2024 financial review and year ahead....

[yd]

Scotttheking kicked this off last year. Not seeing it yet so figured lets get the party started.

So, 2024 happened, you can look up your previous posts below. How did your 2024 come out and thoughts on your 2025?

Past threads:
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2019
2020
2021
2023
2024


Not a formatting whiz at Ars so hopefully the 2023 review and 2024 forecast at the bottom there worked out ok. I was uh, wrong about about 2024 - I called for 5% but ended up -1.2%. The vast bulk of that was mark to market on fixed income lower on higher rates and gbp outperforming euros, the stocks were pretty flat'ish. Not a great year but not fussed.....wouldn't have minded some of that 20% up US stock action but that isn't what we tend to hold due to taxation issues.

2025, hoooo boy, uh, my hunch is the trump shitshow is going to be inflationary and rates on the longer end (regardless of what the fed does on the fed funds rate which is all they can directly control) will trend higher so I am looking at another year of bond/dividend income with mark to market temporary 'loses' on existing bond holdings. I project 0%. My other hunch, gold goes and hits 3500 if not approaching 4000.

Buckle up people.

What say ye?

 

[Oddabe19]

2024 was mostly fail for us (clarification in spoiler). Though, came out on top with Roth and 401k investments:

Spoiler

2024:

• Open Roth IRA for her and max. Roll-over an old 403b from years ago. I'm going to do a 2060-ish Target fund for her account, instead of 75/25. It's just easier that way and she won't have to think about it if I'm ever not around. FAIL. Had an issue, never followed through. Not a big deal.
• Buy a house (probably not). What we have saved could've bought something in cash a few years ago, but it is now barely 30-35% down. Even with that, including property tax and interest rates, monthly costs would be just about 50% of my income for a small, not in great shape home. That doesn't make me comfortable. That 50% of income also doesn't include insurance, maintenance, upgrades, etc... FAIL, plus got notification of lease ending 1 June 2025. Hooray. Fortunately, looking through the math, properly, we can allocate an additional nearly $50k to our purchase, with a potential payoff sooner then 30 years.
• Remain debt free (10 years now ), but I'm ok with taking on mortgage if the bubble ever pops and we can afford something. SUCCESS!
• Get a small 403b setup and straightened out for her. She puts the mandatory 7% into the State employee's pension, so I'm less concerned about this, but it would be extra in retirement. FAIL, just never did, not a big deal though
• EDIT: Forgot one, if this year finally becomes our lucky year, start a 529. Fail

2025:

• House. Lease ends 1 June. Based upon what we've seen since September that has come through on MLS, the panic is starting to get very real.
• 403b for her. Can't only rely on her pension, but we're still in a good spot without a 403b for her, based upon my 401k and Roth IRA.
• Need to do her Roth IRA. Started last year, but had an issue opening it, but didn't followup. Need to do that.
• Remain Debt free, except for whatever mortgage we bring on.
• Max Roth IRA DONE
• Maybe, if we're really really, really, lucky, start a 529.

 

[OrangeCream]

I didn’t play in 2024, but a recap since it’s exciting.

2024 recap:
Crossed the $1m in collective 401k and a Roth accounts

Hit our collective retirement numbers so I retired for Christmas! Spouse still has obligations but she is retiring this year.

Created a multiple sheet spreadsheet with various tax models, asset allocations, and drawdown scenarios in anticipation of 2025

Signed up for a HDHP, dental insurance and vision insurance.

Set up autopay for all my available expenses, like utilities, since I find no pleasure in paying bills

Documented recurring expenses.
End recap!

So in 2025:
Decided two allocations, one for taxable and one for retirement accounts.

For taxable, SCHD for its qualified dividends, 10% IAUM as a hedge, 20% SWCAX for its tax free dividends even if it’s lower overall than my preferred SWRSX. I still have 26% of my portfolio in tech stocks, that I plan to convert to SWCAX at 1% a year to minimize capital gains taxes.

The goal is to live off this for 25 years, though I’m technically able to touch my 401k accounts in 12 years. We only need 5% overall growth to hit that target (technically I never have to touch my 401k at 6% growth)

For my 401k I have a more aggressive 70/10/10 mix of SWTSX, SWRSX, and IAUM, with analogous holdings in my Fidelity accounts. It is expected to grow about the same as my regular accounts because there are no tech stocks, just the broadly diversified SWTSX

Finally I set up monthly automatic transfers between my brokerage and my bank account

All of this was completed as of yesterday!

Going forward in 2025:

• Set up a more detailed tax plan, as simple as I can manage it, to minimize income tax and long term capital gains.
• Contribute to my HSA if I have surplus after November (recurring expenses is 65% of my budget, after taxes)
• Open a Roth for my wife since she is now eligible, and contribute in November if we can keep our overall expenses below 90% our budget, with her Roth getting priority over my HSA since we can contribute in 2026
• Switch from T-Mobile to Mint Mobile to reduce our annual cellphone bill 60%
• Optimize our auto insurance as this is our biggest annual expense. We have a non operational car we pay $15/m for, so we either get rid of it or get it working again (we have an teen who would need it next year)
• Find ways to minimize our electricity usage as this is our next largest expense
• Switch our internet plan down a notch since we no longer WFH; as our third largest fixed expense we can reduce it 12% this way
• Inspect, in order, our solar panel loan, mortgages and auto loan, in order, to see if paying off early is worth the hit in capital gains. I suspect the solar loan would give us a large return, my car is paid off in 2026, and my house is paid off in 2034. As it stands my solar panels will be paid off in 2041, so I suspect there’s a huge chunk of interest I am unnecessarily paying for.
• Gift highly appreciated tech stocks to my kid’s custodial account
• Not exactly a financial goal, but I need to start investigating colleges with my kid for 2027; the financial aspect is we have fully funded a pair of 529/Coverdell accounts to pay for 4 years in state tuition.

Am I doing this right? Will edit if not.

 

[hanser]

2024:

• > $100K into non-tax-advantaged investments
• ~$20K into home improvements
• 3 family vacations involving air travel, including a 2 week trip to Europe which cost about the same as a week at Disney, oddly enough

For 2025:

• Hire an architect to redesign the kitchen to be executed in 2026 probably
• Probably travel a bit less, but get on an airplane at least twice as a family, I think. Travel with you children is really just parenting somewhere that isn’t home, and is pretty tiring.

Career wise, I’ll take a look around in the summer, and make sure I want to keep doing what I’m doing or make a change. I’m pretty bored.

 

[FinallyAnAccount]

Hmm, I love this shit but somehow I've never ventured into this area of the forums. I've been tracking every penny of what I spend every year in a hoary old database since about 2006. (it's not as bad as it sounds, my roughshod database has import routines and auto-draft-categorization... and I've been using roughly the same categories for that time period.) Around December, I start to get excited and try not to peek. /nerd

Last year I had a 'spend anything year' which meant that if I wanted it, I got to buy it. I wanted to have kind of an upper figure on what I need for retirement. ...I'm not a minimalist, but I might have minimalist tendencies. I don't want very much.

Turns out, when I can spend whatever, I end up spending an extra 11k on 'BigTicket', which last year was a new stove and a self-done reno of my main floor (which is almost done, just some door replacements and trim work to finish up). It included new flooring, 2 new exterior doors, pot lights and a pile of indulgent power tool purchases. Oh and 1k of restaurant meals for my friend who really provided the skill involved. (I was the main driver for that cost, I chose expensive eats.)

I'm pretty pleased/surprised that everything else was so close to the year before - Food and Fun are really the only 'variable' things. Fun is pretty much anything discretionary, while Food is anything purchased in a grocery store, so that includes toiletries etc.

I'm also happy that BigTicket is finally bigger than Fun, since it's reserved for purchases that are 'special', either improving my day to day life, or experiential things (like travel, though I'm not really a traveller)

For 2025 I was considering having a frugality year. But honestly, it doesn't feel like it's very necessary. My lowest year ever was during Covid 2021, where I spent 16k. But it's been pretty much 30k the following years.

 

[Jables]

2024:

• Continue the investment strat of “plow all that money into there”
  • Ended up plowing a bunch into HCOL housing instead, but still doing fine there
  • We also got serious with our advisor and consolidated everything to Fidelity
• Like mentioned above, I was a Mint user too…used it as an aggregator to dump back into Excel. Moved to Monarch which actually has decent reporting features so probably can stop with all the excel/csv monkey business
  • Monarch is kicking butt now! Never felt the need to do anything in Excel since mid-year probably
• I’ll get another 1/3 of my RSUs so that will be nice
  • That did happen! It all went to the down payment on this house.
• Probably not buying any more cars
  • I made it until December 16th...so close
• My daughter graduates from HS in the spring which means we can move from here finally…so I am sure there will be implications from that, both from a cost perspective and potential promotions for one of us if we move. I will take more money to throw on the pile.
  • We moved to NorCal after she graduated due to my wife being transferred. I WFH and daughter is attending Community College out here. We paid 3x for a smaller, older house but we also got pretty decent raises so still looking OK. Net Worth was up ~20% YoY so still looking fine for FIRE pretty soon. Also got a promo at the end of the year so that was pretty nice.

2025:

• Meeting with our advisor again Tuesday to plan allocation strats now that we have all the dough at Fidelity. Looking to manage tax exposure more intentionally.
• Will get more RSUs from the promo which will be nice, and will be used.
• Meeting with a Fidelity estate planning person to nail down trust rebuild. They won't actually do them but they'll help you structure what you need in a form you can take to a lawyer and go "draft this" which is what we'll do.
• My wife and I are pretty serious about retiring out here now so we started a OneNote by house area of improvements we'd like to do. Hoping to start putting some job packages together soon to execute across 2025.
• In that same vein, put together a plan to pay off the house in five years because I do not want to retire with a mortgage. Might scale back if rates drop enough to justify a refi and reallocation of capital but we're at 6.375% and that is a nice guaranteed return right there.
• Definitely not buying any more cars without selling some first. Anyone in the market for a 928?

 

[Scotttheking]

Scotttheking kicked this off last year. Not seeing it yet so figured lets get the party started.

He got lazy and didn’t make it. Thx for doing!

 

[KT421]

2024 plans:

Pay off aforementioned car note (once we get the federal EV rebate back)
Save 15% towards TSP.
I've been socking away money into a "basement remodel" fund for a while and it's at about $10k. Maybe actually do that? Mostly I want to tear out the carpet and put in vinyl plank flooring. I'm less worried about the money and more about the having to move everything in the basement to get the work done.

Hoo boy did 2024 go off the rails.

Car note paid off.

Basement remodel? Naw dawg we sold the entire fucking house.

Moved across the country to help care for my aging parents. It's a massive financial benefit for us because we're living rent free in their (very large, fully paid off) house, in exchange for elder care. I also got a promotion/raise, so with the extra income and the reduced living expenses, I've exhausted my options for tax-advantaged investing. TSP and IRAs are at the annual max.

Plans for 2025:

• Keep my job (if federal workers are recalled to physical offices I will be forced to quit as my office is 3000 miles away)*
• Sock away shittons of money while also being able to give my kids awesome experiences.
• Put myself on a FIRE trajectory because as nice as the federal pension plan is, I'd like not working even more.

*If this does come to pass, we'll be ok. My husband has a part time job that would cover our much reduced living expenses, and I would take a turn as stay at home parent for a while before job hunting again.

 

[Diabolical]

2025 Plans

To echo KT421?

• Keep my job. I should be safe given what I do but the crazy do be a-comin’!

The rest.

• Sell my rental in Washington state. Get the capital gains and depreciation reclamation paid in.
• Consolidate four disparate 401k’s from former employers and 2 IRA’s (1x traditional, 1x Roth) into something that’s a bit easier to manage.
• Up my percentage contributed to the TSP.
• Re-assess once those three things are accomplished.

 

[waveterrain]

2024 Recap


Done

• Retired, mostly. From a household standpoint this mostly means we are back to a one income household (which has been the case for 80% of the past 20 years anyhow).
• Moved overseas. That was expensive in the short term. Should be better in the longer term financially. The non-financial benefits are already worth it.
• Consolidated all 401ks
• Paid off the last of the school loans.
• Transitioned about 50% of brokerage accounts to ESG focused ETFs. While I quibble with how some of these indexes define ESG stocks, the reporting and disclosure requirements to our clients mean that I don’t want to create and manage my own portfolio. Maybe I’ll set up a model just to see.

Big failure on selling the ATX property. The market was horrid (at least from certain perspectives) and since we could rent it, we chose that route and hopefully the market becomes more liquid in the next 5 years and we can exit.

Overall summary: We able to manage all the big expenses without touching savings or investments but didn't add much new money to the pool. The stock market did its thing.


2025

• Our big goal for 2025 is already done as it completed a bit earlier than expected: Moved spouse’s consulting contract over to LLC and reset rates to be 2.5x prior rate. Not quite white shoe rates but we don’t have their overhead
• Pay off house, now rental property, and associated items with that. 3 payments left.
• First year of filing taxes while abroad. That is bound to be full of “lessons”.
• Decide on new SEP or similar now that we have income flowing through multi-member LLC.
• Do an updated audit of expenses now that we have moved and are settling in and most of the transition costs have been accounted for. Maybe try something like Monarch but not sure how well that will work with our international accounts.
• Save and reinvest. I suspect the markets are going to be a white knuckle ride.

 

[hanser]

Having a huge amount of your portfolio in ESG funds while retired seems super risky to me. You do you, but yikes!

 

[poochyena]

It was a great year for my investment portfolio

My net business income was up 20% this year too!

2025 is going to be pricey with my family here now. Having to pay off the $2,000 in plane tickets for them to get here and pay for various immigration fees, buying several one-time-purchase stuff like bikes and bike helmets, and I'm having to drive around a lot more until they get their bikes and become comfortable riding their bikes.
My wife will be able to get her work permit within probably ~3 months from now? So this first quarter of the year is going to be expensive. Q1 is also my worst quarter for my business too. Once we get into Q2, we'll be dual income and not having to make anymore big purchases, so I think things will begin to improve again after that.

 

[Vince-RA]

2024 goals:

• GMST via YNAB
• Stay the course on 401k and 529 contributions
• Increase contributions to taxable investment account
• Re-bid auto/home insurance - probably fucked here, sounds like everyone is getting killed, but would be nice to get back some of the recent crazy price increases (something like 30-40% over the past 3-4 years) before we add a teenager to the auto policy this year
• Go on a nice vacation that will keep my family happy and not bankrupt us (we did the Galapagos last year - truly fantastic, but holy crap, expensive)

• Got set up on Monarch, which is great. Still not doing a great job budget-wise but at least I have visibility and no excuses to making progress.
• Course: stayed
• Contributions: increased a modest amount
• Insurance - not rebid AND homeowners went up even more, ugh
• Vacations - torched by COVID this year, but we're planning what should be a very nice trip to Greece this summer
• Bonus item: bought some nice and fairly pricey additions to my home gym which I will enjoy for a long time to come

2025 goals:

• Stay the course on 401k and 529 contributions
• Increase contributions to taxable investment account - shooting for 2x what I did in 2024
• Rebid the fucking insurance already
• Contribute to daughter's Roth IRA in conjunction with planned summer job

 

[yd]

It was a great year for my investment portfolio
View attachment 99152
My net business income was up 20% this year too!

2025 is going to be pricey with my family here now. Having to pay off the $2,000 in plane tickets for them to get here and pay for various immigration fees, buying several one-time-purchase stuff like bikes and bike helmets, and I'm having to drive around a lot more until they get their bikes and become comfortable riding their bikes.
My wife will be able to get her work permit within probably ~3 months from now? So this first quarter of the year is going to be expensive. Q1 is also my worst quarter for my business too. Once we get into Q2, we'll be dual income and not having to make anymore big purchases, so I think things will begin to improve again after that.

Whoa, I mean, I have had a single investment do exceptionally well (Anglo American at one point for me was a 20x but sadly became only a 10x and has done nothing in a long while) but a WHOLE portfolio going up 88%, uh, I'd do backflips down the hall for that in a decade let alone a year! My next best single name is like 60% return in 6 years or so; probably 100% with dividends...but in 6 years, not 1!

 

[waveterrain]

Having a huge amount of your portfolio in ESG funds while retired seems super risky to me. You do you, but yikes!

Nah, ESG ETFs are broad based investments at this point. Depending on the index and the qualifications they use, the resulting mix mostly means a slightly higher concentration in tech, financial stocks, consumer goods, and healthcare. Though at this point, even the energy companies like Sempra and ConocoPhillips have found their way to many indexes. Which leads to a different topic for another time and place.

The distribution and impact is a different story in the midcap range and small caps but the difference in the S&P500 and Top 500/400 ESG companies is fairly small. I selected a range of funds for now and on the balance, returns have matched VFIAX (some a few points above, some slightly less, the variances seems to depend heavily on how big NVDA became in their weights).

I was unclear but I was referring to our primary brokerage account, not retirement accounts, nor other investments generating returns, so the exposure is closer to 25% of public market based investments overall. I'd consider moving more over but won't due to taxes. New money, though gets added there. I haven't rebalanced any of our 401k/IRA accounts, those are vanilla vanguard funds.

The reason we are rebalancing are: the returns are there and since my spouse runs an ESG consulting practice and we see first hand the benefits companies and investors get from implementing these practices, we should act in alignment with that. I'd like to do more as I'd rather certain companies were not on my books because my standards differ in a few areas but won't yet for the aforementioned reasons.

I guess technically I FIRE'd in 2024, though since my spouse returned to consulting two years ago and plans continuing for a bit, it isn't a full leap yet. We won't need to touch those funds another 8-10 years or so depending on other investments. So unless I go crazy and open a restaurant, invest in tulips, or decide yatchts are good idea, we should be good. The more worrying range of potential factors are macro to us.

 

[timezon3]

2024 Recap:

• Hit our estimated FI number partway through the year. No immediate plans to retire, though.
• Given that we hit the target number and that I'm expecting volatility over the next few years, due to, ahem, reasons, (I am expecting inflation if he who shall not be named does everything he says he's going to) we are slowing down on putting more cash into stock / bond funds.
• Instead, we've started accumulating a small cash position. I figure if markets are steady / up, I won't mind that I had some cash, given I already think we have enough. If markets are down, I'll be glad I had a little extra cash.
• I've also started exercising some of my ISOs. I'm aiming to put enough into this that if there is ever an IPO / liquidity event, we should make out pretty well, but not so much that if that never happens, I'll be too disappointed about that money evaporating. I'm currently thinking to get to around $50k or so (currently around $20k invested).

2025 Goals:

• Stay employed in some way or another. My job has been a grind lately, mostly due to layoffs in 2023 followed by attrition in 2024, leaving me being the sole owner of some stuff (that I had no clue about prior to said layoffs / attrition). It has been a rough learning curve, made worse by the fact that this stuff wasn't designed all the well from the get-go, and some of our customers are figuring shit out before we notice it, which puts me in an uncomfortable place. That said, there are definite things I like a lot about my current employment. (technology, people, wfh)
• I did talk to a former coworker last week about some positions that may be opening up in the next couple of months with the company he's working for. I said if they get to the point of actual openings, I'd listen and give it a thought.
• Keep adding to cash position.
• Continue exercising ISOs.
• May "need" a new roof this year, have cash set aside for this already. Just hope materials / labor prices don't spike too much too fast. "Need" is in quotes because the roof is fine, the question is more whether or not we'll be able to obtain insurance on a 15 year old roof in Florida.

 

[poochyena]

Whoa, I mean, I have had a single investment do exceptionally well (Anglo American at one point for me was a 20x but sadly became only a 10x and has done nothing in a long while) but a WHOLE portfolio going up 88%, uh, I'd do backflips down the hall for that in a decade let alone a year! My next best single name is like 60% return in 6 years or so; probably 100% with dividends...but in 6 years, not 1!

yep
I had shares in 5 companies (4 currently, sold msft back in June) and some bonds/CDs, so its not just one company I bet everything on and got lucky (though, Nvidia is clearly pulling the most weight).
According to my swab account, I had a cumulative rate of return of 923.93% from Dec 31, 2016 to Jan 4, 2025. (Annualized: 33.68%).

 

[Arbelac]

2025: House is listed. If/when it sells, fill RRSP and TFSA accounts for both myself and wife, and purchase a new home within the remaining money. We should still have money leftover after that, if everything goes to plan.

Otherwise, it stays on track; stay employed, pay off the last bit of the car loan with my bonus in Feb, and then continue as usual with regular contributions. Everything else is really in limbo until the house sells; although if it doesn't sell by spring, I'll likely have to do some renovations regardless.

 

[JasterMereel]

2024:

• Continue to max out 401(k), Roth IRA, and HSA contributions.
• Pay down the solar loan as fast as possible since it is at 9.59%.
• Possibly pay off my last student loan.
• Continue to be good about spending discipline and continue to put money towards savings and/or debt.

I actually accomplished all of these. The solar loan was paid off around April, and then I focused on my last student loan. That was paid off in December.

2025:

• The biggest thing is my job. My job situation is up in the air and I may not have a job after February. I am revising my resume this week and I expect to start applying to jobs this week. Every other goal is dependent on this.
• Continue to max out 401(k), Roth IRA, and HSA contributions. My Roth IRA is already done.
• Take the proceeds from the sale of the rental house and put the remaining money into VTI in a taxable brokerage account.
• Focus my debt pay down strategy on a HELOC that I have.
• Have some medical procedures done.

With a potential job loss, I have 5 months of expenses saved. I have easy access to 2 more months of expenses. Then, I have the taxable brokerage account if it comes to that. If it happens, I'll be fine, but I would much rather find a new job on my own timeline compared to being forced to. If I can secure a new job, everything else falls in line after that.

EDIT: My net worth now has 2 commas in it, and between contributions and market gains, my retirement fund increased by 27%.

 

[Colm]

2024 Goal
Barring some uncertainty I'll likely redo the floors top to bottom in my condo this year and buy a new couch. Everything else is in fine condition.
Other than that, stay the course. Single income no kids, making about $83000 as research faculty in biomedical sciences.
Find a notary to notarize my will and directive, then scan a copy to all the friends whose kids are beneficiaries.

Well I did redo the floors and buy a couch. The bank of mom and dad kicked in a bit on those.

Got a raise a few bucks above the contract stipulation since it was a 'merit' cycle. Everything else was normal.

My eFund looks like shit right now because it mostly went to keeping a friend and her kid solvent, never lend money to friends you have to get back, so if I do that'll be a nice bonus.

Need to badger the HOA for financial statements and a plan for renovations. Internally my place is fine, hopefully the appliances hold out.

This year the plan is to hope Trump doesn't fuck everything up to much because the grant I am funded off runs out in February 2026 and if that happens I'm out of a job. Whee. My boss has 3 applications in to replace it and I can sell effort around the department as a bridge, but I'd rather not.

 

[Kilkenny]

2024 Recap:

• While financially positive, the year has been a grind for me. I mentioned in the Misc thread a while back that I was feeling burnout. The rest of my team was let go the prior year & it was catching up (plus personal stuff).
• Won back part time WFH, which had been eliminated 2 years earlier.
• RRSP & TFSA maxed again. I've been able to do this pretty much my whole career, which let me build a decent net worth despite never having had a huge salary
• Net worth (incl. home) at end of 2024 was ~30% higher from end of 2023
• The dollar amount that represents is multiples of my gross pay. Am I achieving escape velocity?

2025 Look ahead:

• Already started taking some concrete actions to address my burnout. My doctor has highlighted some things for me & made suggestions that I'm taking. Details would be Lounge material though.
• Stay on target with RRSP & TFSA.
• Will be 55 in 2026. I guess I'll be running FIRE scenarios more frequently this year.
• Not feeling super confident about economic outlooks right now, so probably won't retire that early.
• Still haven't redone my will. Really need to do that.
• Will take my first real vacation since 2019 this year. Flights are booked and everything.

 

[FinallyAnAccount]

2024 Recap:

• While financially positive, the year has been a grind for me. I mentioned in the Misc thread a while back that I was feeling burnout. The rest of my team was let go the prior year & it was catching up (plus personal stuff).
• Won back part time WFH, which had been eliminated 2 years earlier.
• RRSP & TFSA maxed again. I've been able to do this pretty much my whole career, which let me build a decent net worth despite never having had a huge salary
• Net worth (incl. home) at end of 2024 was ~30% higher from end of 2023
• The dollar amount that represents is multiples of my gross pay. Am I achieving escape velocity?

2025 Look ahead:

• Already started taking some concrete actions to address my burnout. My doctor has highlighted some things for me & made suggestions that I'm taking. Details would be Lounge material though.
• Stay on target with RRSP & TFSA.
• Will be 55 in 2026. I guess I'll be running FIRE scenarios more frequently this year.
• Not feeling super confident about economic outlooks right now, so probably won't retire that early.
• Still haven't redone my will. Really need to do that.
• Will take my first real vacation since 2019 this year. Flights are booked and everything.

Hah all of the financials seem mirror mine. Especially "decent net worth despite never having had a huge salary" and "running FIRE scenarios more frequently". (Also Canada)

 

[hanser]

2024 Recap:

• The dollar amount that represents is multiples of my gross pay. Am I achieving escape velocity?

Serious answer: if it's all in retirement accounts, not really. Withdrawals before 59.5 (in the US) have a 10% tax penalty, which means it's taxed as ordinary income PLUS an additional 10%. Roth IRAs also have penalties, even though the money was taxed already.

Sort of a side note: from the government's perspective, people need to work. People working or not is not necessarily a financial question, but a demographic one. The government needs people to work otherwise things grind to a halt. It's one of the reasons that countries without much effective immigration (China, e.g.) + a shrinking population are going to have a really bad time in 10-20 years: a very large, old population with not enough people to care for them, or do all the things that need doing to sustain the bare necessities: food, water, shelter, electricity, etc. All of that gets strained and creates civil unrest.

 

[Kilkenny]

Serious answer: if it's all in retirement accounts, not really. Withdrawals before 59.5 (in the US) have a 10% tax penalty, which means it's taxed as ordinary income PLUS an additional 10%. Roth IRAs also have penalties, even though the money was taxed already.

About 1/3 of my assets (excluding my home) is in retirement accounts, the rest in non-registered accounts. I'm in Canada, so the two registered vehicles that apply to me* are the RRSP (tax deferred) and TFSA (after tax - gains & withdrawals are tax free). My RRSP/TFSA ratio is currently roughly 70/30 (the RRSP is much older).

* there is also the RESP which is a registered education savings plan to save for the beneficiary's education, and the FHSA which is a registered account to save for a first-time home buyer.

 

[FinallyAnAccount]

About 1/3 of my assets (excluding my home) is in retirement accounts, the rest in non-registered accounts. I'm in Canada, so the two registered vehicles that apply to me* are the RRSP (tax deferred) and TFSA (after tax - gains & withdrawals are tax free). My RRSP/TFSA ratio is currently roughly 70/30 (the RRSP is much older).

* there is also the RESP which is a registered education savings plan to save for the beneficiary's education, and the FHSA which is a registered account to save for a first-time home buyer.

Also, in Canada, we don't get penalized for accessing RRSP/TFSA early, unlike the IRA/Roth equivalents in the USA.

RRSP withdrawals are taxed as regular income, and you lose the contribution room, but that's it. For TFSA, there's basically no downside at all - you get back the contribution room in the next calendar year.

It makes it tempting for me to retire early, defer my pension, and withdraw the 'lowest' tax bracket from my RRSP for 10 years or whatever tax free.

 

[Arbelac]

Also, in Canada, we don't get penalized for accessing RRSP/TFSA early, unlike the IRA/Roth equivalents in the USA.

RRSP withdrawals are taxed as regular income, and you lose the contribution room, but that's it. For TFSA, there's basically no downside at all - you get back the contribution room in the next calendar year.

It makes it tempting for me to retire early, defer my pension, and withdraw the 'lowest' tax bracket from my RRSP for 10 years or whatever tax free.

That's absolutely a strategy that is used these days. Retire at age X; live off RRSP/TFSA withdrawals to stay in the lowest tax bracket, then pull from CPP at 70+ for extra gains there.

 

[pasorrijer]

2024 Goals:
Work / Financial

• Keep maxing out the accounts, and be better about keeping an eye on the wife's investment accounts. Will likely take them back from the financial advisor, as they have proven to be useless. Also going to experiment with XGRO, and see how it compares to my TD e-Series portfolio that I've been using for years.

This was successful, with the caveat that the wife's family switched advisors to someone who is much more competent. We still run separate strategies, but that's mostly for diversification at this point, both are returning well. Still waiting to see how XGRO compares to TD, but the Big Bank is pissing me off so I foresee a change to all Questrade in the future.

Bonus was decent, but salaries were flat. A bit disappointing, and unfortunately doesn't help the budget.

However, we also ended up buying a house, with a decent sized mortgage, at the end of the year, in an extremely HCOL area, so I suspect maxing out accounts is about to get a lot harder.

• On the work side, now that I'm somewhat stable in my role, time to excel and show that I'm the one they need to lead the business unit. Ideally, without too much travel since the kid is at home

I was semi-successful here. We merged with a significantly larger company, which was the second merger in two years for this particular business unit. Change is hard and it was an extremely difficult year as a leader. Long term, I think this gives me a ton of upward potential, but short term there are now a significant amount of politics that I now need to learn.

The remaining work was challenging, and travel was still a decent amount. Did not manage to sell anything last year, but I'm also trying to sell software without any software sales infrastructure. Will likely have more to say on this in 2025...

Personal

• With my wife on Parental Leave, and with me taking another 14 weeks of paid parental leave in the fall, hoping to travel significantly. Whether sailing Lake Ontario, staying on the in-laws boat in the Caribbean, the goal will be for this kid to have more stamps in her passport by the age of 1 than I did by the age of 20.

This was entirely successful. Kid hit 12 flights for their first year, we spent a significant amount of parental leave travelling and taking the time off was the best decision I've ever made.

• Finish my pilot's license, get my night permit, and get started on my instrument rating. Wife says I can buy a plane when I hit $1m in annual income, so start thinking about how to make that happen to

Did not finish this. I'm right at the finish line, but I'm a bit disillusioned about this as a hobby.... so for now, goal is to get across the finish line, pause and re-evaluate. Part of the problem is that this hobby is extremely time and money consuming, and to be honest I just don't care as much now that we've got the kid. I debated just walking away, but I'm so close that I think i can get done by end of February, it's worth the shot.

It's amazing how much things change in a year.

For 2025 Goals:
Work / Financial

• I'm 4 days back to work, and already have been assigned my old project, a very interesting external project, and probably the most challenging leadership task I'll have to execute thus far (and something many people may go their entire career without having to do). I'm looking forward to it, and hoping I can execute it successfully. If so, my goal for this year is to target a promotion by EOY.
• For financial, goal is to maintain some level of contributions to registered accounts. Doesn't have to be maxed, but find that balance while learning how to juggle the costs of a mortgage and daycare
• We're also hoping to do some home renovations on the new place. We need to do the primary bedroom, family room / rear exit, and kitchen/dining room. Hoping to get the primary bedroom and family room, but the rest will depend on budgets
• Assisting a family member with a start-up on the side, along with my wife. Hopefully this goes well and contributes to paying to the renovations above!

Personal

• Work my butt off at properly disconnecting and finding that work life balance. With a kid at home, it's more important than ever and I think I can do it, but my field is historically not great at work life balance.
• Finish my pilots license (again, for real this time).
• Better balance fitness into everything. I've found daily exercise is a significant contributor to my mental health... it's just so hard to make happen. Make the effort!

 

[keltorak]

2024 should be simpler:

• Max RESPs to pay for the kids‘ eventual uni.
• Throw everything else at the mortgage up to the maximum yearly prepayment. We want it gone by Nov 2025.
• Start planning and saving to replace our 14 year old car, hope that it outlasts our mortgage.

Incredibly boring, but we met all our goals. As of today, there's $17k left on the mortgage, we'll keep prepaying until we can coast with normal payments until November, to avoid any penalties.

For 2025:

• Keep maxing RESP for the kid's uni, second to last year until we no longer get the bonus for the eldest.
• Finish the mortgage by November 2025, and consider whether a HELOC makes sense to protect the title.
• The car keeps holding, I won't complain if that keeps being true.
• Between a salary increase and retro payments, my pay will be ~$20-30k higher this year, so throwing a big chunk in the RESP to lower taxes paid is also in the cards.

My director hinted the higher ups are on board for creating a unicorn special advisor job for me, paid at a manager level, but without needing to manage staff, so work my ass off to qualify in the pool to make their job pulling that off easier? And, if that doesn't work out, consider, again, whether I even want to be a manager.

 

[FinallyAnAccount]

This was successful, with the caveat that the wife's family switched advisors to someone who is much more competent. We still run separate strategies, but that's mostly for diversification at this point, both are returning well. Still waiting to see how XGRO compares to TD, but the Big Bank is pissing me off so I foresee a change to all Questrade in the future.

I'm a Canadian Couch Potato migrator from TDDI e-series to Questrade years ago and it's only been positive. I did have problems getting a final statement from TD, though - close your investment account first and your bank accounts last. There's really no downside to going from multiple e-series funds to the single asset allocation fund (though I chose VEQT). Differences are likely to only be in your country percentages, if they aren't already cap weighted. (I roughly reduced home country bias a bit by using VUN/US whole market in my registered accounts.)

That being said, WealthSimple didn't exist at the time and when it's time to start selling, I will probably migrate since selling is free there too.

 

[pasorrijer]

I did have problems getting a final statement from TD, though - close your investment account first and your bank accounts last.

Yeah, we do all our banking, mortgage, etc, so I don't foresee completely ending the banking, just the investment piece.

 

[Arbelac]

Yeah, we do all our banking, mortgage, etc, so I don't foresee completely ending the banking, just the investment piece.

I keep a bank investment account for two reasons (at CIBC right now); investments sitting there get me free premium banking, and Wealthsimple doesn't do any fixed income products (like GICs). It's worth it for me in that case, although all my "active" (read weekly purchases of index ETFs) trading is on WS.

Buying GICs doesn't have a commission fee, so I'm not paying anything, and a yearly purchase of dividends from the ETFs held to hit the free banking threshold I'll eat the trading fee once a year.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Spoiler: 2024 Goals

2024 Goals
eFund -- I'm only a few thousand away from a 6mo buffer. Will get there in Q1.
Home -- stop. spending. money. After a patio, a bathroom, residing the exterior, a structural repair, and a bunch of painting I'm ready to pump the brakes on the house expenses. This is my last year of tuition for a while so will use some bonus $ to fund some future repairs.
Retirement -- max 401k, keep deferred comp the same, max IRA contribution.
529s -- a big priority for 2024. I have ~5 yrs left until the first one goes and I'm feeling behind.
Fun -- National Lampoon's European vacation. I want to take the family to the UK, IRE, ESP, or something. Somewhere with a direct flight

Results:
eFund - done. 6 months of expenses in the bank. First time ever!
Home - did not stop spending money :-D. Did 2 more bathrooms. Now we can stop (probably).
Retirement - maxed 401k, IRA, and did around 1/2 of the mega-backdoor
529s - decent progress, not amazing.
Fun - didn't go overseas but did an amazing 11 day vacation in the US.

I track our 6mo moving average of net worth as our key metric. This # went up by just under 44%, largely driven by 1) overall stock market returns and 2) company stock returns. Our lifetime chart is starting to look more exponential and less linear.

2025 Goals

1. Continue to prioritize retirement. I'm ready to be done :-D. Goal is to max: 401k, backdoor roth, megabackdoor roth, and HSA. Plus plan for additional in taxable savings. Due to RSU timing / grant price I will have a bigger income in 2025 than I did in 2024 or will likely have in 2026. Being diligent over the next few years will take years off my working life. I think I'm at CoastFIRE now, so contributions move the last day of work sooner.
2. Maintain an adequate cash buffer. I have 2 cars that are getting up there, home repairs that I know are coming, etc.
3. Invest in real estate. I don't have any interest in being a landlord, but I am researching LP syndications. I'd like to move ~5% of my liquid NW into real estate over the next year or so. I've been loving the liquidity of non-qualified accounts, so I don't want to tie up a large percentage.
4. Optimize tax planning. Right now, beyond the basics, this means doing most of my charitable giving to donating appreciated securities. Then rebuy to reset the cost basis and potentially setup for loss harvesting in the future. I'm also ignoring ESPP purchases for enough time for the gains to go from short-term to long term gains.

 

[NervousEnergy]

2024 was a pretty good year for returns, even though we're stuck in a relatively high-interest mortgage since mid 2023. Still have 200K in student debt (wife's med school), but $1.3MM in 401K and $300K home equity. No real consumer debt.

Going to be a very, very strange and tumultuous year, though. Tomorrow, for the first time since 1992, I'm going to be unemployed. Company hit massive upheaval when a huge bet on an acquisition 2 years ago isn't turning out well due to softening demand and much higher interest rates. The upside is that with 24 years at that company I get 52 weeks of full-pay severance, so I'm great till Feb 1 2026. The timing is awkward since I'm nearing 58 - if this had happened 3 years from now I'd be laughing all the way to retirement. As it is I'd like to work another 4-5 years before bailing. If I can replace most of that income ($180K/yr in IT management / forensics / GRC) sometime in the next 6 months I'll pull double salary till the severance runs out and can really nail the student loan and increased 401K - I'd like to hit at least $1.5MM in net worth before pulling the plug and running for Europe.

The burnout for the last few years is really, really bad though. Implementing NIST and ISO 27K controls is not a particularly fulfilling thing to do with your time, even if it pays really well. It's so tempting to spend all morning drinking coffee in a bathrobe, play games, and read Ars for the next 2-3 months. That's a real momentum killer, though.

 

[Colm]

This year the plan is to hope Trump doesn't fuck everything up to much because the grant I am funded off runs out in February 2026 and if that happens I'm out of a job. Whee. My boss has 3 applications in to replace it and I can sell effort around the department as a bridge, but I'd rather not.

You stupid stupid moron.

 

[sakete]

2024 Original:

Spoiler

• Kick-ass in this new job and get my career back on track
• Spend less on frivolous stuff and more on experiences
• Continue traveling
• Kid will be out of daycare end of summer! That'll free up a ton of cashflow
• Get a new car, maybe a luxury car with a reasonably powerful engine. Probably not an EV yet, maybe a PHEV, most likely just an ICE or MHEV
• Probably start an MBA program in the fall (fully online and cheap but from a normal university)
• Start spinning my wheels on how to get into property ownership and start the process of diversifying assets away from the stockmarket
• Continue staying in shape and focus on a better overall diet (i.e. less junk food). Want to drastically cut my sugar intake and keep my body fat % in check
• Maybe get back into running

2024 Actual:

• Got separated, so that derailed my whole year.
• Moved into a new house by myself, had to buy a ton of stuff. Shit's expensive.
• All financial goals put on hold, just in maintenance mode currently
• Did not kick-ass in job, more just figuring out my personal life
• The same boss that hired me in my current job, who was my boss in my previous job, got pushed out, again. Lol. Not gonna work for him ever again I don't think, he's bad luck.
• Did start my MBA program! Going well so far.
• Stayed in shape, sort of, but more in maintenance mode, not really building
• Did not get back into running
• Been learning new things about myself throughout this whole separation experience
• Current company not doing well towards end of year, layoffs looming
• Did not buy a new car. Came close, but then my rational mind took over, thankfully. Tempted to just drive my Rav4 forever until it dies.

2025:

• See if divorce will happen this year or not. We're stuck in limbo to see if we can work things out.
• Probably will need to find another job soon, as layoffs are looming at my current company. I especially now can't afford to be unemployed. Casually applying to jobs, not much success yet (still a shitty job market for white collar jobs)
• Will focus more on experiences this year, which will probably mainly manifest in travel
• Going to start playing the credit card game to maximize rewards. Not churning, just having a few good cards to maximize points and such.
• Start contributing to savings and investments again. 2024 was a bad year.
• Focus on therapy and becoming a better version of myself.