2021 Midyear Review

What a year it has been so far! We are in the second half of 2021 already. I want to give an update on my financial standings and discuss some things I want to do in the next six months.

First, I want to congratulate myself on reaching my year-end goal a whole six month early. In December of last year, I set a goal of reach a net worth of $127,500 in a year. I’ve actually reached $130,000 a couple of weeks ago. Compound interest is indeed the eighth wonder of the world! Now, I’ve revised by projected net worth for the future years.

2021 (37) - Projected net worth: $127,500 $170,000

2022 (38) - Projected net worth: $170,000 $250,000

2023 (39) - Projected net worth: $216,750 $330,000

2024 (40) - Projected net worth: $268,000 $415,000

2025 (41) - Projected net worth: $500,000

These new targets are very doable since I’ve made some personal changes in my life that I’m actually saving about 70% of my income. I’ll be able to reach financial freedom several years earlier than I had first envisioned.

Second, I want to pat myself on the back again for starting this personal finance blog. This keeps me accountable and gamified the process of reaching FIRE. Since I’ve set those goals, it’s interesting to see if I can beat them ahead of the projected “due dates”. Blogging has forced me to track my progress and produced a historical record of my process, which is great when I need to refer back to something.

Third, there are things I did with my investment accounts that I wouldn’t have done if I had known things back then. I wouldn’t have bought so many stocks to begin with and I wish I was more diversified with my asset mix.

Currently, I have 96% of my holdings in equities (stocks) and 4% in fixed income (bonds). This is too risky and I’m predicating a market downturn is coming.

In the next six months, I want to diversify my assets to include more international equity ETFs and fixed income ETFs, both US and international. I would like my overall asset mix to be 60% US stocks, 20% international stocks, 10% US bonds, and 10% international bonds.

I will stop buying individual stocks because it’s hard to get pre-clearance and they are too risky. An individual stock can go to $0 while an ETF will probably never go to $0 unless all its holdings go to $0. From now on, I will only buy ETFs since they are priced in real time like stocks and they are diversified right away. Although their returns may not be as high as some high flying stocks, but ETFs are less volatile.

Additionally on the minimalism front, I’ve been sorting and selling more possessions. I need to donate some fall and winter clothing as well. It’s a process that will take some time to complete. In fact, it may never be completed since there are always things I can get rid of.

In the second half of this year, I will continue to read more books. So far this year I’ve read 11 books. I will pass my goal of reading 12 books per year, which is something that I set for myself several years ago. Currently, I’m reading Quit Like a Millionaire. A great book so far.

Well, that’s my midyear review. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and I plan to write more posts on this blog in the second half of 2021.