2023 Goals

My main 2023 goal is to meet my retirement/savings targets, reduce overall spending compared to last year, and invest in my physical, mental, and emotional health.

2023 Physical Health Goals

• Sleep 7-8 hours each night

• Start the day earlier (e.g. 7a on weekdays)

• Spend a few minutes outdoors every day

• Do some form of exercise 5x/week

• Teetotal 5x/week

• Hydrate: morning and night, before meals, and after coffee and exercise

2023 Budget

Creating an annual budget for the year proved to be a lot harder this year since my go-forward compensation is unclear (uncertain performance review and stock market valuation), and my personal spending habits are also fairly unknown. I've crafted a rough budget below after taking a 40% haircut on my compensation to account for taxes, assuming no raises to compensation, and that I'll receive 50% of my expected vested stock valuation.

With this budget, my distribution across retirement/investments, cash savings, taxes and spending would look like:

• Total Investments (33%): $61,250

• Total Savings (8%): $15,000

• Total Taxes (11%): $20,000

• Total Spending (48%): $90,000

If my taxes end up being higher than my ballpark estimation, I'll have to pull back on a combination of savings and spending.

2023 Financial Independence Forecast

Creating a forecast right now feels like a bit of a fool's errand, knowing that a lot will change in the next couple of years. Still, I've decided to take a more moderate approach to long-term goals. I've reduced my annual contribution expectations and have assumed a flat $100k/year and 7% annual return YoY. Realistically, I'll likely be able to contribute more than $100k/year, and hope to do so in a way that outpaces inflation. Even with this rough math, I have shifted out my Coast FI target year to end of 2027, and a Lean FI target of 2035 -- which corresponds to my mortgage payoff year.