Andy Hough

2018 Review and 2019 Plans

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Before I write about my 2019 plans I want to review my 2018 plans. In 2018 I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions or specific goals for the year I just shared some things I planned to accomplish during the year. The three things I planned to accomplish during 2018 were to save/make money, finish hiking the Appalachian Trail, and lose weight.

I did not finish hiking the AT. I spent a couple of weeks hiking on the trail and didn’t complete much mileage. I wasn’t able to get in a consistent hiking groove so I decided to return home rather than keep hiking. I”d still like to finish the AT, but it isn’t a priority so I’m not making it a goal right now.

I did accomplish the goal of saving/making more money. My total earnings were actually a little lower in 2018. However, the more important goal of saving more money was accomplished. I put over $11,000 in my company 401k, $6500 in my IRA, $400 in my solo 401k, and also invested about $2k in dividend stocks. That was well over 50% of my after-tax income. I’m considering this plan/goal a win.

My third and final plan was to lose weight. The first half of the year I actually gained weight. The plan was not going well. After I moved to Thailand I made great progress losing weight. I started 2018 at 230.2 pounds, went all the way up to 234.6 pounds, before eventually getting all the way down to 206.4 pounds. I didn’t set a specific amount of weight to lose. I think losing 23.8 pounds qualifies as losing weight and consider that plan accomplished.

In summary, I accomplished 2 of my 3 goals last year. As Meat Loaf says, “2 out of 3 ain’t bad“, so I’m satisfied with those results.

This year I am going to make my goals a little bit harder. This year I intend to focus more on actions rather than end results. For example, I can’t completely control whether I lose 30 pounds. However, I can control how often I exercise and whether I drink soda. If I follow my actions I’ll probably reach my goal. Even if I don’t reach the goal I’ll make good progress and developed good habits.

I’m sharing some of my goals now and I’ll make further goals once I’m in Thailand and have ample free time to get things done.

My first goal is to be able to do 1 chin-up. I haven’t been able to do a chin-up since I was 21. That is 30 years ago so being able to do a chin-up would be a pretty big accomplishment. This is a repeat goal from a couple of years ago. I didn’t make much progress on it then. I’m bringing back the goal since my brother left behind one of those pull-up bars that hang over a doorway at my mom’s house. I’ve been using it several times a day and can tell I’m getting closer to being able to do a chin-up. I can now do 1 band-assisted chin-up and can lift myself up several inches without the band. Last year when I first tried to do a chin-up I couldn’t even lift myself off the ground so this is good progress. If I continue to use the pull-up bar several times a day and lose weight (see next goal) I’m certain I’ll accomplish my goal of doing a chin-up.

My second goal is to get down to a BMI of 24.9. That would put me in the normal range for BMI. Last year I managed to get my BMI down to 29.9 and below which put me in the overweight range rather than the obese range I had been in for several years. I have gained some weight back and now have a 30 BMI putting me back in the obese range. That means this year I need to go from obese to normal weight. To accomplish that I am going to resume my intermittent fasting. I got out of the habit once I returned to the U.S. Intermittent fasting consistently will help me lose weight. The big thing I’m going to do to lose weight is stop drinking Dr Pepper. Soda makes up a big portion of my calorie intake. Giving up Dr Pepper will be difficult, but I know it will help a lot in losing weight. The last thing I’m going to do is make sure I exercise at least a little every day. I bought a jump rope and am using it for a few minutes several times a day. It isn’t much, but I do think it will help.

I’m also going to set some goals for this blog. I will flesh those out once I’m in Thailand. The goals will involve writing more, improving SEO, and figuring out ways to make more money from the blog.

That is all my goals for now. I’ll add more goals during the year. Working at my tax job and then my trip to Thailand will take up the first half of the year. I’m unsure what I want to do for the second half of the year. Once I figure that out I can set more goals that will work with my plans for the second half of the year.

2018 Annual Expenses – $17,443

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My annual expenses in 2018 were almost $4000 higher than my annual expenses of $13,697 in 2017. My annual expenses for the past few years were $16,431 in 2016, $16,999 in 2015 and $15,775 in 2014. That makes 2018 my highest spending year of the past few years. I’m hoping I will be able to reduce my expenses this year a bit. I do have some travel and dental expenses planned that will make it difficult to reduce my expenses much this year.

My total expenses for 2018 do not include the $4105 I paid on my student loan. Since those were voluntary payments that I was not required I consider them to be more in the nature of savings then an expenditure. This year I am required to make $132 monthly payments on my student loan. Those required payments will be included in my expenses for 2019 which will make it tougher to keep my 2019 expenses lower than my 2018 expenses.

My biggest expense for the year was $4655 for rent. That was a fair bit lower than the $5490 I paid for rent in 2017. This year I expect my rent to be even lower. I’m paying a very low rent while staying at my mom’s house. When I’m in Thailand I’ll have a very low rent there as well.

My second biggest expense was $4861 for medical, dental, and medicine. This was way more than I paid in 2017 and is the main reason my total 2018 expenses were quite a bit than my 2017 expenses. I’m hoping to lower this expense in 2019. However, I have a $130 monthly health insurance premium this year compared to a $0 monthly premium for most of 2018. I also need to get my dental bridge redone and probably get a dental implant. With all of that my 2019 expenses probably won’t be much lower than in 2018.

My household expense for 2018 was $477. This category includes things like clothing, utilities, gifts, and anything I buy that doesn’t fit in one of the other categories. I expect this category to be about the same in 2019. I rarely buy clothes, I don’t currently have a utility expense, and I don’t buy much random stuff so this expense doesn’t add up to much.

I spent $317 for the year for phone service. That works out to about $26.41 a month. I expect this expense to stay about the same this year unless I have to buy a new phone. The battery in my current phone seems to be losing power quickly so I might go ahead and replace my phone this year. Even if I get a new phone I don’t expect this expense to go up much.

I spent $2352 on transportation expenses for 2018. That included $770 for maintenance, $831 for gas, and $750 for insurance, registration, a speeding ticket, and other miscellaneous car expenses. Barring a major repair this expense should come down quite a bit this year. Since I’m working from home I’ll be spending very little on gas and when I’m in Thailand I won’t be spending anything on gas.

I spent $2084 on food in 2018 compared to $1957 in 2017. Many people would consider this a low total already, but I think I can reduce this quite a bit. I spent $547 on groceries and $1537 on dining out in 2018. If I can reduce the dining out and eat at home more often this expense will go down. Also, since I’m still about 45 pounds overweight I need to eat less food in general. Less food eaten should equal less money spent.

I spent $1707 on travel last year compared to $1057 in 2017. My travel consisted of a two-week hiking trip and a two and a half month trip to Thailand which included three-day stay in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as well. The trips included numerous hotel nights, a train ride from KC to Massachusetts, a one-way car rental from NY to KC, round trip airfare from Los Angeles to Asia, round trip airfare from KC to LA, a business class ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, travel visas and other miscellaneous travel expenses. For that amount of travel I think this expense was pretty low. Just the round-trip ticket from the U.S. to Asia could have cost $1700 if I didn’t plan ahead and use credit card rewards.

This year I will probably spend about the same on travel. I’ve already purchased a round-trip ticket from the U.S. to Shanghai, China and a round-trip ticket from Shanghai to Bangkok. I’ll be in Thailand for about 2 1/2 months. If it is financially viable I will take a second trip to Thailand later in the year.

Other expenses were $91.36 for fitness, $584 for movies, and $308 for entertainment. The total of those expenses should be about the same this year. I plan to spend less on movies which will probably be offset by spending more on entertainment.

That covers all of my expenses for 2018. If you have any questions about what I spent on certain categories of expenses or are wondering where some expenses are feel free to ask questions in the comments.

December Income – $1810.41

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Here is a breakdown of my income for December.

Interest $5.10
Amazon FBA $145.28
Job $1437.71
Mystery Shops $4.84
Uber $11.19
Dividends $12.69
Online Income $193.6
Total $1810.41

December’s income was decent. The income was mostly from a couple weeks pay from a document review project. I did make a little from other sources. Job income remains my biggest source of income. I’ve got a long way to go before I can pay my expenses from non-job income.

Online income did finally come back a little. This blog didn’t make a lot of money last year. I’d like to change that this year.

My dividend income reached double digits for the first time. A lot of my stocks paid dividends in December. Not as many pay dividends in January so the dividend income will be down this month. I’m purchasing more dividend stocks as I have extra money to invest. At my current rate it will take a long time before I can go from double digits to triple digits.

I have started my tax job.  With the way the paychecks fall I will only get one paycheck from them this month. I also will have three day’s pay from the document review project. That should result in this month’s income being very close to December’s income. I’m hoping it will be just a tad higher. Since I will be returning to Thailand as soon as the tax season is over I need to make and save as much money as I can the next 3 1/2 months.

December Expenses – $1101.10

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

Household $9.90
Rent $440
Entertainment $54.62
Transportation $189.76
Food $161.07
Travel $70.53
Phone $50.78
Health $124.44
Total $1101.10

My December expenses were reasonably low. I expect my monthly expenses will stay around this level for the next few months.

The rent was for 10 nights hotel in Kansas City while I was working on a document review project there. It also includes $125 paid to my mom for staying at her home. The next few months my rent will be very low since I’m staying at my mom’s house and she is only charging me 1/2 of the utilities as rent. I offered to pay more, but half of the utilities is all she wanted to be paid.

Transportation was mainly gas for my car. I drove between KC and southern Missouri several times while working on the document review job. I also had to pay a little over $50 for personal property tax on my car. This month I will only drive to KC one time and otherwise will be working from home so the transportation expense should go way down.

My food expense was about the same as always. It should go down a bit this month since I will be eating at home more often. Spending about $150 a month on food is pretty reasonable so I won’t sweat this expense category too much.

Travel was for taxes and fees on a round-trip airline ticket from a small regional airport near my current home to Shanghai, China. From China I can buy a round-trip ticket to Thailand for less than $200. I was going to delay buying a ticket to Asia then I saw a deal for cheap award flights on Delta from the U.S. to China. When I was able to find a ticket allowing me to start from Springfield, MO I decided to go ahead and get the ticket. The ticket was only 34,000 Delta points which is about half of the regular price.

Being able to leave from Springfield means that I don’t need a domestic positioning flight like last year. For my Asia trip last year I had to buy a positioning flight from KC to LA and also got a hotel in LA for the night since I wanted to be in LA a day early to make sure I didn’t miss my flight due to a delay from KC. Not needing a domestic positioning flight will save me a little money and time. The combination of the low cost of the ticket and the convenience of flying from a nearby airport on one itinerary was enough to convince me to go ahead and book my Asia flight now. It is unlikely there will be a better deal for my circumstances before I leave for Asia.

Phone was for almost two months of Google Fi phone service. When I paused my service in Thailand they didn’t be bill me for the almost full month I had used at that time. After I resumed service they billed me for that almost full month and the new month. This bill will go down to about $25 this month.

Health was for the January premium on my new health insurance. My health insurance premium for this year has gone up about $125 a month. Last year, subsidies were enough to pay my entire health insurance premium. With the rate hike that is no longer the case. I didn’t get much use from my Marketplace insurance last year. I had one doctor visit that I had to pay out of pocket for and then they paid a little towards my prescriptions. If I understand my health insurance coverage correctly, my new policy is a little better. It will allow me to have doctor visits for free or a low co-pay rather than being out of pocket until I hit my deductible like last year. Since I’ve moved I will be visiting a new doctor so I might have a few visits getting things checked out this year.

My student loan payment amount has adjusted from $0 to $132 a month. Since I’m on income-based repayment my premium went up due my higher income in 2017. The total of the required payments will still be less than I voluntarily paid last year so this isn’t really a big deal.

I’m pretty happy with my December expenses.  How was your month?

December 2018 Net Worth Update

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It isn’t quite the end of the year but it is close enough that I am going to make this my end of the year net worth update. This is my first net worth update since last year. I’ll probably continue to just update my net worth once a year unless something happens to significantly affect my net worth during the year.

2018 Year End Net Worth

Assets

  • Cash – $4017
  • Stocks – $2162
  • Misc – $174
  • Solo 401k – $3778
  • Trad IRA- $37,918
  • 401k – $10,552
  • Roth IRA – $1609
  • Property – $1000

Liabilities

  • Student Loan – $121,003
  • Credit Card – $7200

My total assets of $61,210 minus my liabilities of $128,203 results in a year-end net worth of -$66,993. I managed to improve my net worth by a little over $4000 this year.

That is a poor result considering I added $6500 to my IRA and a little over $12,000 to my 401k accounts. The stock market decline resulted in a large portion of this year’s contributions disappearing.

The student loan continues to be a drag on my net worth. Although I paid several thousand dollars on the student loan this year it wasn’t enough to keep up with the interest. The loan accrues over $500 a month in interest which makes it impossible for me to make progress on paying down the loan. Unless my income at least doubles I am not going to be able to pay off the student loan.

I made another mistake of taking a 0% balance transfer on one of my credit cards. I used the money to top off my IRA contribution for the year and invest in some individual stocks. The market decline erased almost all of the money I contributed from the transfer. Nonetheless, the credit card still needs to be paid off before next November. Lesson learned – do not use debt to invest. Actually, I’m going to take that lesson a bit further and state that I will not take on any new debts at all. The only possible exception would be a mortgage and I don’t foresee that happening in the near future.

This year’s results were rather disappointing. The increase in my net worth did not reflect my high saving rate. Looking at the bright side, I now own more shares of the stocks and funds I invested in this year than I did last year so if the stock market rebounds next year my net worth should get a nice boost.

How did your net worth do this year?