For me a new year means, among other things, a new set of financial goals for the year. Now that the home purchase and all of its initial expenses are behind us, I feel like we can finally start analyzing how our finances fared last year, where they stand today and where we would like them to be by the end of 2015.
Looking back over the past year, we managed to increase our net worth by over 70k and that includes all of the expenses related to selling our old home and purchasing the new one. We achieved this through good old fashioned saving and investing. So I feel that we are well on our way to hitting $1 million in net worth by 2019.
We also managed to increase our annual investment income to just over 6k. Our long-term goal for growing our passive investment income is to hit the 25k mark in 10 years or less. We are slightly over 1/5 of the way there.
This year my goals will be a bit more modest due to some housing related expenses and my wife taking a few months off to be with our kids. So here is a list of 6 goals for 2015:
1. We want our net worth to hit $725,000 by the end of the year. This is not quite as ambitious as last year but I think it is probably doable.
2. We still want to aggressively pay off our mortgage so that we can be mortgage-free in 10 years or less. To that end, we will try to pay down 30k on it. This amount includes our regular weekly payments.
3. We want to hit the $7,500 mark in dividend income. This should be achievable if we continue to save and invest our money on a regular basis in our investment accounts and our dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs).
4. Max out my RRSP and increase contributions into my wife’s. As I’ve written elsewhere, maxing out my RRSP helps me save on income tax. With the refund, I can pay down some on the mortgage or invest it. Either way, that money is working for me.
5. Max out my TFSA and start contributing more into my wife’s. This should be achievable by moving non-registered investments into these tax-sheltered accounts.
6. Contribute $2,500 to each RESP so we can get the maximum $500 government match. By putting $2,500 into an RESP you get a guaranteed 20% return from the government. Whenever the government offers you free money – take it!
Those are my goals for 2015. What about you? Do you have any financial goals for 2015?