Net Worth

Popping in to make a notation of our net worth prior to my husbands retirement from the military at the end of this month (February 2026). My husband is 56 and will receive a pension monthly for the rest of his life. He isn't ready to not be working, so he is looking around for other ways to spend his time and potentially earn another income. It's possible that he won't work again, thus the reason I want to make a note here at this transition period.

Our cash on hand is $121604.

Our home is valued at $419,600 and we owe $282,336, which means equity of $137,264.

Our retirement accounts combined are valued (as of 2/29/2026) at $1,729,613.

$121,604
$137,264

$1,729,613

Total $1,988,481

Our 2023 Honda Odyssey is valued at $29,000

Our 2007 Honda Ridgeline is valued at $3000

$1,988,481

$29,000

$3000

Total Net Worth $2,020,481

Saving, investing and making good decisions with our resources pays off! Thanks to God for all his blessings. 

2025 Financial Goals

Welcome to 2025!! Let's talk about the financial plan for the year. My husband will retire officially from the military on February 28, 2026. We have 14 months to prepare for this change. We have been planning for this in many ways for years, sending more to our retirement fund than many and keeping our expenses low. 

Our main goal is to stockpile cash to assist with the transition. Worst case scenario it's money will live on to supplement my husband's retirement pay (which is less than half of what we receive now). Best case scenario, he will find another job (which he wants to do) and we can use the cash towards buying a new vehicle to replace his 2007 Honda Ridgeline. 

We are shifting our retirement contributions. He will continue to contribute 17% of his Basic Pay to the TSP (Thrift Savings Plan). We will stop automatic contributions to our Roth IRA's and put that money into a CD paying over 4.5%. If he has a job before the 2025 contribution deadline (April 15, 2026) will send this money in for investment. We do max out both of our Roth IRAs (we are over 50), so this will result in $16,000 by year end and $18,666.66 by the retirement date. 

I am estimating on the high side that we can save an additional $45,000 by year end. On the low end maybe closer to $40,000. It's a fine line this year of stockpiling cash, but also enjoying the higher income while we have it. This cash will get funneled to CDs or money markets where we can be earning some interest. I think we are around 4% APR on our main savings account. I will keep my eye out for good offers! 

I will continue to save all interest earned and deposit credit card rewards money into our savings account. We do use credit cards and pay them off in full every two weeks, we do not pay interest on our credit cards. 

I will note mostly for myself that we ended 2024 with $51,826.53 in cash. We will approach or exceed $100,000 in cash by year end or when my husband retires. 

I have no doubt, based on years of experience, that we will make great progress on our goal. Just having a goal and working towards it means we will get close, meet it, or even exceed it. 

2020 Retirement Report

I track our retirement account balance on a basic spreadsheet that I started in May 2003! Nearly 17 years later I am still tracking. I don't track with any specificity. Sometimes I skip a whole month or two of recording, often when I know the market is down. In some months, I have five or six days of balances recorded. I do prefer to record when the balance is higher then the previous time I recorded. 

In May 2003, our retirement balance was $25,741.51. My husband had already been saving for many years at this point, and I think I had a little from when I worked as well. 

We wrapped up 2020 with a retirement balance of $834,124.84!! 

I'm nearly speechless by that number. 

The work and effort all of these years is working!

The balance of those accounts was $660,822.27 at the end of 2019. We contributed the maximum to our Roth IRA accounts, $6000 for me, and $7,000 for my husband since he is now over 50. We also contributed to his TSP (Thrift Savings Plan) in the amount of $10,987.80. 

The increase for the year was $173,302.57. The contributions were $23,987.80, the growth portion was $149,314.77. Amazing!!

Our contributions are 18.3% of our gross income. We also saved another $20K towards our Pot of Possibilities this year, for a total savings rate of 33.6% of income. 

When calculating our gross income I did include our housing allowance from the military. The full housing allowance goes to pay our rent on base housing. It's tempting to leave it out, but everyone has some type of housing expense to pay or cover out of income. 

My husband was promoted in December. We are still waiting for the increased pay to hit our bank account. At this point we are owed money for December, which we will save! We have plans to increase retirement and other savings significantly in 2021. Because we can live on 2/3 of 2020 income, there is no reason to not save all of my husbands raise. I will write more on that once we are actually getting paid! 

Did you successfully meet your retirement goals? Do you save automatically? (Hint, that is what helps make it so easy to do!)

2021 Financial Planning: College, Promotion and Taxes

I've been running lots of numbers over the last couple weeks to help us plan for college and to adjust for my husband's promotion which should be effective on December 1. It remains to be seen how long it will take to get the correct pay. 

Just a little update, slightly unrelated, our oldest daughter graduated college in May with about $5,500 in student loans. She starts her first full time job on November 30. She has been preparing a budget and asking about things we pay for that she will take over, which is primarily auto insurance. Her paycheck in comparison to ours which has grown over time is stressing me out and giving me flashbacks to our early married years! I'm proud that she is thinking ahead and trying to figure it all out. I reminded her that some of what she has saved was a housing refund from the spring and should be applied to her loan. While I don't think she wants to see her savings go down, she seemed to be relieved about a much lower balance to work on! 

Our youngest daughter just took her last final of the semester. A few weeks ago she signed up for spring classes and determined that she can't keep up the 18 credit hours per semester as an engineering major. This means she will be extending her time at the university by one semester. For us that means four full semesters of tuition and housing left to pay. She has just under $12K in an Educational Savings Account (ESA), around $4K in a UTMA and 8 months of Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to use. We also save $500 a month for college expenses to cover at least $4000 in eligible expenses so we can take advantage of the American Opportunity Tax Credit(AOTC). We do seem to find a way to spend the full $6000 we save each year towards her expenses. 

The current plan is to pay out of pocket for tuition in January, using her ESA to pay for housing. We will begin using the Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits in August 2021. It will cover all of January 2022 and possibly a small portion of her final semester in August 2022. The final semester will be a larger bill as her scholarship will have run out, but we have figured out that we will have the money on hand to pay it as we continue to save the $500/month. We might have extra funds that we won't use, but that will be determined by how much tuition rises over the next two years. I started the process to start using the GI Bill benefits this spring, but when we realized she was going to need an extra semester it made sense to wait, primarily so we could also get benefit of the AOTC in 2021, very helpful as we adjust to the raise my husband is getting. In 2022, we will no longer be eligible to use the AOTC, but the Lifetime Learning Credit is an option and also provides some tax relief. 

In reviewing our taxes for this year and next, I had to calculate my husband's future pay and how taxes would affect the increase which is significant as he is being promoted to the next rank. We have maxed out our Roth IRA for quite a few years now, including the catch up amount for my husband because he is over 50. We have been in the lowest two (I think) tax brackets and it made sense to pay the taxes now knowing we aren't likely to be in even lower tax brackets at retirement. Without any deferred retirement we most definitely hit the 22% tax bracket. However, I am considering putting the amount he puts into his Roth IRA all into a Traditional IRA or adding it to his TSP (Thrift Savings Plan). We save on taxes now and will likely be in a lower tax bracket when these funds are withdrawn on these funds and their earnings. I think that is the plan anyway. I may go back and see if I can figure out a smaller amount to add to the TSP to keep the taxes low, but also put some into the Roth. Just takes time to figure out and I do feel good that I have a plan for now at least! 

The next step is to determine what we do with the extra income. Do we just save it? Should we save it in a mutual fund or look for a great CD rate (do those exist?!)? I feel like we are in a new place with our income, so it's time to start dreaming what this extra money could do!

Have you made any adjustments to your finances as you look ahead to 2021?