We contributed $6,117.65 this month to our retirement accounts, and we gained $6762.49 in investment value this month.

July was a three paycheck month for Dad, so we contributed more than most months.  I also got an increase in my salary – $18.34 more to my retirement accounts from the University  (whoohoo!) and $7.19 more from me per month (which will reduce December’s contribution).   December is also a three paycheck month for Dad as well, so we’ll have a slightly higher contribution there.

The markets were nicer this month than last, but still relatively flat.  It’s looking like the markets might not make the historical average of 6% annual increase this year. No biggie, we had a huge increase last year to ride off.

We’re getting into a cash crunch with new house stuff and the car, so I’m reducing my taxable contributions for a bit until we get back to living on last month’s income.  It’ll mean that we likely won’t make the 70k goal contributions, but we’ll be pretty close.  Considering that last year’s goal was to contribute 40k, and we ultimately contributed about 45k, I think we’ve really improved our situation.

We’re feeling a little cash crunched in general, although some of it’s going to accounts where we can pull the money from if needed (HSA and taxable).  I felt like we had more money while paying off debt, and we sort of did – because we were prioritizing paying off debt rather than retirement savings.  Now that we’re prioritizing retirement savings, we (obviously) have less money to pay off our 0% loans, so it feels like they’re taking forever to pay off.

How are your contribution goals going for this year?

2015 Totals

In 2015, so far, we’ve contributed $40,766.65 (58.24% of our goal of 70k), and we’ve gained $15,546.23 in investment value (65.11% of our planned total).