2019: A Year in Review

I’ve seen a lot of these year-end reviews being posted lately.  Some people get a little snarky with them – readers I mean – why do people do them, etc?  But I like them and also find the information helpful, kind of a cliff notes version of the blogs since I don’t have the time to read all of them.  Who can argue with that?  Hahaha… cheers to short cuts. 

However, now as a recent blogger, I have an all new respect for the year end post.  It forces you to really look at the past 52 weeks in detail and hold yourself accountable for what you have accomplished as well as where you fell short.  It’s also interesting in only my few months of blogging to see a change in myself from some of my first posts online.  I have very few readers but it’s been a ton of fun writing about what I like and documenting my FI journey so far. 

Since I’ve never done this before, I thought I’d provide a quick snapshot of the previous years in order to shed some light on much-needed context. 

So without further ado, here is my first ever year-in-review post – 2019 edition…. immortalized in time as I put pen to paper, or more aptly, fingertips to keyboard.

2016 – The Year of the Phoenix and a Life Once Lost: 

Everything fell apart: my career, my life and almost my marriage.  I metaphorically died and had to pick up the pieces from the ashes that remained.  In May of 2016 I was laid off from my job, a company I had been with for more than a decade.  Five months later I’d checked into Detox with the DTs, utterly broken and a few weeks from the grave.  This was a bottom that had been several years in the making, but 2016 was the final convergence of shit hitting the fan. 

2017 – The Year of Incessant Struggle and Painfully Slow Growth: 

After a few months sober, I thought I’d be back in the game.  But the damage I had done to myself, my body, my memory and my health – 20+ years of consistent drinking and drugging – took me much longer to recover from.  The anxiety and depression were so fierce it would take all of my energy just to get out of bed in the morning. (This might sound like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.  I’ll be writing a separate post just on this topic alone.  I don’t expect you to understand unless you’ve been there and I didn’t think it was even possible until I experienced it myself).  After an entire year of twelve step meetings (AA, CA, NA, PA) and dedicating myself to my recovery, I slowly clawed my way back to a functioning person.  The job search was painfully demoralizing as I went to interview after interview without closing the deal, which was especially difficult for a proud high-achiever used to high expectations and accomplishments.  The process was beyond humbling to say the least.  Finally, in December 2017, a staggering 19 months after I had been laid off, I landed my next job. 

2018 – The Year of Redemption and Seeking a Child: 

With new hope and vigor, I dedicated myself to my career and making up for the loss of an entire year’s worth of breadwinner income.  After 9 months at my new job, I was able to land an executive role at a global multinational corporation in September 2018.  However, as the initial zeal of being a productive employee back in the work force began to wear off and the life-changing struggle of battling addiction kept me searching for meaning, I began to re-evaluate my values and priorities in life.  Hence, leading to a renewed interest in the FIRE movement and more actively running the numbers to see if there might be another life option rather than working another 20+ years at a corporate job. 

Also during this year, since I was finally making an income again and we were not having prior success with getting pregnant, we decided to take the next step and spend out of pocket for IUI (intrauterine insemination) treatment.  My wife and I are both 38, so time is becoming more of a factor in shaping our decision making.  Starting a family has always been something important to both of us, and even more so for my wife.  Unfortunately, after three rounds of IUI and $12K spent we were unable to get pregnant. 

2019 – The Year of Cleaning Up and Moving On: 

So here we are.  We finally made it to 2019, and what a year it has been.  As I reflect, it was a year of both cleaning up and getting back on track.  Here are some of the highlights: 

Life Decisions: 

• Taking a mental break on a child: After trying multiple rounds of IUI and being unsuccessful, we decided to take a year off from spending money on trying to get pregnant.  IVF would have been the next step.  However, with the increased cost, invasiveness and non-guarantee of pregnancy for IVF, it did not seem worth it to pursue for us (I understand this is a personal decision and many people do go this route and have found success).  We are also open to adoption, which further reduced the need for IVF for us.  We also hoped that taking a year off with less stress and expectations for becoming pregnant, might be the answer we were looking for.  We have heard numerous success stories from people who once they stopped trying so hard, were naturally able to conceive.  Unfortunately, as the year comes to a close, I have no good news to report.  Processing and working through this emotional transition will continue to be a challenge for our marriage, and adoption is looking more likely our next step.
• Focusing on improving our physical health: Since we would not be spending money on out of pocket pregnancy costs for 2019, we decided to invest in our physical health.  I usually maintain a little more active and exercise-motivated lifestyle than my wife.  When she was in the office one day a patient mentioned that she should sign-up for a Spartan race.  That day she came home and decided to commit so I jumped at the opportunity and signed us both up (I don’t think she realized at first what a Spartan Race actually was and what she was getting into… haha).  In order to train for the three months prior to our race date, I decided to hire a personal trainer for both us.  I’ll preface first, that this was really hard for me to do.  I’ve been an athlete my entire life and come from the camp that I should be motivated on my own and not spend money on an individual trainer.  So ponying up the money in this case was very difficult for me (another post will be coming on the pros and cons of this).  But I bit the bullet and pulled the trigger because I knew I could use the specialized workouts and my wife would need the individual sessions simply for motivation and to prevent injury as a beginner.  Plus, this would not be an ongoing monthly expense.  We had a certain goal we were training for and would work out on our own after that.  The results speak for themselves.  Not only did we complete a Spartan Sprint in May 2019 and accomplish our first goal, but we were so motivated that we went on to complete an entire Spartan Trifecta for 2019 (a Sprint, Super and Beast). 

Financial Decisions: 

• Paid off car loan:  For 2019 I decided that we would pay off all of our debt.  This might sound like a big deal but it’s not.  I could have done this at any time, so it was more of a psychological decision rather than a financial one.  I had a balance on my car loan from a 2016 Avalon purchase that was a rather extravagant buy (but this was prior to me getting sober in 2016, so I chalk it up to I was still fucked up… haha.  A future financial mistakes post will detail this account).  It had a low interest rate but since we’re preparing to maybe purchase a home during 2020, I wanted to clean up my balance sheet for the loan approval process.  The total was around $9K in car loan paid off. 
• Paid off student loan:  Again, this is just like the car loan above.  I’ve carried this loan since undergrad in 2004 because the interest was so smoking low at 1.8% – could’ve paid it off earlier and probably should’ve, but it was the longest debt history on my credit report and I was making higher interest off the market so I never had a good reason to expire it.  The total loan was originally for around $16K and I paid off the balance this year which was a total of $3K. 
• Sold stocks to free up cash for a house down payment:  There will be a separate post coming on this one because you really have to be careful when selling stocks to look at your tax hit.  After I crunched the numbers, I realized that I would need to split my selling over 2019 and 2020 so I wouldn’t get hit so hard paying capital gains tax.  Lucky for me, at least most of the sales will be taxed as long-term capital gains, but I don’t have any significant losses to help offset the tax burden.  Plus, I’m a high earner so any kind of gain at all, even long-term capital gains fucking hurts like hell. 
• Maxed out 401Ks and Roth IRAs:  This is the first year ever that I have been able to max out both my wife and my 401Ks and Roth IRAs.  Damn did it feel good.  And even more so especially since as the breadwinner I lost all that income in 2016-2017 getting sober (and paying for hospital bills and rehab).  I think it’s safe to say that our saving is beginning to get back on track.  Now, I’d like to do this again in 2020 and start building up my taxable brokerage account on top of it.
• Continued to rent and save:  My wife and I were contemplating purchasing a house during 2019.  But early on, after assessing the market and our next life decisions, we decided to wait and use 2019 as a clean-up year while we continue to save.  Right now, we have super cheap rent in LA, which that in itself is like a house hack.  This upcoming year we’ll re-evaluate and see where the cards fall. 
• Switched my accountant and hired a CFP:  This was a big one for me and a double whammy.  I’ve been looking to switch up my accountant for a while now (he’s good at what he does if you ask questions, but he isn’t proactive, and I want someone who can really handle the tax planning part for me).  I’m a high earner and live in CA, one of the most unfriendly tax states, so when I start getting into backdoor Roth IRAs, restricted company stock and deduction strategy, I don’t mind paying for good expertise.  My goal was to find someone who had both the CPA and CFP skillset, so that I could have one person looking at the whole picture and helping me plan.  It took me a little while, but at the end of the 2019 I found my man and had our first meeting.  I’m not usually inclined to seek CFP advice, but when the stakes are getting higher, like purchasing a home, I like to have a second opinion on what I’m thinking.  So far, so good and I’ll update everyone next year on how my experience has gone with this change. 

Well, there you have it.  That’s 2019 in a nutshell and I’m optimistic for what lies ahead.  The next post will be looking forward to 2020 and describing what I see as our main goals for the upcoming twelve months. 

As always, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next year. 

Sincerely, 

-Q-FI