2017 in Review

Well, I am finally back in Australia and have been very busy settling back in. I’ve managed to get another job here but took a break for about a month. Here is a quick  summary of how we fared in 2017 from a financial point of view.

Headline Figures

	2018 dollars
	2017	2018	Planned 2018
Cash	$840,760.42	$782,850.94	$437,494.56
Superannuation	$714,561.12	$960,299.10	$590,309.79
Primary Residence	$1,493,685.95	$1,548,500.00	$1,080,354.98
Investment Property	$283,360.30	$352,450.00	$262,476.91
Total Assets	$3,332,367.79	$3,644,100.04	$2,370,636.24

	Change from 2017 to 2018	Change from planned to 2018
Cash	-6.89%	78.94%
Superannuation	34.39%	62.68%
Primary Residence	3.67%	43.33%
Investment Property	24.38%	34.28%
Total Assets	9.35%	53.72%

You can see that:

• Cash declined. The reason for this is a significant Super contribution ($156,000).
• Super went up significantly, both from contributions and organic growth (over 12%!).
• Property was fairly stable

Spending and Income in 2017

Spending in 2017 was about $56K (excluding Rent), much higher than other years. However, most of this was extraordinary items (car, home improvements, etc). When these items are removed, spending is at about $36K, similar to other years. We went on one overseas holiday this year. If Rent received less rent paid is added in, spending declines to about $30K.

Income in 2017 was around $182K, quite a bit lower than last year. I took a month off and I am no longer in a contract job so the pay is lower. We saved just over $100K.

Updated Spending Patterns

I’ve now changed my standard spending to leave the PPOR when I am 75 rather than 64, and also put a decline in spending starting at 56. Here is the updated plans versus actuals:

I’ve also tweaked my calculator so that I can put in a spending amount per year rather than work out the spending that makes super zero at 90. Based on my spending patterns to date, I think it is unlikely I would spend more than $80K per year. Here is the spending pattern assuming we spend this amount and don’t leave the PPOR.

Conclusions

2017 has been another good year financially. I think I’ll probably retire at the end of the year!