2023 year-end wrap up

[disneysteve]

Since the business year ended on 12/29 I was able to review my year-end numbers a couple of days early.

For the year, our portfolio was up $323,751.18.
That's a whole lot better than a year ago when we finished 2022 down $252,713.52.
It took 2 years to recover but we're now just above where we were on 12/31/21.
We're up 10.6% for the year.

2023 was the first full year I was per diem at work and was also the first year when we drew from our portfolio to support spending. We took out about $66,000 but I contributed about $9,000 to my 401k for a net withdrawal of about $57,000 which wasn't bad at all.

The plan is to work even less in 2024 and withdraw more from our portfolio.

I hope you all saw great growth in your portfolios in 2023 too. It was sure a heck of a lot better than 2022.

Happy New Year to all!

[Jluke]

Similar scenario where I’m up a little from end of 2021 peak (say 100k) thanks to this year (up 250k).

Apple and Google really helped me

[kork13]

Appreciate the reminder to go in and update my tracking sheet. 2023 definitely served us well financially -- compared to 1 year ago:

Income: Mostly steady, up $3k
Net Worth: Up ~21%, to $1.94M
-- Retirement: $885k total
-- Taxable Brokerage: $255k total
-- 529s & UTMAs (officially belongs to our kids, but I track it for awareness): $97k total
-- Real Estate: $620k total (primary + investment property)
-- Emergency Fund + other cash: $121k total
Investment returns: I haven't calculated the exact numbers, but appears to be around positive 18%-20% (22% in TSP/401k, 17% across our Vanguard IRA/taxable accounts). Heavy exposure in both blue-chip & small-cap stocks boosted our returns alot, and we currently have only a small bond exposure (<10%).
Real Estate: Fairly steady. Values have perhaps gone up slightly, but at a far more normal 2-3%.

Looking ahead:
- I'm 4.5 years away from being retirement eligible
- We plan to sell our current house (which we own outright) next year, so that money will likely get added to taxable investments until we need it in the future for our next home purchase (at least 2-3 years out, due to living overseas).
- As we close in on my retirement, we'll be looking to add 1-2 more investment properties, plus the home we'll actually live in. Those funds will also come out of our taxable investments.
- Otherwise, we're largely on auto-pilot. We're investing heavily in both retirement and taxable investments, and keeping our cash levels relatively steady.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

So 2023 was an excellent year for us financially. Our retirement accounts are down $50k or 3% from peak 1/3/2022. Mostly I lost a bunch in my Roth IRA but we are nearly at the same amount. Our retirement accounts went up $385k for 2023 or 31.6%.

Our taxable went up 92.8%. Our NW went up 49.9%. We had a good year in the market. We saved a lot.

I don't count home equity as more than what we've paid off for the mortgage but I know we had a good bit of equity above and beyond.

[srblanco7]

Happy New Year all!!

With the strong market performance to close the year, we’re ahead of where we were at year end 2021 - by roughly $200k.

We were up roughly 20.5% for the year with an AA of 76/18/6. Certainly keeps us on track to transition to PT work in 2024 .

The only financial “to do” for us is to build a bit more of a cash cushion as we transition to PT and then ER. Am targeting adding another $100k to our cash cushion over the course of 2024. Likely overkill but it’ll make me feel more comfortable.

Best wishes to all for a healthy & successful 2024!

[scfr]

Happy New Year one and all.

In 2023, our 2-adult household's net worth increased 9.2%.
Financial assets increased 10.4% (combination of new savings and investment/savings returns).
Non-financial assets, which now make up 17% of total NW, increased 3.6%.

Financial assets are now 2% tax-exempt, 45% taxable, and 53% tax-deferred/pre-tax.

We enjoyed a fantastic overseas vacation together this year that was not to visit family. We went to Ireland & England, the first time for both of us to visit those countries.

My goals for 2024 are to decrease the total number of financial institutions where we do business, and to shift a bit percentage-wise from tax-deferred to tax-exempt and/or taxable. I'd like to let go of the second irregular job and just do my regular half-time job, but am somewhat wishy-washy on that one. We'll probably do a short domestic vacation. And we might purchase a 2nd vehicle.

[kork13]

One thing I forgot to bring up in my previous post -- wrap-up on my financial goals for 2023. In most all cases, we achieved them! I started 2023 aiming for the following:
- $175k balance in taxable (actual: $255k)
- Use 40+ days off, having had a huge excess balance (Actual: 42 days used)
- Sell our primary home for >$350k. (Actual: not yet sold, plans changed. But value is closer to $375k-$400k)
- $1.25M total invested assets, excluding primary home. (Actual: $1.49M).

As I said previously, we're largely on autopilot & just building assets ahead of my military retirement. So for 2024, I'll recycle these goals with new numbers for the upcoming year.

[bjl584]

I'm up about 12% for 2023, mostly due to the market run that occurred these past few months.
Goals in 2024 are mainly focused on some remodeling projects at my primary residence.