OK, time for me to post my 2018 end of year follies (errr... investment update) Ugh.
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Investments
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I won't post details because they were too painful to look at. Even with putting in a nice big chunk of money my overall balance went down. I started the year at 841,000, ended at 825,000, and that's with investing about 40k. Like others my numbers were going up mid year and I was within maybe $25k of 1 million. Sigh. Oh well, dividends are going well, so that's a plus & my investments should be more solid going forward (I hope). (P.S.: Now at the end of January I'm up a good $50k, so who knows how this year will go)
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Everything Else
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No major expenses again in 2018. The GF & I had our usual vacation to Florida. Went to WDW again because it turned out Disney expanded (temporarily) their deep discount tickets from active military to all DoD employees. Since she is DoD, we decided to go to WDW again on the cheap. With a free time share to use as well, the trip was very inexpensive (maybe $650 for everything for the two of us). We really didn't have other vacations (see write up below) Still haven't spent anything on home repairs, but they'll come sooner or later. And the car is still hanging in there, though I almost got a new car in November - seller backed out at the last second.
My GF is retired now. She didn't want to vacation during the year so she would get a large vacation buyout at retirement - so that's good financially, but not great for enjoying the year. She basically FIRE'd (if you call retiring at our age early). She was supposed to move in with me, but.... well she decided she wanted to be able to use her brain again (the old job was making her brain dead). So she took classes and is now working as a tax preparer at her city, and will move to where I live after tax season. The bad is she is still working and not moved in here, the good is she sees how little most people have and now understands she had plenty to retire, so retirement anxiety is going away for her. Her pension hasn't started yet as they are still working out the final numbers, but she should start getting something in the next month or so.
I am still doing two-a-day workouts at work, lunchtime and after work. I will most likely stop the after work workouts once the GF moves in with me. My ebay sales were fairly good, about $2,500 so that's a plus. My health was great over the year, I didn't need to see a doctor once. (Already broke that streak this year - threw my back out bad two weeks ago and am seeing a chiropractor to fix it - maybe 65% better at this point)
At work ... well still on the project from hell. I tried to make it better, management (& contractor) messed that up. A few times I thought I was going to have a heart attack, I was getting so upset on it. After me getting belligerent (what did I have to lose really?) they finally backed off some of the crazy items, and now I am mostly a paper pusher - at least for now. The project is still stupid, but if they want to go this way.... well I can survive I guess. I may end up getting like the GF and just be brain dead. I feel that way in meetings now. Its better than a stroke, right? One good item is my vacation time increased and now I get 8 hrs per pay period (26 days per year). My vacation time bank has really started to grow for once - I can see decent time off in my future.
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Not so Random Item
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I found out my 457 plan will start allowing in plan conversions of pre-tax to post-tax (that is - to Roth). I don't think it makes sense to consider this unless I am already doing 100% of Roth contributions at this time. Right now I am about 66% Roth contributions - 33% pre-tax. If this was my only retirement money (and I was really retiring early) I wouldn't consider it. But since I will be 60 at retirement and I will have a pension that will fill all of my low tax rate brackets, at some point I may feel this makes sense. I'll have to keep this idea on the back burner for now.
I'm still looking at April 2023, though it's possible I could up it a month or three. At least I am now basically 4 years from retirement. Its like starting high school, and realizing that this will pass. So too will this job, I just need to stay sane until then.