2020 is here! And I’m finally ready to go over my 2019 year in review after quite a bit of procrastination.

I felt like so many things, yet at the same time nothing happened in 2019. It was really hard to generalize my 2019 into any specific theme, but I did finally settle on one.

If I am putting it nicely, 2019 was definitely the Year of Self-Care. To put it bluntly, I can also rename this as the Year of Splurging. I wasn’t very meticulous in 2018 at tracking my spending, but based on 2018’s Year in Review, my spending likely fell around $15k-$20k. 

I blew that spending out of the ballpark in 2019 with a total spending of $27,950. Aka… rounded up, I spent almost $28,000 in 2019! That’s a lot! And I’m really beating myself up for it.

The Bad

2019 was the first year I worked full time for the entire year as opposed to 2018 when I was laid off for a couple of months. And no lies, I definitely raised my standards of living.

To say I was blind-sided by my spending this year would be a complete lie. I mean, the fact that I wrote “over-budget” pretty much every month of this year was clue enough that I had over-spent in 2019.

Looking through all my monthly spending, February and August were the only two months I was truly under-budget. I cheated by upping my March budget in anticipation of my international travel which allowed me to stay under-budget that month as well. But even counting March as an under-budget month, this means I was over budget ¾ of the year!

So let’s identify the culprits.

2019 was a year of firsts. It was my first time traveling out of the country with friends with a trip that was fully paid with my own money.

But if I am looking at the big picture, 2019 was definitely a year of spending. I had finally caved on some of the purchases that I had been wanting to make for at least a year (if not years!). 

In no particular order, here are my 3 main category of big purchases of 2019:

1. I bought a lot of technology in 2019. This include: MacBook, AirPods, FitBit
2. Life improvements: car window tinting, eyebrow tattoo, Instant Pot
3. Travel: Japan, Las Vegas, Glamping

While I do think these are splurges, I also have no regrets on these big purchases. 

None of these were spur of the moment purchases. I truly thought long and hard about spending my money on these and decided they were truly what I wanted in 2019. 

Could I have done without these? Yes. Absolutely yes. But what am I working so hard for if I can’t even occasionally enjoy the things that I want in life?

Today is a blessing. Tomorrow is never a guarantee. I thought that, in moderation, enjoying my life little by little now was not such a bad idea.

So, no regrets. But hopefully now that I’ve gotten these big purchases out of my system, I can spend 2020 enjoying them and curbing my spending.

The Good

Alright so now that I’m done with the bad confessions, I can move on to some of the good things that happened in 2019.

While I splurged on big purchases, I actually barely spent money on shopping for things that I cared little about, such as clothing and accessories.

I only bought one new handbag ($51 Kate Spade bag) this Black Friday and I can count on 1 hand the number of new clothes I got this year. So I’m definitely proud of this accomplishment.

Clothing doesn’t make me happy and while I’ve never read or seen Marie Kondo’s show, I keep up enough to know that I should only keep/buy things that “spark joy” in my life. I know myself enough that experiences, especially traveling spark the most joy in my life.

I was lucky enough to be able to travel more this year after a 2 year drought of no travel as I aggressively paid my debt in 2017 and 2018. I went on a couple of short weekend getaways, tried out glamping for the first time, and even went on an international trip this year. 

I stayed employed with my current company and have officially crossed my one year anniversary with the company. While working in retail still has its ups and downs, I am definitely feeling more at ease and most days, I have been able to enjoy the people I work with.

While I felt lost for a period of time, trying to find the passion that had once burned so deeply in my youth, I started diving into new hobbies such as running and learning a new language that I’m truly currently enjoying.

I fostered the friendships that I made in 2018 and even got over my shyness to invite some of my friends over for the first time to host a BBQ at my place (well, to be correct, it’s my parents’ place) to ring in the new year.

The Great

For the first time in my life, I was able to max out my 401k this year! In addition, I also maxed out my Roth IRA and my HSA for a total saving of $28,500.

But hands down, the greatest thing that happened in 2019 was I finally crossed the line from negative to positive net worth!

I mean, just look at that beautiful crossing. 

I have to give credit where credit is due, so give a big round of applause to the market.

My portfolio made a 20% return this year allowing my net worth to grow by $90k!

That is such a crazy amount that I never expected! And I fully credit the bull market for allowing me to cross into positive net worth category.

I went from being in negative $68,287 net worth to ending 2019 with positive $22,465!

One of my goals that I had written in my 2018 year end review was just to get into positive net worth territory and not only did I meet that goal, I’m now in the $20k’s! So excited for this growth and I’m hoping for continued growth in 2020.

Debt Review

Time to get to the meat of this year end review: the debt.

Total 2019 student loan payments: $37,193.19 

Total 2019 interest paid: $5,199.05

Remaining balance: $54,368.16

A last minute payment before the end of the year brought me to paying off one of the loans, but unfortunately, still not enough to meet the second of my two 2019 goals, which was to pay off $45k to get into the $40k’s balance.

I felt slightly disappointed at not meeting this goal and while it was possible for dip into my savings account to meet this goal, I thought it’d be too irresponsible of me to go into my emergency fund for a non-emergency matter. 

While in numbers, it may seem that I made a lower total payment in 2019 compared to my 2018 total student loan payment of $42,354, I actually had help from my parents in 2018 where they allowed me to borrow $10k from them, which I am repaying as a personal loan (with no interest) to them at $500/month as reflected in my monthly budget.

So technically in 2018, I only contributed $32,364 to my student loans while I contributed about $5k more this year. So there’s an improvement.

Overall, I’m still content with the progress I made this year and am finally now seeing the end in sight. I am not only in single digits, but I am closer to $50k than I am to the $100k I was in last year and the $200k I was in 2017.

I am officially ending 2019 with being two-thirds of the way done with my student loans as the progress bar on my Debt Progress page shows!

Goals for 2020

No one can say I don’t dream big… not only am I making a huge goal for 2020, I’m making TWO.

My first big audacious goal for 2020 is to reach $100,000 net worth. I know that this isn’t all up to me, but hopefully the market will be favorable this year as well and allow for my net worth to grow. 

My second is to purchase my first home.

I know there’s a huge debate in the financial independence community on whether buying a home is the right course of action. And while I haven’t talked about it much on this blog, I am very much on the FIRE (financial independence/retire early) train. 

But I know myself and I know that this is a dream of mine since forever ago and I still cannot let go.

So I’m going for it. At the end of the day, financial independence isn’t going to mean much if it means I’m not getting what I want from life. And I want a home to call mine. 

So those are my two big goals of 2020.

Of course I have other smaller goals. One is to change jobs. I’ve been content with my retail job, especially after being in retail now for 2 and a half years. How time flies! 

But I have gotten a phone interview with my dream company and I have a former colleague who now works there who is willing to give me a good recommendation so I am hoping and crossing my fingers that the interview process will move forward after the holiday season. They are notoriously slow in the interview process though so I’m not expecting anything anytime soon, but hopefully it will eventually happen!

I also want to refinance my loan with First Republic Bank. This has been a goal of mine for 2 years and I will finally do it once I bring my loan down to $50k. I had been in talk with a representative and detailed my encounter and why I’m waiting till 2020 to refinance in my October post so I won’t repeat the explanation.

I do think the stars are aligned now to make this happen. I am just waiting for my 2019 W2 to come out to use that in my refinance application and hopefully by February 2020, my loans will be refinanced!

Nelnet has been a great loan servicer and I honestly have nothing bad to say, but the low interest rate just cannot be denied. So hopefully 2020 is when I say goodbye to 5% interest rate and say hello to 2%!

That’s it for my 2019 year end review. Let’s bring on 2020!