which was the other big milestone for me this year. Since the beginning of August, I've been per diem. I've mostly been working 8 hours per week since then. I actually took almost all of December off due to my wife's surgery. I've worked a total of 8 hours all month and will work 4 more tomorrow, so 12 hours for the month. I'll be back to 8 hours/wk in January.

[MooseBucks]

Down, down, down. I used to check accounts almost daily and was actually worried about how I'd fair during a major downturn. I've done well zoning out and staying the course. Instead of checking every morning I've probably looked at retirement accounts probably 10 times or so this yr. I'll go in tomorrow and enter YE numbers.

[disneysteve]

I just updated everything with year-end numbers. It's not pretty, but it's better than it was a couple of months ago.

We are ending the year with $252,000 less than we started it with. Back in October, we were down $373,000 so at least things turned up nicely in the final couple of months.

I don't really have much to say beyond that. Our asset allocation is now 58.13% equity, 34.08% bonds, 7.78% cash, so within 2% of my 60/40 target so we're right on track.

The next step, which I won't do until we get all of our year-end statements next month, is to tally up how much income our portfolio generated for the year. My rough sense is that it will be in the 40K range but I'm not entirely sure.

The other piece of our finances not reflected in any of this is my ebay income. There's still a little over 24 hours left so it could change but as of right now, gross sales are about $13,500 with net profit of just over $10,000. Not bad for a fun side gig.

All in all, not a terribly bad year. Obviously the market performance was a downer but it's just on paper and doesn't impact our plans or lifestyle in any way.

[Jluke]

Investments down $173k
contributed $41k too so I guess add those two numbers
for total loss.

milestone not met was maxing 401k for first time in a few years. I contributed 17.7k (doesn’t include employer match).

[disneysteve]

milestone not met was maxing 401k for first time in a few years.

Same here but that was expected since I dropped to part time in November 2021 and then per diem in August 2022. I’m still contributing 13% but it’s 13% of a much smaller number.

[kork13]

I haven't done my detailed look yet, but in broad terms, it looks like my investments lost about 20% this year. But I also added $125k in new money, which roughly evens the scales such that my total balance is still up YOY. Our asset allocation is roughly 90/10, so very stock heavy. I'm not too concerned, as I'm still young enough (mid-30s) to handle the market's gyrations, and I've been funneling alot of money into the markets & picking up shares at an effective discount. I've also got some egg on my face for a couple of single-stock bets I've made over the last few years, but I can take them in stride, keep holding for the long term with still having confidence in their future.

[srblanco7]

Our current asset allocation is about 76 stock funds / 18% bond funds / 6% cash. For 2022 we were down, net of contributions, $800k (approx. -14% net rate of return) excluding 529s.

On the positive side, we did increase our cash "bucket" by $120k (for clarity, about half that amount was saved during the year and the other half was non-reinvested dividends and cap gains) and that cash is now earning something of a reasonable rate of return, mostly in CDs and T-bills.

On the (perhaps) negative side, the drop in the market and continued uncertainty regarding 2023, had me rethink ER, pushing out a year to a revised target date of April 2024. Perhaps not the worst outcome as DD will graduate college in May 2024 and DS will have completed his freshman year in college on the same date. So we'll have continued income for the year where their college tuitions overlap - substantially funded from their 529s - but nice to have income as there are always incidental expenses that we happily help with.

[Fishindude77]

We can't really complain. Our IRA investments took a big hit like everyone else, but that's to be expected periodically considering the great ride we had been on. So the principle amount in IRA is down, but we're only drawing a small amount of it out annually so not too big of a deal. Got a huge home renovation done and paid for in 22' so that was a great accomplishment. All that remains to wrap that up in the spring is some landscaping.

Five full years into retirement now, I'm pretty pleased with the way things have gone and don't see any big red flags saying we need to make significant lifestyle changes, etc. Fingers crossed for continued good health.

[rennigade]

We're not down as much as I thought we would be. Down $260k for the year. We did spend $50k on a kitchen renovation which ate into our budget. No more house projects so our savings will go up significantly in 2023.

We were flirting with $2 million in investments/savings at the end of 2021 but the market had other things in mind. Hoping it recovers some/all in 2023. Not holding my breath though.

Asset allocation is: 84/10/6

[jenn_jenn]

We’re up about $250k which is basically just the equity income because the small company I worked for was bought out by a large corporation and my RSU’s were cashed out.

Grateful for that but it means that everything else we did was just treading water because a lot of our investments went backwards. So that’s a bummer but it’s okay!

We also had a couple of splurges (several home upgrades and my very first new car). A lot to be grateful for!

I’m feeling confident and excited for 2023.

[terri77]

As Dave Ramsey would say: Better than I deserve.

Yes, I’m down about $200k in my investments, but my income has increased significantly & I’m able to save more than I ever imagined without it hurting.

[disneysteve]

Five full years into retirement now, I'm pretty pleased with the way things have gone and don't see any big red flags saying we need to make significant lifestyle changes, etc. Fingers crossed for continued good health.

I concur with the health part. My wife spent a total of 25 days of 2022 in three different hospitals and had 3 major operations. All the other stuff doesn't matter if you and your loved ones aren't healthy enough to enjoy it all.

Wishing all of you a very happy and healthy 2023, and may our portfolio health improve as well.

[Like2Plan]

Overall we are down. If I look at it percentage wise, it's not down as much as I thought. But, I mainly check DH's retirement accounts the most--his accounts are mostly stocks and are down by quite a bit. I don't check my retirement account as often. Mine is mainly bonds and is very boring--like watching paint dry. For years and years and years (and more years) my retirement account has had very low gains in compared to DH's accounts. But, it has been doing it's job and that is to attenuate the big swings in the market. This year it eeked out a 0.16% gain year over last. Not a great return, but even the bond funds in DH's account lost $$ this year.