After two years of pandemic, 2022 marked the year of a new start. It marked a turn as I restarted international travel. It also marked the turn of a decade for me as I entered my 30s. But it was so much more than that. It was a start to a new mentality, one that I aspired to have ever since learning about FIRE as reflected in some of these highlights of 2022.

A Stressful Start

The first quarter of 2022 unfortunately did not start well. I was so stressed with work but damn did having FU money give me the confidence to tell my manager that I was overworked and not going to take it anymore.

It was the start of a new mentality. One where I knew my worth and that no company was worth losing my health over. This new mentality was supplemented by the fact that at this point I had developed an FI mindset. I could care less for the promises of experience that would build up my resume down the line when I only planned to stay at this job for 2-5 years max until I can hit my FI number. 

I had built an identity and dream outside of work and I didn’t care about impressing people that probably only saw me as another number. 

Officially a Homeowner

Another new start of 2022 is that after a full year of waiting and stress (yes, there were definitely tears involved), I finally closed on my home and officially became a homeowner!

I thought I would be more excited about my first home but it’s funny how the novelty of having something new quickly dies down. I think part of the disappointment was knowing that my hope of living alone wasn’t going to happen this year as my mom had to move in with me. 

I love her and obviously was ok with her having to stay with me this year (and likely next year) but I would love to be able to just live on my own for once. 

More than anything, I am just relieved it finally happened and I was able to lock in a fairly low mortgage rate of 3.1%.

The Travel Begins

The last highlight of this year would have to be the amount of travel I went on! I went on four trips, three of which were new ones that were pretty high on my travel list.

The traveling I did this year just lit up even more passion in me and solidified my decision that this is what I want to retire early to be able to do.

All the walking, hiking, and stairs that I climbed were fun, but I realized I already started struggling on some of these at my age. I can’t imagine doing them during traditional retirement age.

Net Worth

I ended 2022 barely scraping into $250k net worth!

While the quarter of a mil mark is exciting, that’s only half of what I had hoped to gain by the end of 2022.

During those first months of 2022, I worked a crazy amount of overtime which led to overtime pay. What did I do with the extra cash? I responsibly invested and decided to front-load my 401k. 

Well, hindsight is 20/20, but we now know that the market would go down by almost 20% this year so that decision to front-load backfired.

I am honestly just relieved I was able to end 2022 with a nice number like $250k.

December 2022 Net Worth: $250,081

Year-to-Date Change: +$48,668

Last year, I went into detail how I had messed up my net worth calculation in the past. Starting this year, I’ve decided that I should continue to document my net worth based on the most accurate calculation hence the (corrected) designation in my net worth tracker.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to continue the trend of $100k net worth increase year to year as I was able to do the past few years thanks to a strong market return.

Investments

I contributed $63,402 in 2022 across all my investment accounts (401k, Roth IRA, HSA, brokerage) but my total investment gain only amounted to $29,772 meaning $33,630 went *poof* this year. It hurts, but I continue to remain optimistic that the market will make a recovery (hopefully in 2023)!

I am definitely sticking with the mentality that as I continued to buy in the down market, I am simply gathering stocks at a “discount” which will allow me to take advantage of the recovery when it does happen.

Student Debt Review

I stuck to minimum payments on my student loans throughout 2022 as I was paying a very low interest rate of 2.2%.

Total 2022 student loan payments made: $10,569

Total 2022 interest paid: $610.61

Remaining balance: $26,660

Based on my debt progress page tracker, I have 16% more to go before I am completely debt free! I am currently in year 3 of my 5-year private loan payment plan.

There is no penalty for paying off early and I am actually considering so as First Republic has a tempting offer that if you pay off your loans within 4 years, you can get back 2% of the initial loan balance which would be $1000 back for me.

2022 Goals Review

I made a couple of goals at the end of 2021. It’s time to review how I did!

1. Hit $300k net worth: Knowing how hard it was to reach my $200k goal this year, let’s just say I’ve been humbled, big time. They say that net worth skyrockets after the first $100k but for me it’s stayed linear with the same ~$100k gain in 2020 and 2021.

Will I be able to keep up my $100k net worth gain next year? What can I say? I like my round numbers 😉

This goal was obviously a fail and I’ll admit the failure was pretty rough to handle. I held out hope even towards the last quarter of 2022 when I thought the market would go on an upswing.

The reason why $300k means so much to me is because of this post. I know that on my accelerated path, the time value of compound interest will not be able to help me as much, but it gives me so much hope that as long as I can get to $300k, I’m potentially halfway to a million dollar net worth.

2. Buy a home: I don’t think I even need any further explanation of this goal. The most disappointing aspect of this year was waiting for my house to close and realizing that it wasn’t going to happen until 2022. As I mentioned, home ownership has been a 3 year dream in the making. Now, it has turned into 4 years. 

If this goal doesn’t come true by the end of 2022, then something has gone awfully wrong.

I’m happy to say that things did not go awfully wrong and I was able to close early 2022.

3. Learn and practice day/swing trading: Earlier this year I got seriously into day trading after my coworkers and I had a chat about it. I ate up every free courses and online videos to learn about trends and patterns. I even started doing simulated trading on the thinkorswim platform offered by TD Ameritrade to gauge whether I was making the correct analysis.

Fail. I honestly barely remembered making this goal. I probably forgot everything I learned but would love to get back to it if for nothing else but to learn.

4. Travel internationally: This really isn’t a goal. Goals are supposed to be challenging. This is more of a want. I’m really itching to travel abroad, hopefully it will happen in 2022!

This was a huge success! I traveled out of the country twice this year in addition to 2 domestic travels!

2023 Goals

Alright, so I was 2 out of 4 for my 2022 goals. I can’t say I don’t dream big, so here are my goals for 2023.

1. Hit $400k net worth. Can I be crazy? I know I didn’t hit my 2022 goal of $300k but can I still hope to hit $400k in 2023? That would be on par with a $100k net worth increase per year that I had been hoping to continue the trend on since hitting $200k.
   
   It’s an audacious goal that relies on a huge market recovery in 2023 that I am hoping will happen as the world continues to open back up.
   
   Realistically, I will be more than happy to finally hit $300k net worth.
   
   
   
2. Be prepared to purchase a second home. Again, crazy goal as I had just spent the last 4 years buying my first home and now I am already thinking of the next one? But I have been heavily influenced by my mom’s success in renting out her property and my dream is have one property that I can rent out that will be able to pay the mortgages on two homes.
   
   I have my eyes set on a new construction community a little bit north of where I live but as I am now 99% confirmed to be able to continue work from home, my dream is to purchase a more affordable home and rent my current one to cover both mortgages.
   
   
   
3. Exercise more. Another vague goal that’s hard to quantify. Knowing I barely exercised in 2022 though, I’d consider the smallest effort an improvement. I did talk to my friend who I ran at least 5 miles every week for an entire year in 2021 with and we decided to at least do this once a month.
   
   I may pick up running again but at the very least I’d like to do more swimming in the summer time.
   
   

Those are my only three goals for 2023! I already have a couple of international trips planned for 2023 so I don’t think travel is necessarily a “goal” anymore hence I’m leaving that out.

Overall, I’d say 2022 was an amazing year and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start this new decade of my life. Cheers to 2023!