2017 in Retrospect (Goals Review) & 2018 Goals

2017 has come to an end. I feel like it was almost yesterday when I started dividend investing. Cannot believe it's been three years. In 2017 I have been very consistent with my investment (fresh capital infusion). The only reduction in portfolio happened in June 2017. I had to liquidate a portion of my portfolio for down payment (for my new home).

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As far as the numbers go I ended up with $578.53 in dividends for 2017. That's a whopping 287.34% increase in dividend as compared 2016. In fact my 2017 dividend is twice the amount of dividends I got in 2016/2015 (put together).

2017
Time to look at my 2017 goals. I started out with an easy goal of $500.0 in forward dividends. I achieved this goal on 09/2017. It's taken me almost 3 years to get there. However, major chunk of the growth happened in 2017. I followed it by setting my forward dividend goal to $750.00. I was able to achieve this goal on 12/2017 (watch out for my December monthly update).

The second goal I had for 2017 was to become a home owner. I had serious doubts about achieving this goal. We bought our home on 06/17. We love our place and the feeling of being a home owner. In the 6 months that has passed since the purchase, our home price has increased. This was important to us since I felt we had over payed. Positives, we locked in low mortgage rate. We are excited to build home equity.

My third goal was to achieve $200.0 in dividends in a single quarter. This was a relatively though goal given that I managed only $150.0 in dividends in 2016. I achieved this goal on 12/2017 (2017 Q4).

Final goal was related to vitality. Goal was to obtain 4,160 vitality points (effectively $41.60 in Amazon gift cards). Please check out powerofvitality. I get points for my gym visits (each point comes out to be $0.01). I think of it as a side hustle which generates money and keeps me fit. In 2017 I was able obtain 2,625 points. This is 63.10% of my goal. Hopefully, I will achieve 4,160 points in 2018.

2018
My first goal would be to increase my forward dividends. I have set a target of $1,500 (double of my previous goal) in forward dividends. It's going to be very challenging to achieve this goal in 2018. If I manage to achieve it in 2018 I would double my goal again (to $3,000).

Second goal is with regards to mortgage payment. In 2017 I have been partially successful in making one additional mortgage payment. All additional payments go towards my principle. This ends up reducing my overall interest payment. For 2018 I would like to make two additional mortgage payments. I would split this across 12 months to reduce it's impact on my overall cash flow.

Third goal is to achieve $400 in dividends in a single quarter. Again, it's going to be very challenging to achieve this in 2018. If I do succeed it would typically be in 2018 Q4.

Fourth goal is to again achieve 4,160 vitality points. To achieve this I need to work out every single day of the year (even while vacationing). It is an aggressive goal, even if I can achieve 90% I would consider it a success.

I have noticed that I have not set any long term goals. It's good to have short term goals to improve confidence, but I also need a long term goal. I have been thinking about this for sometime and my final decision is that I want to be Financially Independent (FI) by 1/1/2032. As of now I am at 6.64% of that goal.

I have added my 2018 goals to goals section. .

How successful was 2017? What are your 2018 goals?