2024 Personal Finance Resolutions- Year End Recap

Completed.

MAX OUT RRSP

As with other years, I’m not sure what my RRSP room will be. This goal will be done once I find out what my RRSP contribution room is from the 2023 Notice of Assessment after my taxes are done.

Last year I transferred US dollars into my RRSP account instead of transferring in kind.

My RRSP contribution room is usually low (between $5000 to $10,000) because of my defined benefit pension.

Completed. It was a bit of a hodge podge over the year, I transferred in kind some of it and contributed cash for some of it, but it was completed in October.

INCREASE DIVIDEND INCOME TO $36,000/ YEAR

In 2023 my goal was to reach $35,000 in dividend income annually (projected) but I was about $1000 short of that, at just under $34,000 annually.

This year I am going to make it a more conservative goal, of $36,000 in projected annual dividend income for the year.

I tend to be overweight in Canadian dividend stocks (I try to keep it under 33% of the portfolio).

Since I don’t need the income right now because I am still working part-time, I will focus more on ETFs, exchange traded funds like VXC and VTI and add to my position in Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) which doesn’t pay a dividend at all (gasp the horror I know).

I am scaling back on my investment contributions to build cash up.

Completed. As of writing it is $36,855.

BUILD UP CASH PILE

I feel uncomfortable with the lack of cash and would like to build my cash reserves back up but at the same time I would like to continue to invest. I’ll start off with aiming to save $25,000 in cash for the year to add to what I currently have.

I planning to reduce my monthly investment contributions by almost 40% compared to last year to facilitate this cash savings.

I also have a target portfolio value by the end of the year but I’ll keep that to myself seeing that it’s hard to predict what the market will do by the end of 2024.

Completed. The cash pile is still small but I did save $25,000 in my brokerage by not re-investing the dividend income that has come in over the year. I have continued to invest the monthly contribution I set out for the year (however there were some months I bought a bit more than intended).

READ 5 PERSONAL FINANCE BOOKS

Some of these aren’t personal finance per se but more related to money psychology but seeing that personal finance books pretty much all say the same thing (spend less than you earn, invest your money regularly, choose index investing), hence I’m running out of books to read.

Here are the 5 investing and personal finance books that I hope to read and then write about in 2024:

• Same as Ever by Morgan Housel (great book)
• Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Values of Value by Lawrence Cunningham (I read this in January but didn’t really like it and didn’t have the energy to write a book review on it)
• Stop Think and Invest: A Behavioral Finance Framework for Optimizing Investment Portfolios by Michael Bailey
• Just Keep Buying by Nick Magguilli (from the blog Of Dollars and Data- good book)
• Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini (this was okay not as good as his other book)

If you are looking for reading inspiration, here are other personal finance books and dividend investing books I recommend.

Completed. I’ve read 5 of the 5 books. The book reviews are linked.

2024 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

I have pretty much failed 4 of the 5 New Years resolutions. Changing bad habits is so difficult.

• Run a marathon. Completed! My toenails have grown back yay!
• Meditation daily for 10 minutes. Have not done this, I should put it in my schedule. I downloaded this app called “Prosper” and it helps visualize the day to day and keep me on schedule so hopefully if I put it in the schedule it will happen.
• Time management– I used to mindlessly scroll my phone while waiting for my children to fall asleep but now I started to read a chapter or two from a book (trying my best to tune out the noise of them getting another drink of water or coming out of their room repeatedly). Now I read before I mindlessly scroll, so I hope to keep that scrolling time to under 30-45 minutes per day. (Big time fail for this one. My kids still want me to sit outside their room until they fall asleep).
• Sleep before 12am– I’ll give this a try again but I think it will get worse before it gets better (I am looking at September of 2024 of being the holy grail of ‘more time for myself’ once both kids are in school). (Did not complete)
• Weight 120-125lbs. Almost. I have cut back on running but the amount of running I do is not enough to keep off my weight. I’m at around 126lbs.

How did you do with your personal finance resolutions or your New Year’s resolutions in 2024?