Stocks and Cents

2012 was a pretty good year for me.  I had another successful year at the job and I was able to really reign in my budget and seriously improve my net worth.  Overall, I achieved many of the milestones I was gunning for when I started this blog.  Between my Vanguard account, my checking and my savings, I have my three month emergency fund pretty well set.  I’ve whittled my debt down to my student loans and my car loan.  I didn’t get my Net Worth to be positive but at this point, I have that firmly in my sights for 2013.  So, here are my goals for 2013!

1.  Positive Net Worth – That’s it, I’m going to make it!  I’m only about $11K away at this point and with the way I was knocking off my debt last year, I should be able to get this taken care of before too long.  Needless to say, I’m excited about this.

2.  Begin really saving for a house – I’ve spoken about this before and while I’m still terrified of it a little bit, I definitely want to do it.  The thing holding me back at this point would be my lack of a down payment and the insane housing prices in LA.  Prices have started to go up like crazy here, to the tune of a 25% increase for some people in the last year.  I might have missed the bandwagon a bit which is one of the reasons I’m just saving to buy a house, not actually buy one.

3.  Pay off half or all of my car loan – This loan kills me.  It eats up a huge chunk of my income each month, way more than it should, because I didn’t heed my own car buying advice (more on this later).  If I pay an additional $400 a month, I should be able to pay it off in 27 months.  Who knows, if I get a bonus this year (fingers crossed!) I can apply it to this and really knock off a good chunk of it.  We’ll see!

4. Take better care of myself physically – I’ve really fallen off the work out and eat well wagon in the past few years.  CrossFit really got me back on track but since I left the gym I have had a hard time keeping up.  I definitely need to do this though, I can’t allow myself to get out of shape, sick, etc.  It’ll be a downward spiral for the rest of my life.  So, I need to apply the same discipline here as I do in my financial life.

Well, 2013 is going to be an exciting year.  Who knows what it really has in store but as long as I have goals and know where I am trying to go I can forge a path for myself.  Until next time everyone!  Have a great weekend!