Tag: BHAG

End of the Year Goals Update 2018

This is the end, my only friend… (cue The Doors music). We have reached the last few days of the year. You know why I love this time of year? Let me be honest:

  1. presents. I love getting them, and I love giving them.
  2. year-end bonus. Mr. ThreeYear gets his bonus in December so we have this whole chunk of extra money burning a hole in our pockets (okay, not really-it usually goes to worthy financial goals. But we still splurge a little with it).
  3. Christmas music. It’s cozy and it reminds me of happy Christmases of yore (another totally holiday-appropriate word, yore is).
  4. Family. I get to hang out with my extended family during the holidays.
  5. New beginnings! The end of the year is the time when I’ve accomplished a lot of my goals, which gives me a happy, productive feeling, and then I have the excitement of creating a new goal sheet for the coming year.

While I gave you an update midyear , let’s see how I ended the year with these goals.

Continue reading “End of the Year Goals Update 2018”

2018 Goals Revealed!

Ahh, a brand-new year. There’s something so beautiful in the promise of the next 12 months, yet unfettered by mistakes or regrets. I am, without a doubt, a goal-oriented individual. Mr. ThreeYear eye-rolls, my family cringes, but I absolutely love setting and achieving goals. Last month, when we’d paid off our two outstanding debts, it felt so good to feel the finality of all that hard work and singular focus. And it feels really good not to have those payments coming up this month.

2018 Goals Revealed--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

My 2018 Goal Sheet

As I did last year, I have a Goal Sheet for 2018. And like last year, I’ve followed a similar format to setting up my goals, with one notable exception (or addition, I should say). Continue reading “2018 Goals Revealed!”

April Net Worth Update

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent so we can move abroad. Each month, I’ll keep you apprised of our progress. This year, we’ve got some major goals, including paying off our outstanding debt (car and apartment in Chile), replacing our roof, AND saving around $70,000. As of February, we were 9% of the way to doubling our net worth.

I waited until the end of April to post our net worth update, because, frankly, our March update wasn’t very exciting. Thanks to Mr. ThreeYear’s annual stock “gift,” however, April’s update actually moves our net worth dial. Mr. ThreeYear works for a 100% employee-owned company, and each year, in April, he receives a share of company stock (which is privately owned) equivalent to at least 8% of his base salary. The company is audited each December to set the stock’s yearly price.

Although this is an incredible “gift,” we consider it part of his total compensation, because that is what it effectively is, albeit tax-deductible (for all the ins and outs of how such a plan, called an ESOP, works, head here).   If he were to leave the company, he would need to take equal distributions over 5 years and roll the shares into a retirement account.

Kuchen--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com
Spending lots of time baking (and eating!) in snowy, cold March.

March and April were rough months for the ThreeYears, ain’t gonna lie. It’s always one of the toughest times of the year for me, living in New England as a transplanted Southern Belle (or, just…Southerner…). March and April are hard-wired into my psyche as a time when the birds are supposed to be chirping, flowers are supposed to be blooming, and snow is definitely NOT supposed to be still falling. Continue reading “April Net Worth Update”

The Three Year Experiment

In July, I turned 37. That felt older than 36. A lot, lot older.  For some reason, probably related to the fact that human beings have an innate sense, even as newborns, of the number 3, this made 40 feel really close. 40 feels old. I remember when my parents had their 40th birthdays like it was yesterday, and friends brought black balloons and tubes of BenGay over as gifts. I mean, look at the birthday gifts you get at 40! (I’m joking. I’m sure 40 will be very nice. I’m just particularly relishing the three years before I have to put a “4” on front of my age). Continue reading “The Three Year Experiment”