Last year I increased by net worth from $309,894 in January of 2015 to $352,066 in January of 2016 (increase of $42,112 or 13% YoY increase.) This is not accounting for the last week of declines, which may or may not hinder 2016 growth. With a total net worth of $352k to start this year, I’m focused on my goal of hitting $400k by the end of 2016. Although this isn’t my original goal of $500k by the end of 2016, I think $400k is still a very aggressive and challenging goal for this year.

In 2015, my stock portfolio increased from $144k to $171k. My retirement portfolio increased from $152k to $171k. Thus, the year concluded with approximately $342k in active investments (mostly stocks.) This is why when the market dips my portfolio significantly decreases. Since I have a substantial amount of funds in the stock market I tend to wait now a bit before putting large sums into play beyond what is already invested.

Goals for 2016:

Stocks: $200k, including $15k additional in Vanguard admiral healthcare fund, which has a $50k minimum. This would = $29k in net new investment, or ~$2.5k per month. If the market drops lower than monthly investments will have to increase to make up the difference.

• $1250 / month — Vanguard Healthcare Fund (to get to $50k admiral minimum)
• $400 / month — loyal3 fee-free partial stock investing
• $850 / month — Vanguard fund TBD to get to $10k admiral (might reinvest in the dividend growth fund I sold for losses after a month or so. We’ll see.)

Retirement: $190k (max out 401k and IRA for 2016 — $23.5k additional investment, or $2k per month)

• $18k = 401k max
• $5.5k = vanguard IRA (post tax)

Cash: $10k – I’d like to close out the year with a $10k emergency fund.

This = a total monthly investment of approximately $4.5k per month, up to $6.5k if the market drops further. $6.5k is fairly impossible w/ my general monthly expenses plus the wedding, so I think the $4.5k goal (esp with some of it in pre-tax dollars) is a reasonable objective. If the market sucks this year then I probably won’t get to $400k, but I’ll still be buying discount stocks which will hopefully go up at some point in the next 10 years to make up for any losses.

If I can do this then and maintain my job I should be able to close the year out with $400k net worth. This would be a very exciting achievement for this year, as I’d still be on target to hit $500k prior to 35 (2018.)