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Checkup – Revisiting 2024 Financial Goals

I just published a post about my 2025 Financial Goals. It’s nearing the end of the year, so it seems like a good time to reflect back on my 2024 Financial Goals and see how things have gone.

Short-Term Savings

I continue to use CapitalOne360 as a way to save money in short-term savings with lots of different accounts for different things (e.g., Emergency Fund, Car repair fund, Semi-annual fees, etc.). My main goal here was just to stay consistent with savings and I’ve done that.

In addition to Capital One, at the beginning of the year I opened up a brokerage account. I’ve been depositing a little bit of money here-and-there throughout the year (averaging about $50-$100/month). I wrote recently about how I plan to increase this for 2025 to closer to $200/month. Throughout the year, I’ve also started dabbling with some CDs to earn a bit higher yield on some of my savings. I still have most of the savings totally liquid. But I’ve established 4 different CDs, one maturing each quarter, so I have a rotating pot of liquid cash available.

I’d say I MET my 2024 short-term savings goal.

Investments

I increased my investments from $10,650 in 2023 up to $15,490 for 2024. And I’ve projected to increase my investments even more in 2025, up to just under $20,000 for the year. Note, this is not including my mandatory retirement account where I invest 7% of my salary that is matched dollar-for-dollar by my employer (for a total of 14% invested off the top of my salary).

Again – I’m going to give myself a check mark for investments. 2024 investment goal met (and it continues!)

Debt

I didn’t have a big, huge debt goal for 2024. My only debt right now aside from our mortgage is my student loans. I continue to make a monthly payment on those loans. Each year I submit paperwork to verify my employment for my eligibility with Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Right now, I have 24 remaining payments before I am eligible for PSLF. The loan forgiveness program requires 10 years of payments while working in the public service field.

Why is my eligibility date November 2026 instead of August 2025 (which actually marks 10 years at my current job)??? I don’t know. Navigating the student loan industry has been one of the most challenging and unnecessarily confusing things I’ve ever done. I swear the paperwork for buying a house is simpler and easier to understand! So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my debt will be forgiven about a year after my initial predictions. I’ve still got two years to go. In the meantime, I’ll continue making my monthly payments. My goal (continuing status quo) is met.

Travel

One of my goals for 2024 was to travel! I went to Peru in February for work (but tacked on a weekend at Machu Picchu for fun). Hubs and I went to Italy in April/May. And we’ve had several short little weekend trips of all types – the whole family, me alone, me with hubs, me with my mom, etc. I really made the most of my sabbatical this fall. Another item from the 2024 Financial Goals list checked off!

Summary

Woohoo! It looks like I met all of my 2024 Financial Goals and then some! I increased my savings and investing even higher than I’d originally expected and I plan to make further increases for next year. I’m up for a promotion for next year and, if that goes through as expected, I’ll be eligible for a raise at the start of the academic year next August. That will help me to further increase my savings and investing and maybe by that point I’ll have hired a wealth manager or financial advisor to help us with some of our investing strategies.

What are your 2025 financial goals? How did you do on your 2024 financial goals?

Ashley

Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!

3 Drivers on a Roadtrip

by Hope

We have always done road trips. Princess and Gymnast took their first road trips a week after they were born. And as the kids became drivers, they drove some…but not much. We had a 15 passenger van and that’s a little scary to trust to a new driver. Not that they didn’t get their turn.

But I can’t remember a time since they were all driving, that we took a road trip. But the girls and I are have done just that. Headed to Texas for Thanksgiving. Three drivers and a dog. In my beloved Honda HRV. 15+ hours of drive time, with a planned break in New Orleans. (My car camping mattress was in place so whomever is in the back could actually sleep. We were packed tight). No hotel stops planned.

We packed food. I budgeted $100 for gas. And everyone had their own spending money for whatever we do in New Orleans…Cafe Du Monde beignets and Muffuletta for me. Our goal was to get to my parents in less than 24 hours.

I’m grateful for this time with my girls. For the means to make this trip and spend a week with my family including all 5 of my kiddos. All 13 of my immediate family will be there – parents, siblings, and my kids. These times and times get more and more rare. And harder to arrange.

Food for the Week

I’ve arranged the menu for the week. I’ll be cooking for everyone for every meal except one. (My kids will all pitch in to help.) My dad will provide the groceries for the week. I’ve already written about the cost of dog boarding. I realize there are some in the BAD community who question my dad’s help. It’s just how our family works. It’s how my dad’s family worked. And I (we all) recognize how blessed we are and do not take it for granted.

And then, after my kids all leave, I’ve got a new laundry list of things my dad has requested some support with.

How about you? Do you have exciting plans this week with friends and / or family?

Hope

Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.