2019 Recap

I’m not sure about your 2019, but frankly I’m quite glad to see it in my rear view mir­ror. It was a year full of adap­tion and change. All the changes I made in 2019 made it rather dif­fi­cult to actu­al­ly make progress on any one thing. I feel blessed I was able to tread water and not lose any ground. I lived at 4 dif­fer­ent address­es and start­ed 3 dif­fer­ent jobs. Each one of them made sense in iso­la­tion, but strung togeth­er turned out to be com­plete­ly over­whelm­ing and prob­a­bly not a good idea. Hind­sight is 2020, eh? (I promise that’s the only joke I’ll make about the year and vision!)

January

The dawn of the year found me liv­ing with a won­der­ful fam­i­ly in North­ern Vir­ginia with a new job. I paid off lin­ger­ing debts from my 9 month stint of self-employ­ment in 2018, start­ed to refill my sav­ing accounts and make some pur­chas­es I had been putting off in the name of fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty. I pub­lished 3 posts in January:

• The Year of Focus: I lay out my goals for 2019. Look­ing back, I did pret­ty good on them! But that is a full post in and of itself.
• Beware of the Com­pare: A reminder that is hope­ful­ly use­ful for every­one. Only com­pare your­self to the you of yes­ter­day and not a sin­gle per­son more. I should read that post every year!
• The Priv­i­lege of Self-Employ­ment: I looked back on my self-employ­ment stint in 2018 and detailed the var­i­ous lev­els of priv­i­lege I have that let me bounce back from lit­tle to no income for an extend­ed peri­od of time easily.

I also had a guest post on my friend Finan­cial Mechan­ic’s blog! I did a spend­ing diary for a week and got a lot of great feedback!

I enjoyed sev­er­al social out­ings in Jan­u­ary. The Fin­Con team came to DC and had a meet­up which was fun to attend. I went on a hike to Cun­ning­ham State Park with friends and suc­cess­ful­ly avoid­ed an ear­ly death on the ice cov­ered paths.

February

Being a short month, Feb­ru­ary flew by. I spent most of the month wrapped up in the inter­view process for Very Big Tech Com­pa­ny in the Bay Area which cul­mi­nat­ed in an on-site inter­view at the end of the month. While I did­n’t get the job (a fact I’m very grate­ful for now, giv­en what I know), I did get valu­able inter­view expe­ri­ence and a free trip to San Fran­cis­co. I got to meet a few fol­low­ers while there and spent some time hang­ing out with my friend Michelle as we hap­pened to coin­ci­den­tal­ly be in the same town at the same time while she was on her US tour. I pub­lished 3 posts in February:

• Month­ly Sta­tus Report: Jan­u­ary 2019: Exact­ly what it sounds like- my month in more detail. A look at my bud­get and all the mon­ey that came and went in the month. It sure was nice to have income again!!
• Always Be Inter­view­ing: I fea­tured a guest post from my friend Mr. Waf­fles on Wednes­day on why you should keep your inter­view­ing skills sharp. Iron­i­cal­ly, he is no longer work­ing and I used those inter­view­ing skills to get 2 more jobs in 2019. Fun­ny how things work out!
• Affin­i­ty Fraud in the FI Com­mu­ni­ty: While the vast major­i­ty of the FI com­mu­ni­ty are won­der­ful peo­ple who just want to help oth­ers, there are a few unsa­vory char­ac­ters that have appeared to feed off the com­mu­ni­ty. Stay alert, my friends.

March

March marked a quick trip home to Chica­go to vis­it friends and grab my stuff for the first move of the year. I moved out of the base­ment and into an apart­ment in DC with my friend Erin from Reach­ing for FI. I got to see my first MLS game ever, so now I just need to see an NBA game and I’ll have seen every kind of pro­fes­sion­al sports event in per­son. (I’m not count­ing things like UFC fight­ing, btw). I start­ed bik­ing to work more days than not, and took a trip with my room­mate to hike in Shenan­doah Nation­al Park. The cher­ry blos­soms start­ed to bloom, mak­ing my com­mute to work even more amaz­ing (and slight­ly haz­ardous with all the tourists milling about. I wrote 2 posts in March:

• Month­ly Sta­tus Report Feb­ru­ary 2019: drum­roll please A post in which I cov­ered my finances for the month of Feb­ru­ary. Nev­er would’ve guessed, eh?
• A Mov­ing Expe­ri­ence: A post all about mov­ing my stuff from the Mid­west to DC. It fea­tures mov­ing truck pic­tures and fun details.

April

Is there any­thing bet­ter than spring in DC? Turns out that answer is an emphat­ic YES as I dis­cov­ered the mis­ery of sea­son­al aller­gies. The explo­sion of flow­ers every­where was absolute­ly gor­geous, though! A few friends came to vis­it in April, so it was fun to play host and pre­tend like I knew what I was talk­ing about as a “local”. I flew to Col­orado to see friends for the pre­mière of the doc­u­men­tary Play­ing with FIRE. I had an absolute blast hang­ing out with every­one and explor­ing the “FIRE Mec­ca” of Long­mont, Col­orado. My friend Own­ing the Stars and I went to see Avengers: Endgame on open­ing night and it was sim­ply incred­i­ble. I may or may not have watched it about a dozen more times since April.… (it’s that good!) The end of April/beginning of May saw me attend 3 games at Nation­als Sta­di­um as the Car­di­nals swept the Nats. This was right before the Nats became crazy good and made it to the post­sea­son, btw. I pub­lished 3 posts in April:

• Month­ly Sta­tus Report March 2019: Yep. You guessed it.
• Sur­prise! A Career Change: I got near­ly every­one with this April Fool’s Post. It was an entire­ly plau­si­ble sce­nario, but I’ve nev­er been more hap­py to be out of the mil­i­tary giv­en the clus­ter in the Mid­dle East.
• Adjust­ing to Big City Life: This post detailed all the ways I was strug­gling to adapt to live in the DMV area. These things got a lit­tle bet­ter when I moved back to North­ern Vir­ginia, but not by much.

May

I got real­ly into meal prep­ping, bike rid­ing and fash­ion in May. This was the month I hired a pro­fes­sion­al styl­ist (or two) to give me advice on what I should wear. Turns out I was doing some things right and oth­er things way wrong. I attend­ed Ramit Sethi and Tan­ja Hes­ter’s book events and had a lot of fun at both! The end of May saw me attend Camp FI Mid-Atlantic. I had a good time see­ing old friends and mak­ing new ones! I also made a huge deci­sion to leave the pod­cast. 9 months lat­er I can say I miss the pod­cast, but it was the right deci­sion to make. I also accept­ed an offer to change jobs, as the one I had at the time was­n’t work­ing for me. Get it? Work was­n’t work­ing for me?? HA! .….. ok so I pub­lished 3 posts in May:

• Month­ly Sta­tus Report April 2019: Lots of good stuff in these sta­tus reports!
• Leav­ing It to the Pros: I detail some of the bet­ter deci­sions I made in the year. Hir­ing pros for things you can’t do your­self or would take valu­able time is soooooo worth it!
• Life Changes: I detailed all the big deci­sions I made in May. Turns out there were more big deci­sions to come!

June

I start­ed my new job at the begin­ning of June and was hap­py to be back in a cor­po­rate envi­ron­ment again. My com­mute turned unex­pect­ed­ly hel­la­cious which was­n’t fun at all. The Play­ing with FIRE team came to DC so I went to the show­ing and was sur­prised when they pulled me onto the pan­el after the doc­u­men­tary was over. I had a good time shar­ing my sto­ry to a new audi­ence and see­ing some peo­ple’s wheels start to turn. I tried out new food (Ethiopi­an food is deli­cious!!), got a new video game and start­ed play­ing a new mobile game. I pub­lished 2 posts in June:

• The Four Stages of my FIRE Jour­ney (so far): I describe the 4 dis­tinct phas­es of my FIRE jour­ney so far
• The Defin­i­tive Guide to Mak­ing Mon­ey Online: Gold City Ven­tures Review: My friends Julie and Cody teamed up to cre­ate the best course on mak­ing mon­ey online I’ve ever seen. If you want to make mon­ey online you should go here first.

July

July began with a fire­works extrav­a­gan­za as seen from the roof of our apart­ment build­ing. The wind was against us and obscured the main DC fire­works, but there were plen­ty of shows all around us to make up for it. July saw some nasty storms sweep through the DC area, includ­ing the day it took me 2 hours to get to work thanks to flash flood­ing on most of the main roads. I attend­ed anoth­er Play­ing with FIRE show­ing in North­ern Vir­ginia and had more fun meet­ing new peo­ple at the brew­ery meet­up after­wards. The end of July saw me move out of the DC apart­ment and into my own place in North­ern Vir­ginia. I was hap­py to be liv­ing on my own again, but the cost was high. I did take advan­tage of all the ameni­ties and space and got back into hob­bies, which helped for a while. I post­ed 2 arti­cles in July:

• Month­ly Sta­tus Report: May & June 2019: I missed a month, so I dou­bled up in July.
• New Place, New Me.… Nah: All about my var­i­ous liv­ing sit­u­a­tions in the past and more details on the new apartment!

August

August was a qui­et month spent set­tling into new rou­tines at work and at home. I made a baby quilt for a friend. I hung out at the apart­ment pool. I got into the local Buy Noth­ing Group. My friend Mil­i­tary Dol­lar and I were able to get din­ner togeth­er when she was briefly in town. I got invit­ed to a few last minute pool par­ties at my friend’s apart­ment in DC. The last week of August was spent prepar­ing for the fun mad­ness of Fin­Con in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber! I wrote 2 posts in August:

• The Best Places to Source Used Stuff: A com­pre­hen­sive list of all the excel­lent places to score new to you stuff for a new place!
• Month­ly Sta­tus Report: July 2019: Back on track with the month­ly updates!

September

Sep­tem­ber began with FINCON! All my friends came to town and I got to spend time with most of my favorite peo­ple all at once! I had real­ly great con­ver­sa­tions with a few peo­ple and fun con­ver­sa­tions with a lot of peo­ple (sober and oth­er­wise). I also got to spend some time at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Muse­um which was super awe­some. I’m glad I got to go, espe­cial­ly as I lived only a few miles away. I went on more bike rides, hung out by the pool more, cooked for myself more and did some craft projects around the apart­ment. I also had a blast rid­ing my new scoot­er all around DC! I pub­lished 4 (yes, 4!!) posts in September:

• What’s in a Job?: Job #2 2019 was­n’t work­ing, so I was on the hunt for a dif­fer­ent job. I suc­ceed­ed, just in a dif­fer­ent way than I imagined!
• Fin­Con 2019 and the Future: My recap of Fin­Con 2019 and thoughts on the future with regards to finance stuff.
• A Week­end of Yes: I said yes to every offer to hang out in one week­end and doc­u­ment­ed the results
• Month­ly Sta­tus Report: August 2019:  Got it in before Octo­ber. Go me!

October

My favorite month because it’s my birth­day! I turned 29 in 2019. I can’t believe my twen­ties are almost over.… but there’s still lots of life ahead to be lived! I inter­viewed for dif­fer­ent jobs in Octo­ber, vis­it­ed friends, learned new skills, enjoyed the crap out of my time at Camp FI SW in Joshua Tree, went on a few hikes, watched my Car­di­nals trag­i­cal­ly lose to the even­tu­al World Series cham­pi­ons, and enjoyed a brief sur­prise trip home to vis­it fam­i­ly. I wrote 2 posts in October:

• Month­ly Sta­tus Report: Sep 2019: Crush­ing this whole update thing.
• Inter­view­ing for Jobs Sucks: Wrote this when I was pret­ty low after get­ting denied a job I was spe­cial­ly recruit­ed for.

November

Novem­ber was crazy busy and awe­some. I attend­ed my first NHL game, took a week­end trip to see friends in Maine, gave notice at 2019 Job #2, said good­bye to peo­ple in DC, packed all my belong­ings, said good­bye to places in DC, and drove all my stuff across the coun­try to my new place (with a detour to my aun­t’s house for a fam­i­ly Thanks­giv­ing). Then we got to unpack my stuff and start­ed to explore my new home of St Louis. I wrote 3 posts in November:

• It’s Ok to Change Your Mind: We are not trees. We are only as root­ed as we want to be. Take big, bold, wild chances — you can always go back!
• Month­ly Sta­tus Report: Oct 2019: So many updates.
• Meet Me in St Louis: My favorite arti­cle of 2019 to write. I got the job and could leave DC!

December

Decem­ber was at once chill and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly crazy. I drove home for 2 week­ends in a row to see friends and fam­i­ly for Christ­mas. I start­ed my new job and start­ed drink­ing from the fire­hose of new respon­si­bil­i­ties, new cowork­ers, new build­ing, new cul­ture and new rou­tines to learn. Giv­en all those expec­ta­tions, the rest of my time was as sim­ply spent as pos­si­ble. I unpacked and set­tled into my new place more, and enjoyed peace­ful hol­i­days. Super chill and also super intense. I pub­lished 2 posts in December:

• Month­ly Sta­tus Report: Nov 2019: The last update of 2019 before I update on 2019 as a whole!
• Review: Una­gi Elec­tric Scoot­er: The most fun-est elec­tric scoot­er I’ve ever got­ten to ride!

Finances

Because I want to make this the longest post I’ve ever writ­ten, I’ll tack on the finances part of the recap here as well.

I start­ed the year with a net worth of $170,000.
I end­ed 2019 with a net worth of $213,000.
I earned $90,000.
I spent $60,000.

It’s easy to look at that and say, wow a gain of $43,000 well done! But it does­n’t tell the whole sto­ry. I went from a bare-bones exis­tence of stress and anx­i­ety at the begin­ning of the year to final­ly feel­ing like I was­n’t strug­gling any­more at the end of the year. It’s crazy to think I made rough­ly $90,000, spent just a shade under $60,000 and still saw a gain of $43,000.  The mar­kets were tru­ly crazy and I’m glad I saved a ton when I was able to when I was a few years younger to give me this boost.

Also, doing a year-end review of your finances is incred­i­bly help­ful. I thought I made $70,000 last year but I earned far more than that thanks to bonus­es that came my way. That’s a $20,000 dif­fer­ence! Who knows what sur­pris­es lurk in your finances??

I’m excit­ed to see where 2020 goes with my finances. I’m not going to set any goals, most­ly because I don’t know what I want to do with my life any­more (in the con­text of FIRE, any­ways). This will be the sub­ject of a much longer post in the near future, so I’ll be fair­ly brief here. So much of what I could set as a goal also depends on the mar­ket, which seems incred­i­bly fool­ish to bet going high­er than the record highs we have now. I’ll still invest, through the ups and the downs of the mar­ket, but I don’t want to set a goal of achiev­ing $300,000 and then the mar­ket tanks and I feel like a fail­ure. I’ll come up with less mar­ket-depen­dent goals for my finances in 2020.

Thanks for read­ing! How did your 2019 go for your finances? Shout any big wins in the comments!