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The 2020 Year-End Review and New Year Goals

Another year flew by, and I am glad it is almost behind us. 2020 was a difficult year for most of us and the whole world.

As the new year approaches, I like to look back at all things that happened in the last year. I get to see what I did, and what I did not do. I like to take count of the goals I accomplished. And If I failed to follow through on all my goals, I know I have another chance to make them happen in the new year.

I am not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions, but since starting the blog, I like to reflect on my previous year and see what I would like to accomplish next.

So, I am happy to present my 2020 year-end in review.

My 2020 Year in Review:

Financial goals review:

1. Credit cards and banking

I want us to be debt-free as we are getting closer to retirement. In the past few years, Roman and I have accumulated $5,400 in medical debt. We transferred this money to 2 credit cards with 0 percent interest and finished paying off our debt in September. With this strategy, we would not dip into our savings.

We funnel all our regular purchases onto a couple of different rewards credit cards to earn points on our everyday spending.

Our go-to card is a PayPal credit card with 2 percent cash back on everything. Our secondary card is the American Express Blue credit card which we use at supermarkets with 3 percent cash back.

However, we also opened the Citi Dividend Platinum to take advantage of the 3-month promotion that gave 5 percent cash back at supermarkets.

Finally, we use the Bank of America credit card to pay for gas with 3 percent cash back. All these credit cards require no membership fee.

We have a combined no-fee checking account at Winchester Savings Bank which we use for bill payments, our mortgage, and money transfers.

We have 3 savings accounts. One savings account is a combined account at Winchester Savings Bank. The interest rate is very low, so we do not stash our savings there.

Capital One 360 is our primary savings account, which has no monthly fees and offers decent returns. We use the American Express High Yield Savings account for our emergency and travel funds.

2. Retirement accounts

I have several retirement accounts – 401(k), Roth 401(k), IRA, and Roth IRA. Each month I contribute roughly 12 percent of my salary to 401(k) and Roth 401(k), and my employer matches 3 percent. My strategy is to increase the contributions by 1 percent each year.

Unfortunately, that did not happen in 2020 because it was a difficult year and I was concerned about keeping my job, as we all saw so many people around us losing their employment. Luckily, my company managed through this year and worked hard to keep everyone employed. They even distributed bonuses to reward people for their efforts throughout the difficult year.

When COVID-19 entered our lives and the stock market fell drastically, I had a few sleepless nights as all our retirement and investment portfolios plummeted. We lost roughly 10 percent of our investments.

Luckily, it was a short-lived market downturn, and in April we already saw positive signs of market recovery. We are actually now in a better spot than before. Even though we lost a lot of money at the beginning of 2020, we gained it back through the year. Overall, our retirement and investment portfolios 2020 return was 9 percent.

I was planning to add $3,500 to my Roth IRA account in April, but again it did not happen because of the ‘gloom and doom’ news around us.

Related Posts:

3. Emergency fund and other savings

We were able to increase our savings despite all the chaos and uncertainty we experienced in the first half of 2020. It was easy to cut unnecessary expenses and find more ways to save money with both of us working from home since the middle of March.

Working from home helped us to save a lot of money on gas, parking, lunches, business clothes, dining out, etc. I am happy to report that we managed to meet our goal and increased our emergency fund up to $30,000. From now on, we want to use this money only for emergencies.

In 2019, we opened a separate savings account and called it “travel”. Roman and I like to travel and often pay for our travels with emergency fund money. I wanted that practice to stop and find other ways to pay for our travels.

In 2020, we made some adjustments to our budget and were able to save $3,000 in our “travel” fund.

4. Home mortgage

We bought our house in 2002 and did various big and small renovation projects that increased the value of our house. Right now, we are trying to stay away from any additional upgrades or renovations and just focus on paying off the mortgage.

In 2020, we brought our mortgage balance down from $241,000 to $230,000.

Blogging goals review:

2020 was a year when I challenged myself and pushed harder to improve my blogging skills.

I did not know about all the additional work that would be required when I launched the Save, Invest & Retire Blog in 2019. The blogosphere changed so dramatically over the years. According to the stats, there are 500 million blogs in the world today. That is a lot of competition to deal with for a new blogger.

In 2020, I became more knowledgeable about the blogging world and set up new goals for blog content, email marketing, traffic building, and a social media strategy to grow Save, Invest & Retire.

Not everything worked out the way I wanted it but setting up the goals and working towards them helped me to stay motivated.

Travel goals review:

2020 started well enough with plans to travel to Greece in May and Lithuania in September. But then… well everyone’s life changed.

We had to cancel both of our trips. We were lucky to get refunds on both of our trips, including Lufthansa airline tickets, hotels, and a full refund on the canceled Greek Islands cruise.

Related Post: My 2019 in Review

Final Thoughts on My Year-End Goals

Reviewing my 2020 goals was a painful exercise. I did achieve a good portion of my goals but not all of them. I think it is important to remind ourselves that missing a few goals is perfectly human and there is always the opportunity to try harder in the following year.

I will continue to try my best and improve on my successes from 2020 in 2021.

My New Year 2021 Goals:

top of mountains - new year financial goals

While 2020 was full of unexpected challenges, I am grateful I can still focus on my 2021 goals. First time I published my goals on this blog was in 2019.

I believe that sharing my goals on the blog is a great way to hold myself accountable. It helps me stay the course when life unavoidably gets in the way.

Financial goals:

1. Contribute to retirement accounts

In 2021, we will continue investing in our retirement savings.

I will continue contributing to my traditional 401(k) and after-tax Roth 401(k) so I will have another $15,000 stashed in my retirement accounts. Right now, I am saving 23 percent of my salary for retirement.

The ultimate goal is to max it out to $26,000. Unfortunately, this may be a difficult goal to reach in the upcoming year, but I will keep it as a goal to keep myself motivated.

The 2021 combined contribution limit for traditional IRA and after-tax Roth IRA is $7,000 for individuals age 50 and older. We plan to contribute $3,500 each to our Roth IRA accounts.

2. Increase savings

We have increased our savings significantly in 2020. We paid off our daughter’s student loan (2018), a car loan (2017), last construction loan (2015), and medical debt (2020).

Currently, we have no desire to buy a new vehicle, renovate our home, or make any large purchases that would require us to take on any new debt. No new debt means we will be able to save more money in 2021.

3. Pay off debt

Unfortunately, we had to take on a new loan to replace our broken boiler. The cost of replacing an old boiler, new water heater, and required new chimney lining was $13,800. We were able to secure a 0 percent interest rate 7 years loan with the Mass Save program.

The goal is to pay off the loan in 4.5 years.

4. Continue to pay off our home mortgage

We are slowly paying off our 3.5 percent interest mortgage. Last year we were able to reduce the balance to $230,000. As we are getting closer to retirement, I want to have our home free and clear of any debt.

In 2021 we are planning to refinance our mortgage to a lower interest rate, so we can speed up the process of reducing our debt.

Blogging goals:

Content

Continue with retirement planning content for new posts.
Add a new page with content on health and wellness.
Collaborate with other bloggers for guest posts.
Keep creating and publishing new posts every 2 weeks. I need to get at least 3 new posts ahead on Save, Invest & Retire, so I will have enough time to edit and add graphics before publishing them.
Start a content calendar.

E-mail marketing

Create a landing page to promote the resource library.
Update an old opt-in and make it work with the Mailchimp platform better to collect new subscribers.

Digital product

Create a new resource library with at least 5 printables for retirement planning and retirement budget.
Start working on an e-book.

Social Media

Stay active on Pinterest and Facebook.
Use Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog.
Learn how to automate social media.

Travel goals:

Like everyone, we had a few trips planned for 2020 but had to postpone our international travels hoping it will be safer to travel in 2021.

Currently, we do not have any concrete travel plans. We hope for normal life to resume with the approval of the COVID-19 vaccines. While clinical trials show the vaccines are effective at preventing illness, it is not clear if they prevent the spread of the virus.

Final Thoughts

2021 will be another year when Roman and I will be trying to achieve all the goals we set up for ourselves. We will focus on accelerating our financial goals so it will bring us closer to the day we can retire.

What goals or changes you will be making in 2021? Share your thoughts in comments.

New Year Goals & My 2019 Year in Review

by Maggie 2 Comments

A woman standing on top of rock-achieving goals

I am still surprised how fast 2019 flew by. It seems time goes by faster with each year. The great thing about the start of a new year is that one can reflect on the goals that were laid out and the goals that were actually accomplished.

Before starting this blog, I never actually took a detailed inventory of my past years and goal setting exercise for the next. This is my first time to look at those things and see what worked and didn’t work in 2019 and set up new goals for 2020.

My 2019 Year in Review

Financial review:

1. Student loan debt

We finished paying off our daughter’s student loan. She got into Suffolk University in Boston undergraduate program in 2003. We didn’t have any money saved for her college, so we accumulated around $75,000 in student loans by the end of her graduation.

Ksenia helped us to pay down the loans when she got her first job. But, three years later, she enrolled into a 2-year master’s degree program and then a 6-year PhD program. During her eight years of being a student she could not help, and it was all our responsibility.

It took us 12 years to pay off that debt, but I am very happy to say that we did our best to pay it finally in full. Last check was sent out on December 15th, 2018.

2. Credit Card debt

Unfortunately, Roman and I had some medical procedures which came with higher than expected out of pocket medical bills. Overall, we have accumulated $5,400 in medical debt for the past two years.

We decided not to pay it off with our emergency fund money, but rather spread it out between 2 credit cards with 0 percent interest on each. With this strategy, we are not going to dip into our savings, but rather slowly pay it off by the end of 2020.

3. Retirement accounts

In the beginning of 2019, I increased the contribution to my 401(k) plan up to 15 percent. My company matches 50 cents for each dollar up to 3 percent. It’s a great benefit of essentially free money going into my pocket every month.

After meeting with a financial advisor, I decided to split my retirement plan contribution 50/50 between 401(k) and Roth 401(k). I like to know that with retirement coming closer every year we take advantage of money growing in pre-tax and after-tax funds.

In April, Roman and I also added $3,500 each to our Roth IRA accounts. It’s nice to see our after-tax money growing in both accounts with additional funds. When we retire, we can take money out of the Roth IRA without worrying about being in a higher tax bracket.

4. Emergency fund

Unfortunately, our emergency fund savings dropped to $14,000 this past year. We had some unexpected expenses and had to take money out of the emergency fund. We also used some money from this fund to pay for our Caribbean vacation.

Roman set up a separate saving account for vacations, but we didn’t have enough money saved there for the planned trip and dipped into the emergency fund money. I don’t like us depleting our emergency fund for travel expenses and need to come up with new strategies for managing our money but also not saying no to travel in the future.

5. Home mortgage

We bought our home in 2002 and did several big and small renovation projects that increased the value of our house. However, we accumulated $120,000 in construction loans. I am happy to say that we finally paid off all construction loans.

Our mortgage was refinanced several times. Right now, we are trying to stay away from any additional upgrades or renovations and just focus on paying off the mortgage. In 2019, our mortgage was reduced to $241,000.

Blogging review:

woman's hand on the table writing in journal - goals

I started blogging in 2019. My first post got published on January 17th. It was a very important moment in my life. Looking back at the last 12 months, I have to admit that I struggled managing a full-time job and regular blogging.

I never realized how much work I need to put into researching, writing and editing blog posts, searching for images, writing emails, and more.

The technical part of blogging is the hardest one. I spent hours trying to set up my website, and making it work. Creating signup forms and social media accounts, dealing with plug-ins and updates from Word Press, and more. It basically takes up all my spare time and I hardly make enough content to publish it bi-weekly.

Being a non-English speaker adds to the challenge. But I am not planning to stop blogging any time soon! I try to be better with time management. It’s getting easier with a routine and having a designated time for publishing and writing posts, and posting on my Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest accounts regularly.

Travel overview:

2019 was an exciting year in travel! In March, we traveled to the Caribbean island St. Martin for 7 days. You can read all about that trip here:

Related Post: Our Trip to St. Martin

This tropical paradise vacation cost us $5,600

In September, I had to go and see my younger sister who lives in Lithuania. I stayed with her for 3 weeks. Roman traveled with me, but first visited Belarus for 10 days and then joined me in Vilnius for the rest of a visit. We spent $4,500 on our European travels.

Overall, we stretched our finances too thin to pay for the Caribbean vacation and then travel to Europe in the same year. We paid for all our air tickets, resort and hotels far in advance, and got some price discounts. But looking at our budget, we need to do a better job saving money for our vacations.

My New Year 2020 goals:

a woman at the bottom of stairs surrounded by rocks-new year goals

Financial goals:

1. Credit Card debt

The goal is to finish paying off $5,400 of our medical debt by September 2020. I want us to be debt-free as we are getting closer to our retirement. It’s hard to predict the unknown, but I don’t want us to accumulate any additional medical debt. We need to try to budget any future medical expenses by maxing out our healthcare flexible spending account (FSA).

The FSA is a pre-tax benefit account offered by my employer each year. We use this pre-tax money to pay for our medical or dental expenses that are not covered by our health plan insurance. In 2020 I will sign up for $2,600 in my FSA.

2. Retirement accounts

The goal is to increase contributions to our 401(k) plans. I try to bump it up at least by 1 percent every year. When I get a bonus or salary raise it goes straight to my 401(k) plan. That way you don’t notice the change with your take-home paycheck. I wish we could max-out our yearly contributions to $24,000 each. Unfortunately, I don’t see it happening next year.

Another goal is to put an additional $3,500 each to our Roth IRA accounts in April.

3. Emergency fund and savings

Our emergency fund savings need to be increased. The goal is to have minimum of $30,000 saved in that fund for emergencies.

We opened a separate savings account and called it “travel”. But so far, we have only managed to save $100 per month, which is not enough for our travel expenses. If we want to continue our travels and don’t pay for them out of emergency fund, we need to make some adjustment to our budget. The goal is to find ways to save more money in our “travel” fund.

4. Home mortgage and other bills

The 2020 goal is to continue paying off our mortgage and bring the balance down to under $230,000.

Every year we try to spend less on our groceries, transportation and other bills. Recently Roman and I started carpooling. Using only one car significantly reduced our transportation expenses including gas bill. I want us to keep doing it. It saves us a lot of money.

The same applies to our groceries. We have tendency to shop at local Wilson Farm and Whole Food supermarket. The cost of shopping there is high. But I like to buy fresh and good quality ingredients, so I can cook home-made meals all the time. We save a lot of money on eating-in and not buying our lunches.

Two ways to reduce our grocery bill even further, without sacrificing quality, would be to buy less meat or expensive fish and buy more seasonal.

Blogging goals:

When I launched the Save, Invest & Retire Blog in 2019, I didn’t realize that the blogosphere changed so dramatically over the years. According to the stats there are 500 million blogs in the world today. That’s a lot of competition to deal with for a new blogger.

But 2020 is going to be a year where I challenge myself and push myself harder to improve my blogging skills.

Blog content goals

Longer blog posts take more time to create, but they produce more results and favored by Google. I want to commit to creating posts with longer content up to 2000 words.
Keep creating and publishing new posts every 2 weeks. I need to get at least 3 new posts ahead on Save, Invest & Retire, so I will have enough time to edit and add graphic before publishing them.
Make more research on popular topics using SEO keywords.

Goals for list building

Start working on e-mail list
Learn more about e-mail marketing and come up with my own strategy

Goals for traffic building

Focus on growing Save, Invest & Retire blog traffic. By the end of 2020 I want to have 50,000 pageviews.
Stay active on social media. Come up with a detailed strategy how to grow blog traffic using Pinterest and Facebook accounts.

Since I started the blog, I have learned so much on all fronts and need to keep doing it.

Travel goals:

image of Santorini island with houses on slope of mountain

Roman and I talk a lot about traveling. We like to travel and dream about being full-time travelers. So far, we don’t have enough money to fulfill our dream.

In 2020 we are planning to go to Greece. We have already booked a 7-day cruise around the Greek islands in May. Celestyal Cruises is a small cruise ship line, so the price is relatively cheap to compare with mega cruise ships.

Our plan is to fly to Athens, stay there for a few days at a hotel, then hope on the cruise. The cruise is all-inclusive, which means we don’t need to buy an alcohol package or spend extra money on excursions.

I always wanted to go to Greece. I hope it will be an interesting voyage with the different atmosphere of a smaller ship. We already pre-paid for the cruise, booked a hotel in Athens, and bought air tickets. We budgeted $7,500 for everything.

What are your life, work, and travel plans for 2020?