After a great start of 2018 in Curaçao, the normal life rhythm picked up again with school for the kids and business objectives at work. Last week we spend 4 days in the USA where the snow kicked in with beautiful landscapes as a result. See below picture.
2017 was the year where we launched our blog. To our own surprise, we have grown this year from 6000 visitors per month to more than 22.000 visitors per month. I am glad that more and more people realize that they have to learn how to grow their money and also teach their kids financial literacy.
During last week’s business travel I had some time to reflect on our defined 2017 goals.
Our 2017 Financial Goals
We had five SMART financial goals defined. If you don’t understand what SMART means, read here at this page.
- Save at least 10% of my yearly income (Pay myself first! – see our Financial strategy) – NOT Achieved
- Achieve a total of 6.600$ dividend income for the total year 2017 which equals an average of 550$ per month. Increase also our monthly dividend paying income to at least 300$. We would like to have a 30% increase if possible compared to 2016. Achieved
- Put my mom’s portfolio at work and generate at least a yearly 1.200$ dividend income. That equals a 100$ a month. Achieved
- Continue to grow my foster child and my kids’ portfolio. Monthly contributions for the portfolio of my foster child and dividend income focus for my kids’ portfolio. Achieved
- Give my son at least 3 FINANCIAL educational lessons and teach him the basics of finance and how to manage money. Achieved
We have NOT been able to pay ourselves 10% of our salary on an annual basis and as a result increase our net worth. The reason is very simple…We travelled a lot to South-America and Belgium (+10 tickets) and we got married. (New Lifetime Milestone : Married) Our net worth decreased and we used some money from our emergency fund. But would I do it again ? Definitely…without a shadow of doubt.
Overall it was a very exciting happy year with a price tag..lol.
The stock market has grown to new highs after Trumps election and keeps on breaking records every month. If you have not invested in the stock market, you missed a great bull market rally so far. Our CASH FLOW Objective for 2017 was to generate 6600 dividend. Well.. our end result for our portfolio is 7.984,53 $. We exceeded our yearly objective with 21%. If we would have avoided our August loss, we would have ended close to 10.000$…well I am happy about our result.
The 3rd goal was to put the money of my mom at work. My mom has NO financial literacy and has only followed bankers’ advice with buying high cost funds. We have cleaned up her portfolio and put her money at work with some high dividend payers. Our 2017 objective was to generate at least a yearly 1.200$ dividend income. That equals a 100$ a month. Our end result is 1.903,05$. That is 59% more than our 2017 objective. NOT BAD !
Goal 4 – Our foster Child Portfolio – We invest 25 Euro on a fixed monthly frequency in a KEYPLAN for our foster child. This is the defensive strategy of our Portfolio Strategy. If you don’t know what you are doing and don’t want to learn how to do things yourself, keep it simple and start a fund plan. Don’t put it on a savings account with a return close to 0%. Do you really think you can grow money by doing so? Please…
If you want to read why we invest money for our foster child, read this blog post. The 2017 performance of our fundplan is positive.
My Foster Childs’ Portfolio : Growing money for a goal !
We also started a dividend portfolio for my kids. We received a total DIVIDEND CASH FLOW of 621,41 $ for an invested amount of around 7000 $. We exceeded our objective with 4%. We have a cash position of 3800$ that we put at work in 2018. Also happy about this result.
One last word about currency impact – Some of our portfolios show with a red performance in our broker platform due to the currency impact. The euro value increased compared to the dollar swiping our (virtual) stock capital gains away. The majority of our stocks or ETFs have a price higher than the purchase value but the currency exchange masks that away. Looking at red figures is not pleasant but I look at my cash flow generated from my portfolio.
Goal 5 Teaching financial literacy to the kids.
This objective took quite some time during the year. But I managed to teach 3 financial classes. And I can say it was a lot of fun doing so. It can be challenging to engage your teenager in teaching financial literacy but invest time in doing so…you spend quality time together and money becomes more important in a teenagers’ life.
Here you find the links to the three classes
- Kids Financial Education Lesson 1 : Budg€t Fun
- Kids Financial Education Lesson 2 : Compound Interest
- Kids Financial Education Lesson 3 : Your Financial Pyramid & Creating a Financial Plan
In addition to our dividend investing strategy we started to learn about options investing. We are still investing time in learning how to use options to generate money out of the stock market. So far we generated 1049,85$ options cash flow. Not bad for a beginner options investor. We will continue to learn about this strategy in 2018.
We will continue our financial strategy on a consistent way. Read here if you don’t know our 5 Steps of our Financial Strategy.
Our 2017 Travel goals
Although we focus on the growth of our passive income, we don’t neglect our work/life balance. Travel is my way to relax and learn. We do this in three different ways (fun weekends in Belgium, City breaks or Travel the world). Learn more about those 3 ways by clicking the links
In 2017 we set money aside for our travel plan in the summer. This is the 3rd layer in our Financial Strategy. We save money for this specific purpose each year. This doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Do your homework when companies launch early rebate promotions and learn how other travelers execute frugal travel. Time to dive in for our travel goals.
Here are our five travel goals that we defined in January 2017
- Visit this year three interesting spots in Belgium where kids can learn something and have a unique experience to remember. They don’t have to cost money to be great. Achieved
- Do ONE city break vacation in 2017. Kids have chosen London and Paris in the top 2 to visit. Achieved
- Plan and relax two weeks somewhere in the world with the family for a SUMMER vacation Achieved
- Post a blog post of each travel or visit experience. Grow the popularity of the blog. Achieved
- Inject the kids with cultural insights during our travel and teach them about history and other important facts in life. Write a travel chapter in their life story book. Achieved
2017 has been quite an exciting year for our travel with many trips to South-America. The kids have been first time to South-America attending the wedding. We also had a great city break in Paris and our Summer vacation in France was unforgettable experience with our visit to Puy du Fou. We ended the year with one week in Curaçao where we did a 30 minute dolphin swim encounter.
Read here our Travel the World Reports:
Our Summer vacation : Fun & Relaxation
Must-See in Europe : Puy du Fou – an incredible experience
Additionally we had a great visit to Futuroscope and Parc de Asterix.
It is always a pleasure to explore a city, relax at the rythm of that town and meet new people. Paris was the choice of the kids and we had a great time with our night visit to the top of the Eiffel tower as the climax. You need to book that months in advance.
Read here our City Break Report:
In Belgium there’s also plenty of stuff to do. Read here about our Belgium Must-See experiences:
2017 was definitely a year full of travel fun and new experiences.
We reflect on 2017 as a great year where we married the love of my life, travelled the world with new experiences and gave the kids new insights on money and travel.
Overall a great year compared to where I was five years ago. If you are not happy, do have the courage to take a difficult decision and put that smile back on your face. You only live once and other people don’t have to understand why. Other people’s opinion doesn’t matter. Make sure you have a great work/ life balance and don’t forget to build your path to financial independence.
Good luck with your Goals 2017 reflection and financial planning. Next week you can read our 2018 Financial and Travel objectives. As always we end with a quote.
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