Have you started outlining financial goals for 2019? What are yours?

[kork13]

I honestly haven't even put a thought to it very much yet. Hopefully over the Christmas/New Year's holiday I'll be able to sit down with DW to think through it.

Our goals ended up not going very far. It basically ended up being "get ready for our next move" (hoard cash for a $150k/~50% house DP), in addition to the normal steady-state stuff of maxing retirement, saving slowly for kids' college, and other longer-term goals.

Well, my wife was medically retired from the military in April, but in those 4 months we were able to stash just over $10k into her TSP. My TSP is on track to max for the year, as are both of our Roth IRAs. DKs' 529s have been on autopilot since birth. It's looking like we're just about on track to have the desired $150k by next April when we'll need it (as long as the money folks figure themselves out & start paying my per diem properly... renting a furnished apartment for 7 months while paying for my family to live in Alaska is expensive, and I'm drawing off of the savings until the money gets sorted out. Gratefully, I know it'll work out eventually, and when I eventually settle up, we should be right about there & ready for the move.

As I started looking at all this, I realized how fast everything is starting to happen for us... but rather than taking this thread on a tangent, off to a new thread it goes!

[scfr]

- Sell house & move
- Figure out where to park proceeds from home sale given we don't know when we will be buying another house (1 year? 10 years? unknown at this time)
- Firm up budget in new location (have completed only a very rough one)
- Buy new car (probably, not definitely --- We had talked about going to only 1 car after our move, but I was the instigator of that discussion and DH is having a change of heart --- we will do what he wants, this move is going to be harder on him)
- Continue to contribute as much as we are allowed to 401ks, but put taxable savings on hold
- Fuzzy goal: Try to hash out how much assistance to provide to family members

2019 is going to be a year of change and figuring things out, financially and otherwise. We are moving in order to go live near family members who need our help. I'm glad we are way ahead on retirement savings. We can decelerate savings and still reach our goal.

Sold the house and moved early in the year
Proceeds from sale of former home are parked
New location budget (based on renting) set
Maxing contributions to 401ks

Car: We did go to only 1 car as part of our move (sold our older one before the move). We have not yet purchased a replacement 2nd car. We're managing fine sharing 1 car. My mom is currently not able to drive, and I think that's going to be a permanent thing but she's not willing to accept that yet and isn't ready to let go of her car. When she is ready, we may buy hers, so for the time being we've put our car purchase plans on hold.

The "fuzzy goal" of trying to hash out how much assistance to provide to family members is the one I've learned the most about since our move and am continuing to learn about. It has turned out to not be a "fix it and forget it" thing. It's an on-going process and discussion and I don't think that's going to change. And that's really OK.

[disneysteve]

My mom is currently not able to drive, and I think that's going to be a permanent thing but she's not willing to accept that yet

We convinced my mom to stop driving after an accident a couple of years ago and she's still not willing to accept it yet. We hear about it all the time.

It's nice to see that so far, those who have updated did a pretty good job of meeting their goals.

[Like2Plan]

1. Continue contributing to 401K for DH and IRA for me.

DH's company was bought out by another and next year DH will be moved to the other company's 401k which will not have the option to make after tax contributions. Since this is our last year for him to make after tax contributions, we have been favoring this category of savings over just about everything else. He has maxed out his normal tax advantaged contributions and for the rest of the year will be contributing to after tax.
My IRA is on track to be fully funded for this year.

2. Continue our multi-year tIRA to RothIRA conversion plan--we did our first conversion this year (2018). Most of our savings are in pretax retirement accounts, so conversions will help smooth out the taxable income when RMD's kick in.

This year DH contributed to Roth 401k/Roth catch up for his normal 401k contributions as it didn't make any sense to contribute to pre-tax and then turn around and convert. As a result, there is just a tiny bit of space left for conversions (of the other pretax dollars). I am waiting until December just to make sure there are no income (dividend/capital gain) surprises.

3. Make a plan for kitchen and bath renovations.

Several reasons, but this has been put off for another year.

4. Figure out when DH will claim social security.

DH has worked past 2 more retirement dates. He might retire next year. He won't claim as long as he is working and I don't think he will start social security mid-year. So, this decision has most likely been put off another year.

[riverwed070707]

DH's company was bought out by another and next year DH will be moved to the other company's 401k which will not have the option to make after tax contributions. Since this is our last year for him to make after tax contributions, we have been favoring this category of savings over just about everything else. He has maxed out his normal tax advantaged contributions and for the rest of the year will be contributing to after tax.
My IRA is on track to be fully funded for this year.


This year DH contributed to Roth 401k/Roth catch up for his normal 401k contributions as it didn't make any sense to contribute to pre-tax and then turn around and convert. As a result, there is just a tiny bit of space left for conversions (of the other pretax dollars). I am waiting until December just to make sure there are no income (dividend/capital gain) surprises.


Several reasons, but this has been put off for another year.


DH has worked past 2 more retirement dates. He might retire next year. He won't claim as long as he is working and I don't think he will start social security mid-year. So, this decision has most likely been put off another year.

Saw this the other day and found it intriguing. Does he feel he needs to stop working before he starts claiming SS? https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019...62-that-n.aspx

[Like2Plan]

Saw this the other day and found it intriguing. Does he feel he needs to stop working before he starts claiming SS? https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019...62-that-n.aspx I saw that article, too, but it seems they didn't take into consideration: Inflation indexing of SS, Risk free annuity of SS and Sequence of returns risk (this per the discussion on another financial board). But, there are a couple of reasons for not claiming until after he stops working. 1. He has not reached his full retirement age and he would have to take a reduced amount. 2. If you are under full retirement age for the entire year, SS deducts $1 from your benefit payments for every $2 you earn above the annual limit. (For 2019, that limit is $17,640).

[amastewa93]

From the original post: 1. Re-establish emergency savings 2. Start seriously snowballing our debt (about $65K between the two of us) - we will have one car paid off completely by March 3. Cut costs by moving somewhere cheaper (we currently pay $1,400 in rent) 4. Once our debt is paid off and savings is stable, we will be saving for a down payment on a home (not likely until later in 2020) We have re-established our emergency savings and have paid off a decent amount of debt this year (though we are still far from being debt-free). Our rent is $100 less where we live in Atlanta (after moving from NC). We won't be looking at buying a home until some time in 2022 - we signed a 3-year lease.