No, I am not talking about getting kicked off your work computer for the third time today to install some new windows nonsense. I’m talking about ME! It’s been… let us see — roughly TWO years since my last confession? That is definitely my bad.

What can I say? Life happens and we forget about certain things for a while until it is no longer a habit to do them. I will skip the finer details, but overall it has been an interesting 2 years. I ended up hitting my 9 year mark and had another re-enlistment, a forward nod to do an IPCOT for another 4 years of OCONUS fun, another surgery, another (current) deployment… and a slew of other good and bad things in between. It is definitely true what they say — the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Since you are here for financial reasons, I suppose updates on that front are the most wanted! I think a good starting point / look back is my “new year resolution” post back from 2018, just to keep me honest.

Continue with 10% TSP contributions — Since my trip to Afghanistan in 2017 (good food, not so good people, not sure if recommend), I have actually upped and kept my TSP percentage at 30% for all of 2018 AND 2019. This year, I have set it to 60% and have not looked back. New goal is to max it EVERY YEAR until retirement.

Max ROTH IRAs for myself and the wife – This one was a little trickier with the additional 20% (and now additional 50%) going to the TSP, but we managed it. My wife was able to start working, but I did have to take some money out of my taxable investments to max out both of our IRAs. Those funds have been replaced and my wife has already been able to max out her IRA account for the 2020 tax year while I still have $4K left to go this tax year.

Save enough to purchase an additional investment property to rent out (~25k on a purchase price of 120k) – Not quite. We had a lot of headaches with our two houses. Fence replacement, repainting, loss of tenants, firing of my previous PM company, mold issues, and HVAC duct replacement as well as some additional maintenance. Not overly pleased, but it seems like we are finally on the right track. With this whole COVID thing (more on that later), I am looking forward to getting house #3 in the next year as the economic outlook seems potentially grim for most markets in the near future.

After the above is met, raise TSP to 30% or more. – addressed in point 1.

I wouldn’t give myself an A+ for 2019, but I do feel great going on 2020. I will go ahead and dive into a bit more of my personal numbers for transparency, motivation, or whatever else.

Cash position – I currently have roughly $6K in cash. Everything over this amount has been invested monthly, either additionally into my Roth IRA or a taxable account.

REMEMBER – time IN the market, beats TIMING the market.

In my Roth IRA, I have an additional $62.5K.

Taxable investments total of $12K.

Roth TSP total of $42.8K.

My crypto gamble hasn’t done great, but I have roughly $3K in there as well and is just staying put unless I do have to take it out for some emergency.

I am now happy to say that not only do I have over $100K in total ASSETS (as I calculated in that New Year’s post), but I now have over $100K in LIQUID investments – NOT counting my wife’s Roth IRA portfolio.

A W E S O M E

In addition, my enthusiast car that is in storage at my HOR (not to be confused with my current duty station) has been seeing prices north of $18K for similar mileage/condition models selling on various sales and auction sites.

Finally, the two rent homes now have a combined equity of just over $53K.

My 2020 financial plans include finishing maxing my IRA ($4K), max out the TSP around November (~$9K left [as my 60% started in March]) add some individual stocks to the tune of an additional $4K, and finally, put aside that ~$25K for house #3 within a year – IF the numbers make sense.