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Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

Recap: 2017 Edition

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2017 was prob­a­bly one of my favorite years so far! It’s hard to believe it’s already over and done with. 2017 is one of the rare years I can remem­ber where if some­one offered to trans­port me back a year, I’d take it. It was that good to me. I dubbed 2017 the Year of Car­ing, and I think I did a pret­ty decent job at hit­ting the goals I set.

A brief overview

I start­ed the year off right by going to Camp Mus­tache South­east in Jan­u­ary! I had a won­der­ful time meet­ing new friends, hang­ing out with old friends, and get­ting lots of good advice while I soaked up some much need­ed sun­shine. I am incred­i­bly stoked to go back this year!

cloudy lake

Feb­ru­ary was a HUGE month for me as I start­ed and end­ed the search for a new rental prop­er­ty! I think over­all that one will work out even if I got off to a rather rocky start.…..

March was fun as I hit my 2 year blo­giver­sary and closed on my rental prop­er­ty. I did­n’t do much that month that did­n’t involve one of those two things as blog­ging and closing/moving takes a ton of ener­gy and effort.

April was a rough month for me as I adjust­ed to being a landlord/homeowner. I imme­di­ate­ly had to buy some appli­ances and was over­whelmed with the real­i­ties of being respon­si­ble for my own place. You can read about it in this post. (So glad I’m not that stressed anymore!)

May and June were fun months spent out­side and get­ting philo­soph­i­cal with top­ics on the blog!

July was the month full of ups and downs emo­tions-wise. I start­ed dat­ing my awe­some boyfriend, took a trip to Vegas, fired my ter­ri­ble con­trac­tor, kicked out my ten­ant, and took a fun camp­ing trip.

August was a super great month as I got to know my boyfriend bet­ter and got a post fea­tured on Rock­star Finance!

Sep­tem­ber was a light month on the blog for me (only 3 arti­cles post­ed, shame on me!) but a big one in gen­er­al. I lost my cat, took my first busi­ness trip and start­ed my amaz­ing new pod­cast with my friend J!

crater lake

Octo­ber was an insane­ly busy and fun month! I went back to Ecuador, came back inspired, turned 27, and had the best time ever at Fin­Con 2017.

Novem­ber I cel­e­brat­ed 2 years with Project Fi and found a new ten­ant! It was a busy month with the hol­i­days fast approaching.

Decem­ber passed in the blink of an eye with the focus on spend­ing qual­i­ty time with my fam­i­ly, friends, and boyfriend’s family!

Goals

I set a lot of lofty goals last year. I did not accom­plish all of them, but I am proud of what I did get done.

  1. Feb­ru­ary 2017 Whole30 month: Fail. I could­n’t devote that much time to think­ing about the food I was eat­ing with work­ing and buy­ing my rental. I think it would be a good idea still, but I’m not going to make it a goal for 2018.
  2. Run a 5k Sum­mer 2017: Fail. I looked for 5k’s to run in my area, but none of them lined up with my sched­ule. Hard to run the Fire­crack­er 5k over 4th of July if you’re in Las Vegas!
  3. See a chi­ro­prac­tor and get mas­sages: Fail. I wrote that in a par­tic­u­lar­ly stress­ful peri­od in my life. I’m nowhere near that stressed any­more, so I don’t see the need to go. Espe­cial­ly since they cost mon­ey and I was bare­ly break­ing even most of the year.
  4. Take the stairs: Pass. I did fan­tas­tic at this until the sum­mer when I hurt my knee play­ing soft­ball. I still take the stairs more than I did in 2016, even if it’s not all the time, so I con­sid­er this a win.

Money, Me, and 2017

I’m sure most of you just skimmed over the links and the pret­ty pic­tures above, wait­ing for the real meat of the post. It’s cool, and I def­i­nite­ly can’t blame you because the NUMBERS ARE AWESOME. I’ll dis­cuss income (pre-tax num­bers), spend­ing, and an all-encom­pass­ing look at net worth.

Income

My goal at the begin­ning of 2017 was to make $100,000. As my income from my W2 job isn’t quite there yet, I need­ed to add in some extra mon­ey from some­where. Well, after search­ing every couch cush­ion, pick­ing up pen­nies at Aldi, and out­right ask­ing peo­ple for mon­ey.…… I made my goal! I came in just over my goal at $101,262. The break­down for income can be seen below:

W2: $92,493
Rental: $7,550
Misc: $1,219

income 2017

Unlike most Amer­i­cans, I look at hav­ing mo’ mon­ey as a good thing. Mo’ mon­ey don’t cause me no prob­lems! This was a pret­ty stan­dard pat­tern for income. Tax returns in the spring, most­ly flat income over the rest of the year until BOOM, Decem­ber and my bonus hit to send my income sky­rock­et­ing. Lit­tle won­der Decem­ber has become my favorite month! This graph does vary from last year slight­ly in that the amount of income record­ed was much high­er thanks to my online and real estate ven­tures. I’m hop­ing to con­tin­ue that path next year!

Spending

While I’m cel­e­brat­ing my income going up, I’m not doing the same for my spend­ing. I wish it had gone down, but I over­spent on the rental prop­er­ty and that tanked any chance I had at keep­ing my spend­ing down. For­tu­nate­ly I have tons of room to improve! I can tease good things out of my spend­ing though. My per­son­al spend­ing went from ~$40k last year to $25k! That’s a drop of almost $15k. My per­son­al spend­ing dropped most­ly due to not spend­ing tons of mon­ey on hous­ing as I spent the year liv­ing in my friend’s base­ment and a stu­dio apart­ment in my rental. I’ve bro­ken it down below so you can see how I’ve divvied things up:

Per­son­al: $25,612
Rental: $25,526
Blog/Podcast: $3,238

Per­son­al spend­ing includes things like util­i­ties, inter­net, food, trav­el, and enter­tain­ment while the rental cat­e­go­ry cov­ers every­thing I’ve put into the house such as paint, brush­es, fil­ters, new appli­ances, and the oth­er mil­lion and 3 things a house requires to keep stand­ing. I split the mort­gage into two cat­e­gories: Rent went into per­son­al spend­ing which was the mon­ey I per­son­al­ly spent on hous­ing. That is the rent at the begin­ning of the year and any mon­ey I put towards the mort­gage when my renter did­n’t cov­er the whole thing. The oth­er went under the rental cat­e­go­ry and was the por­tion of the mort­gage I did­n’t pay and insur­ance and all that jazz.

spending17

Won­der when I bought the rental? ha my spend­ing spiked in the sum­mer and will hope­ful­ly be more con­sis­tent at a low­er amount in 2018. Below I’ve con­trast­ed 2016 and 2017 spend­ing lev­els so you can see how much more I spent over­all in 2017.

spending 16 17

If I exclude “busi­ness expens­es” like the rental and online endeav­ors, I def­i­nite­ly hit my goal to spend under $30k. How­ev­er, I’m not sure I get to count that because all that mon­ey did come out of my pock­et. What do you think? How should I doc­u­ment my 2017 spend­ing? Sound off in the com­ments and let me know what you do!

Net Worth

My favorite part of the year! Tal­ly­ing up my net worth! I set a goal at the begin­ning of 2017 to hit $200k by the end of the year. Well.… I failed. I came in at $199,696. If I round up, which I am allowed to do by every rule in math, I hit it!

This goes to show the fol­ly of try­ing to hit a net worth goal. So much of that is depen­dent on the mar­ket. I am not going to both­er set­ting a goal for 2018 for pre­cise­ly that rea­son. I refuse to be sad I missed my goal because my net worth went up 56%! If that’s not some­thing to cel­e­brate, I don’t know what is. I’m giv­ing myself 3 and a half pats on the back for a job well done. Below is (you guessed it) a chart of my net worth!

Screen Shot 2017 12 31 at 4.36.13 PM

Summary

One last pic­ture. These Sankey things seem to be all over the inter­net late­ly so I of course just had to make one like every­one else. A quick sum­ma­ry of my year in spend­ing: pic­ture form! (Side note: the num­bers are slight­ly off because I made it before my last pay­check and am far too lazy to go make an entire­ly new pic­ture. These thin­gies are fiddly!)

Over­all, 2017 has been quite the amaz­ing year. Thank you, dear read­er, for read­ing my jour­ney through the year and being here with me. It tru­ly means a lot to me that peo­ple care about how I am doing. I love get­ting your emails, read­ing your sto­ries, and get­ting to know you that lit­tle bit more.

Have a won­der­ful New Year!

Love,

 

Gwen

Reader Interactions

Comments

    • Yes I think the worst is behind us on the rental. It was pret­ty stress­ful there for a while!

      Reply

  3. Wow, with a net worth like that at your age, there’s no way you won’t exceed your goals and more. You have sooo much time and such a strong start. You’re killing it!

    Con­grats and hap­py ’18!

    Reply

  4. Con­grats, looks like 2017 was a note­wor­thy year for you! I’ve been enjoy­ing the pod­cast and look for­ward to see­ing what you man­age to accom­plish in 2018! 

    I’m hav­ing the same strug­gle in how to cat­e­go­rize busi­ness income/expenses in my end of year finan­cial review — com­ing up with a nice clean sav­ings rate num­ber was much eas­i­er when I was just a w2 employ­ee! I’ve decid­ed to use net busi­ness income for my cal­cu­la­tions and will have to adjust it a bit after fil­ing taxes.

    Reply

    • Thanks Lau­ren. I whole­heart­ed­ly agree with you on the ease fac­tor! I did­n’t know how easy I had it 2 years ago.

      Reply

    • I do, but I also include the debt that I owe on the house, so it most­ly wash­es out at the end.

      Reply

  7. I think you’re def­i­nite­ly close enough to say you’re at 200k! That’s awe­some! You’re way ahead of the game. I’m sor­ry about your cat and the stress­ful time you went though, but over­all sounds like a fan­tas­tic year. Hope you can find a 5k you like!

    Reply

    • Woot! Thanks Tonya! I’m sure I’ll be able to find at least one to do when I move up to Minneapolis!

      Reply

    • Thanks Jim! I think you rocked 2017 pret­ty well your­self with that Rock­star haircut 😀

      Reply

  9. I think you get to say you spent less than $30k! We treat our rental prop­er­ty com­plete­ly sep­a­rate­ly from our per­son­al expens­es. It’s its own busi­ness and we like to imag­ine its prof­its inde­pen­dent­ly from our per­son­al “prof­its.” That way you can also fig­ure out a per­son­al sav­ings rate, and a rental ROI.

    Reply

  10. Con­grats on a great year and I’m excit­ed to see where we take the pod­cast in 2018! I think you leave those expens­es out when cal­cu­lat­ing what you spent per­son­al­ly. Good for you for sit­ting down and doing the cat­e­go­riz­ing. I got over­whelmed yes­ter­day try­ing to peel out all of my blog expens­es for the year. It’s a lot and a lot of my trav­el is relat­ed to that too. A good prob­lem to have I guess!

    Reply

  12. I don’t know what gave me a big­ger CMLT. A 27 year old with a W2 income of $92K? Or a 27 year old with a kick-ass pod­cast? Con­grat­u­la­tions on a fan­tas­tic 2017, Gwen. I’m sure 2018 will be just as kind to you. Cheers.

    Reply

  13. It looks like you had a good year! I’m excit­ed about your rental prop­er­ty! Keep it up. Con­grats on the pod­cast. Also, you went back to Ecuador! I’m total­ly jeal­ous! I see a good year ahead for you!

    Reply

    • If next year is any­where near as expen­sive with the rental, it is for sure get­ting sold off. For­tu­nate­ly, I don’t fore­see too many expenses!

      Reply

  16. Your rental is freak­ing me out!! I’m wor­ried for you. Please do not invest in your prop­er­ty more than it is worth. I hope I’m miss­ing some­thing, but as a land­lord myself, I can’t see why you are hang­ing on to this prop­er­ty? If you have forced appre­ci­a­tion on your prop­er­ty by your reno’s That’s great, if you aren’t sure, have a real­tor through to see what the mar­ket val­ue is. Nev­er ever invest more than the prop­er­ty is worth. Please please please thor­ough­ly research what else needs to be done on prop­er­ty, and get an accu­rate pic­ture of pro­ject­ed costs, some­times it is bet­ter to sell, and find a bet­ter income pro­duc­ing property.

    Reply

    • I sec­ond that, although I don’t know exact­ly what your month­ly expens­es are, your spend seems high. Maybe give it anoth­er year and if things don’t calm down, fig­ure out if you want to keep the rental. I had an emer­gency hot water tank burst this year in my rental. The repair work and pay­ing for my ten­ants hotel ate up my pos­i­tive cash flow for the year, about $1800.

      Reply

    • I’m keep­ing it for anoth­er year and then I will re-eval­u­ate. I think I’ve got it to a place at the moment when I can coast and not put any more mon­ey in it. The qual­i­ty of ten­ants I attract with the prop­er­ty don’t care about the qual­i­ty of the dry­wall on the ceil­ing or if the paint is peel­ing off the house. I care about that and I care too much. So.….. I’m back­ing off for the year. See how it goes.

      Reply

  18. WHat a year!!! I would round up no ques­tions asked. You’re right about mar­kets and con­trol — I hit my NW goal but a lot of that was gains. Look for­ward to keep­ing up with your adven­tures in 2018 🙂

    Reply

  19. What blew me away was your abil­i­ty to decrease your per­son­al spend­ing by $15k. Well done on that front! Any guess­es on how that will change once you leave the full-time gig? (Or will I have to keep com­ing back to the blog to see for myself as 2018 pro­gress­es? haha)

    Reply

    • Thanks OMSC! I think I should be able to main­tain that, and cut it down even more as I quit my job and elim­i­nate work expens­es (break­fasts, lunch­es, cof­fees, gas, wear and tear on car, etc). But yes, come back and see how I did!)

      Reply

  20. Huge kudos for decreas­ing your spend­ing so dras­ti­cal­ly! It sounds like it did­n’t even hurt. That is def­i­nite­ly some­thing to be proud of. 🙂

    Reply

    • Thanks Kris­tine. It hurt and it did­n’t… I’m so glad I did­n’t pay that $15k for hous­ing, but it hurts every­time I go home and hang out in my tiny stu­dio apart­ment when I could be liv­ing it up in a fan­cy flat.

      Reply

  21. Gwen I made the mis­take ear­ly on ren­o­vat­ing our first rental as if I was going to live there. Good that you rec­og­nize the error in that. Def­i­nite­ly hold back on Reno’s, and only do those that pre­vent major issues…ie like a leak­ing roof not some­thing you should ignore. Also, there r inex­pen­sive upgrades that r total­ly worth it. Repair­ing holes in walls u can do your­self, and paint is cheap and makes a huge dif­fer­ence to renters. Going for­ward if you buy a new rental, I sug­gest buy­ing a much new­er build. Old­er homes hide huge issues, knob n tube wiring gal­va­nized plumb­ing, asbestos, etc etc. Often times these can­not be caught with an inspec­tion. Aim for hous­es built in the 60’s or later.

    Reply

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