Year In Review: 2012

2012 is over, and it was a crazy year here at SLB.  Early this year, I finally had a successful elk hunt (when I was literally .5 of a mile from giving up for the season).  That was pretty cool, as it was my first elk, and I’m still enjoying the rewards as we speak (though I’m running low, so I’m hoping to re-up this month).  February was relatively quiet, and then in march I went with H and her sister and some friends down to new mexico for the basketball games.  I was going anyway, but then my undergrad school unexpectedly made the tournament, and even better, got sent to new mexico!  That was an awesome trip, and we all had lots of fun.  In april, we closed on the house, marking a huge purchase for both of us, and the start of a long summers worth of work.  May was filled with working on the house full time for H, and when I wasnt at work for me.  June was my marathon and H’s half marathon, which could have gone better for me but H did well.  In July we got married, and we spent the end of july and the beginning of august out of the country on our honeymoon.  It was a great time!  Since then, things have slowed down and shifted back to more house work and getting used to living in our new place when it’s not under construction.

Finances we pretty ok this year, we were able to pay cash for most everything we bought, put 20% down on a house and did some major renovations for it.  In 2013, i’m expecting the pace of renovations to slow quite a bit, as we are more or less done.  Here are the numbers from 2012:

Debt:

At the beginning of 2011, I had debts from 1 student loan and 1 vehicle loan, totaling $20,825, down from a pre-house high of 55,400 broken down as follows:

  • Truck Loan: $9,466
  • Student Loans (1):  $11,359
Things were a lot different this year than they were in 2011.  I had way less debt, but I also was way less focused on paying if off, so I didnt really make all that much progress in 2012.  I was mainly focused on cash flowing my purchases and savings, and didnt really get too much extra (read: didnt make too much extra room) for my debt.  Obviously, I’m still doing fine, and am doing a lot better than in 09 when I had debts equal to almost double my annual income.  Obviously, that was as low as it got, as H and I bought a house this year.
At the end of 2012, here’s where I am now.
  • Truck Loan: $4,380
  • Student Loan: $9,341
  • house: $119,073
This is much higher than it was last year, but as you know, H and I bought a house and that significantly sucked up our resources and added to our total debt load.  I’m not all that worried, as we are swimming along just fine right now in terms of our bills, and are putting our extra cash towards home renovations.  I would have liked to have the truck loan be at 0 by this point, but unfortunately I havent worked for that hard enough.  Unfortunately, It’s been this way since I switched jobs in 2011, which was something that seems to have had a negative effect on my debt pay off ability, when I was sure it would have a positive effect, because I was spending less on gas (about 200/mo) and was earning more money (about 500/mo).  Given those numbers, I thought I would be sailing away.  I didnt, and I think it’s because I spent time at home more, making new friends, hanging out with H and doing some things that I like to do, instead of working and driving to/from work all the time.
How did you do this year?  Did you build up reserves, pay off debt, or do neither or both?  What are you looking to do next year?
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