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With three weeks left in 2024, I’m finally sitting down to do my annual financial recap. This has been on my to-do list for weeks, but I simply wasn’t in the right mental space for it until now.
My Income Sources
This list remains the same as the previous two years:
- salary as a Controller in tech
- dividends from stocks
- income from jenthinks
- rental income from our investment property
In May, I was promoted to Controller, which came with a small salary bump. Spoiler alert – I’ll actually be starting the new year as a Senior Accountant again, but that story is for another post. Earlier this year, I released the Interview Guide for Accounting on my shop and created bundles for people seeking both career and CPA PEP advice. They did pretty well, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I still made the majority of my income from my corporate job in 2024.
I was hoping to write “investment properties” instead of “investment property” for the recap, but as of this writing, our management company is still looking for a tenant for our new property (we had two applicants who didn’t work out). Hopefully, this will be resolved early in 2025!
My 2024 Financial Recap
Net Worth/Savings Goal
Our net worth grew by 7.5% in 2024, falling 2.5% short of the 10% goal I set late last year. The simple reason for this is that we spent more than budgeted. While I would’ve loved to meet or exceed the goal, I have absolutely no regrets about it. We went on some amazing trips, which I’ll detail in the next section.
Travels
We went on three trips this year and spent just under $30,000. I had budgeted $31,000 to $35,500 for travel, so we came in just under budget. This year, I spent 43 nights at a hotel compared to 55 nights in 2023. One of my 2024 travel goals was to visit at least two cities we’d never been to. I’m happy to say we accomplished that with our Alaska cruise and the New York City Pokémon Go Festival.
I shared on my Instagram Stories the other day that The Alaska cruise was my favourite trip this year. The room onboard, stunning scenery, and unlimited food and drinks made it a dream vacation for me. This was our first time staying in a suite on a cruise (I had been on two cruises previously), and it was worth every penny. I loved it so much that we’re traveling in the same room type on an even newer ship next year for our Europe cruise.
For Asia, I ended up spending five weeks instead of six (Eric went home after two), which explains why the actual cost came in under budget. This was Eric’s favourite trip of the year.
While New York City was fun, thanks to the Pokémon Go Festival, it didn’t quite compare to the other two trips. It was a different experience, but overall, it was not as memorable.
Investment – Stocks & Property
With stocks, I contributed to my TFSA and RRSP regularly, as I have done for years. As for trading activity, I stayed conservative, mostly purchasing VEQT. I also sold my CASH.TO when we closed on the property in the summer to cover transaction costs.
We closed on a presale property in late summer, as the development completed on schedule. The interest rate we secured was better than budgeted for, as I had planned for the worst. A couple of interest rate cuts were announced before the property closed, so we were able to take advantage of the lower rate (relatively to months prior). As mentioned, our management company is still looking for a tenant, but hopefully, we’ll have good news soon as we head into 2025.
Shopping & Self-Care
While we didn’t buy more items overall, we definitely spent more on higher-priced items this year compared to previous years. We didn’t splurge in any one category, but rather made purchases across electronics, gifts, clothing, and everything in between. I’ve been making a conscious effort to avoid buying items just because they’re on sale. Instead, I’ve been paying more to get exactly what I want. A great example of this is that I bought far fewer sale items at Aritzia than before. Since I regularly declutter my closet, I’ve noticed a trend of donating the sale items I barely wore because I never truly loved them. As odd as it may sound, I actually ended up saving money by paying full price for an item I love rather than buying two items I didn’t feel passionate about.
I also started going for facials every month since March. I’ve had hormonal breakouts since my teens, and while the treatment hasn’t been a magical cure, my skin has definitely improved over time. On top of that, I find the experience extremely therapeutic, which helped alleviate some of my stress during tough times this year. My total spend on this came in just under $2,000, which was worth every penny. I plan on setting aside a bigger budget for this next year but I’ll talk about that in my next post.
