How are your New Year’s resolutions going? I haven’t made mine yet. It usually takes me a month to set them up. Before getting to those new ones, I need to close out 2024 with a review of the old ones.
Usually, I do a monthly update, but I will focus more on the annual results. It will be a mix.
Personal Monthly Recap
In December, we:
- celebrated my wife’s birthday
- watched Santa come to town on a boat
- got destroyed in a Lego robotics competition (but had a lot of fun)
- ran a mile in Christmas costumes
- watched my son perform in It’s a Wonderful Life
- watched our kids perform in the school chorus
- walked through a holiday-themed $500 million dollar mansion
- went to the Enchanted Village to see really creepy animatronics that my wife and I grew up with 60s and 70s
- went to Clement Clarke Moore’s house, who wrote ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas… on the night before Christmas
- took a trip to spend a couple of hours at the Lego store in NYC to build a custom minifigure
That last item is important because we had to cancel our trip after a couple of hours. The year ended on a roller coaster. On a low note, our dog sitter lost our dog for three days, but on a high note we found her, and she’s now safe and sound.
Usually, I post some some pictures from the last month, but the year end review has taken more time to write up. I just want to hit the publish button!
Back to the Passive Income and Goals
I put my goals in a spreadsheet and review it once a month. I know that I have too many goals to complete them all, but it gives me the freedom to work on whatever strikes my fancy. Most people find it less overwhelming to focus on fewer goals. That’s just another reason why I’m weird. Do whatever works for you.
Here’s how the year went. I’ve put the yearly numbers in bold:
Click for a larger version in a new window
Passive Income
I have three side hustles with a passive component: a dog-sitting business, this blog, and managing a website for a non-profit. All three require some active work. However, I can get paid for all three even while working a full-time job. That’s why I consider them somewhat passive income. (If this definition of passive income seems off or confusing, please refer to my the last stand-alone article on passive income, where I give a much more detailed explanation.)
Dog, Blog, and Web Income
Dog boarding was fairly poor in December. The planned vacation after Christmas meant that I had to turn down a good amount of business. Blogging had a little rebound because I recommended some products around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The passive income for the non-profit website has been the same all year long. For the month, we made $2260.
Because this type of income requires some active work, I only count half of it as passive income. For the year, that amounts to $28,368 from this section. The VAST majority is from the dog sitting. Blogging income has fallen off a cliff and web stuff is still small potatoes.
Rental Property Income
We have two rental properties. They still have 15-year mortgages, so the rental income is just a couple hundred dollars more than breaking even each month. We’re almost done with one mortgage, but the other had to be refinanced as part of a 1031 exchange. I expect that they’ll make around $25,000 a year after expenses when we’re done paying off the mortgages.
For the purpose of this report, I calculate their income using the following formula:
(Rental Income After Estimated Expenses) * (Equity Percentage Owned) = Passive Income
Estimated expenses are insurance, property taxes, condo fees, and estimated condo maintenance. Equity Percentage Owned (EPO) is our total equity divided by the property value in Zillow. (Zillow is very accurate for our condos.)
I calculate the rents on the properties at around $2,657/mo., after expenses. This calculation is a little disingenuous because I average what our true rents are and what the market says they should be. We should be charging a lot more, but we have good tenants, and we’re trying to be kind, considering the exploding housing costs.
Zillow says our rental properties were worth $3,000 less than last month. Lately, these changes of 1% of the value have been fairly common. We continue to pay off a thousand dollars of mortgage debt on them every month. That mostly cancels out when it comes to the EPO. This month, we owned 82% of the properties. Using the equation above, this would be $2,179 in monthly income.
Managing rental properties requires some work – a few days a year. For this reason, I only count 80% of this number as passive income. That means that I can only count $1,743 for December’s passive income.
For the year, we made over $42,000 in equity and about $4,000 in cash flow. It wasn’t a great year for real estate compared to the stock market, but that’s not bad at all.
Dividend Income
My wife has been maxing out her retirement accounts for a little more than two decades. I maxed out my retirement accounts for my first ten years of employment, but it got much tougher when I became self-employed. At that point, I mostly focused on maxing out my Roth IRA and a little on my SEP-IRA. Investing this money for so long has created quite the nest egg for us.
For the dividend income portion of our passive income, I assume we invested all the money in brokerage accounts (retirement and non-retirement) into an ETF that conservatively pays a 2.5% dividend. I use this 2.5% number because I’m too “Lazy” to track the exact dividends from all accounts. Also, dividend payments are very inconsistent, with most payments coming quarterly. Is 2.5% a fair number as an estimate? I’ll let you be the judge, but one ETF, iShares Core High Dividend (HDV), is paying around 3.47% right now.
I also have profit-sharing income with a private company in which I own a small stake. I get a check each month that behaves like a dividend – it’s just taxed a little differently.
This month, our dividend income using this estimation was $5,045. The markets gave up all the crazy election gains.
For the year, this monthly dividend number went from $4,448 to $5,045 for a gain of almost $600. Ending with over $60,000 is very good.
Unlike the previous two sections, this income is 100% passive. For this reason, I don’t have to adjust the numbers.
Total Passive Income
Dog/Blogs: $2,260 – Adjusted to $1,130
Rentals: $2,179 – Adjusted to $1,743
Dividends: $5,045 – Remains at $5,045
Dogs/Blogs Blue Line
Rental – Red Line
Dividend – Yellow Line
Total Adjusted Passive Income: $7,918.20
Here’s a graph of the numbers since 2017, when I started keeping track:
(The blue line represents the monthly total adjusted passive income. The Red Line represents the 12-month average. This helps remove some of the seasonality of dog boarding.
For all three areas in total, we made $104,679. Last year all three areas came to $95,182. The growth was entirely from the rental and dividend area.
My wife continues to work as well. She now has 25 years in the military and will be getting a pension that effectively doubles all this passive income. Her job has gotten easier and seemingly more fun, so she might stay 30 years and grow the pension more.
I can’t think of anywhere else to put this information, but our net worth lost 1.87% last month. Overall, we finished the year up 13.24%.
Some people track their spending to know where their money goes. I’m too lazy, so I just look at the liquid cash number. Our liquid cash finished down $22,000 for the year. That’s not great and it gives us something to work on in 2025.
Business and Other Money Goals
Personal Income ($85,000)
Two years ago, I made over $98,000 in side hustles. Last year, I made $88,000. In 2024, I cut back on dog boarding and aimed for $85,000.
With blogging falling off a cliff, I didn’t make that reduced goal. Instead, I made $81,217.
Complete Estate Planning
We got 95% of the way done with this one. We just have to sign the engagement letter with the lawyer and finish a couple of minor details.
Kid Wealth (Goal: 50,000 Page Views)
In 2024, I hoped to get 50,000 lifetime page views on Kid Wealth.
In 2022, I launched Kid Wealth and wrote a lot of articles. It had 4,200 page views that year. In 2023, I got involved in other projects, but traffic tripled to 13,708. This year, I’ve only posted a couple of articles – ouch. Fortunately traffic is up this year for a total of 17,278 page views.
Kid Wealth has up to 35,186 views all-time. If traffic remains steady, I’ll finally complete this one near the end of 2025.
Professional Improvements
This year, I updated my LinkedIn and refreshed some of my tech skills in getting WordPress to run on Amazon Web Services. I also worked a little on creating a website for some freelance work. I’m giving myself a 30 out of 100 on this one. There was a lot of room for a lot more.
Health
I put a lot more focus on my health in 2024. With a good financial situation, the goal is to be healthy enough to spend it all well.
Lose Weight and Body Fat (Goal: 175lbs, 22.5% body fat)
I started on January 1st at 192.5 pounds and 26.3% body fat, according to my Fitbit scale.
I did a huge reveal on my weight and body fat a few days ago. I lost 12 pounds and 3% body fat through diet and exercise and hit a wall. I couldn’t get consistently below 180lbs and 23.5% body fat. In the middle of November, I tried semaglutide and finished the year at 174.6 lbs and 22.4% body fat.
In some ways, it feels like I cheated to get to my goal. However, I’m looking at it as a colossal win. If I had just maintained the 180lbs where I hit the wall, that would have been enough of a win. However, I did that, and now feel like there’s a path forward to lose even more weight. I need to get to 164 pounds for my 5’8″ height to give me a BMI reading in the healthy range.
Health Points (Goal: 350)
This year, I’m tracking my health by giving myself a score at the end of the week for diet and exercise. The top score in each is five points.
When I give myself a five, I am saying that I generally had the reasonably best week possible. I can only have a couple of off meals a week and still get a five. The rest of the time, I have to eat with a purpose, such as half fruits and vegetables or half plant protein. If go out to restaurants and just eat whatever I want, then I’m only going to get one point.
For exercise, I’d have to put in a very solid effort every day to get a five. At the start of the year, I got mostly one point each week. The weather wasn’t very good, and I wasn’t motivated to exercise. Since spring, I’ve started walking more – often getting in 10,000 steps a day. I need to do higher cardio and weights, but this is a step in the right direction.
With 52 weeks, I can earn a maximum of 260 health points each for diet and exercise.
I finished the year with 266 points. I’ve missed my goal of 350 points, but I know it’s helped me make much healthier decisions. In 2025, I’ll aim for 300 points.
Health Appointments
Medical appointments are a very important part of staying healthy. This is what I did for the year.
Dental – I did a couple of deep cleanings this year. It was two separate appointments where they did one side and then the other. I had my regular cleanings and filling replaced.
ADHD – I finally got diagnosed with ADHD. Getting the standard testing with a specialist was impossible, with the scheduling being months in the future and their insurance policies changing at that time. Finally, I did an assessment at ADHD Online and paid out of pocket. I brought the results to my primary care physician, and she prescribed me a very low dosage of Adderall. It’s been very helpful.
Body Analysis – In February, I got a body analysis from DexaFit after watching “You Are What You Eat” on Netflix. They scanned my body completely for body fat. I also got a VO2 max test for cardio fitness and an RMR metabolic analysis. The results weren’t what I was looking for, but they will be a good baseline. I need to book another test and see how it looks for this year. I’ll be carrying 10-12 fewer pounds, which should be a lot better.
Annual Physical – I have had a few appointments with my doctor for a year now. Sometimes, it’s just the annual physical, but I also went for my ADHD and one other time.
I started a quest to regrow hair and the before and after pictures show great progress.
I also started to try anti-aging creams. Hims has a combination of a few different prescription creams. (That Hims link is an affiliate link, so I might earn a few dollars if you purchase after clicking.) I started daily sunscreen. I even started using snail mucin, which came up as a cheap Amazon Prime Day item. I saw enough positive reviews to give it a shot, and I like it. I’m purposely not going to name a brand or anything because I know how scammy skin creams are. I don’t want you to think that I am trying to make a penny of pitching a brand.
I have ideas for a whole new set of health goals for 2025. It will likely be a separate article.
Hobbies
I quickly made up some hobbies to try last year. This is always difficult for me.
- Learn AI
I came up with this one thinking that I’d learn how to be an expert prompt engineer. There’s definitely skill involved in getting the most out of AI, but it seems fairly easy to get good results. During the election, I used AI to help me write articles about the economy that would be free of any political bias that I had. Of course, I disclosed the AI response so you could see the result.
- Canva
I have only used Canva once this year, but it was easy. Maybe this isn’t a “skill” that I really need to learn. I thought I’d use it more for images in blog posts, but AI can make something that’s good enough.
- 3D Printing
I never found time to figure out the problem I’m having with the filament loading. It’s probably a quick YouTube video. The 3D printer I bought is in the basement, and it’s cold this time of year, so it’s out of sight and out of mind.
- Rubik’s Cube
My 11-year-old got into speed cubing last year and can do it in 90-seconds. It took a little practice many weeks of the year, but I can do it in about 2.5 minutes now. Maybe this next year we’ll learn the more complicated, but faster, algorithms.
- WordPress Blog as a Journal?
This didn’t happen. I’m not interested in installing WordPress on my local computer to write a journal. There are apps out there that are better suited for that.
- Program in Python
I did some freelance web stuff that helped knock the rust off. I’m giving myself partial credit for this one. I’ll probably put this back on the list, but combine it with AI, so that I’m programming in Python with AI. Then, perhaps I’ll need to tweak things manually.
- Learn to fly a flight simulator and play backgammon
I didn’t do either of these. Maybe I’ll push them to 2025. I’m not sure if I’m interested in them enough.
- Play a modern song on an ukulele
I got the ukulele out and tuned it, but got no further. This is definitely going on the list in 2025.
Overall, this may not seem like a lot of progress, but I’m counting the Rubik’s Cube for a lot. We got a new dog early in the year, and training her could have easily been the biggest “hobby.”
Family
Declutter and Organize House
This year, we are looking to declutter, organize, and upgrade the whole house. We hired a friend who is an interior designer and she put together a good plan. For years, we had a lot of cheap Ikea furniture. It did the job, but we can be a little more fancy now. In May we finished the dining room, which is one of our smallest rooms.
In July, we cleaned out the office to make room for new desks. We also cleaned up the basement and made it much more functional. We now have a little workout area and an area for the kids to play. I set up some of my old gaming consoles and made them easy to play.
In August, we got the new desks and bookshelves for the office. It’s from Pottern Barn – the stuff that lifestyle inflation is made of.
In September, I got about half of my stuff organized into the office desk and bookshelves. I also did a little work on decluttering the garage. Our outdoor light fixtures were 30 years old and failing, so we replaced them with the help of an electrician.
In November, we ordered a pair of Herman Miller Mirra chairs from an office clearance website. If we had bought two of them new, it would have been $2500. Instead, we paid under $1000. I don’t mind paying so much for the chairs because they are top quality at a discount. We got them in December, and they’ve been great. I don’t think anyone should pay full price for office furniture like desk chairs. It seems like there are always some companies going out of business and some liquidation going on.
We’ve got a number of ideas for 2025. Home maintenance is never done.
Travel
In March, we spent a week on a Yucatán Peninsula cruise on one of Royal Caribbean’s biggest cruise ships and another week at Disney World.
In April, we went to the eclipse and did a day of skiing. Usually, I wouldn’t count weekends as travel, but it was a notable life experience.
In June, we went on our annual trip to Block Island. We can drive to the ferry in a half hour and be on the island in 90 minutes. It’s a nice staycation for four days. The highlight was a scavenger hunt that we did on our phones. It was all virtual.
Of course, the big August trip was to see Paramore and Taylor Swift, go to Stonehenge, and do a Beatles tour in Liverpool.
In October, the whole family went to Atlanta. I had my FinCon conference, so the hotel room was already booked. My wife knows a lot of people at the CDC and wanted to meet up with them. The kids came along to see the Coca Cola factory and the largest aquarium in the United States. It was a short trip, but still valuable.
We tried to squeeze in one last road trip before the end of the year (NYC, American Dream in NJ, and Hershey Park). However, our dog sitter lost our dog, and we only got to spend a couple of hours in NYC.
Kids
Both kids almost have their black belts in karate. Recently, the co-owners of the martial arts dojo ran into some bad luck, so they haven’t held the final tests in several months. The 12-year-old continues to do a lot of acting – usually about four plays a year. He just completed his Boy Scouts Tenderfoot. He’s on the school swim team, too. He did a 13+ cooking camp (he was 11 at the time) and did an overnight camp for Scouts. He’s in the school’s yearbook club as well.
The 11-year-old does the stage crew stuff for the plays. He also completed an art camp. He did a month of sailing camp which was two sessions. He’s almost completed all his requirements to finish Cub Scouts and join the Boy Scouts. He’s currently on the school basketball team. He joined the school’s green club.
Both kids did the FIRST Lego League Challenge, which is an introduction to robotics.
Overall, they are very busy kids. I think they are too busy, but their school requires sports and pushes a club. That’s fine, but we have our own things, like martial arts and Scouting, that we believe help build a strong character. If they find things that they truly love, like acting and sailing, we want to make room for those as well. We know a lot of other kids who are just as busy.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard for me to rate 2024 as anything less than a tremendous success. I never would have thought that I’d stick to and accomplish as much on the health side. Even before I started the semaglutide in November, it had been several years since I made as much weight loss progress. I’m now at a weight that I was when the kids were 3 and 4. I feel a few years younger, too.
