Ending the year on a positive note

Well, obviously, most of us crashed and burned in 2008. 2008 was definitely not very kind to us, but hopefully we made some "moves" that will payoff in the long run.
First off, we added a full bathroom to our basement. Then we decided to improve the kitchen. We knocked down a wall, replaced the tile flooring with hardwood, added an island with granite top, and made a dry bar area in the eating area. I'd say we spent around 30k on everything, but it was well worth it and hopefully we'll see all of that money and then some come back to us when we do decide to sell our house.
We also refinanced. We got a lower rate, and got out of our interest only loan. Our payment only went up a couple hundred dollars a month and now we're actually paying down the loan. One major move we had to make was paying down our loan a bit because our house appraised for less than we paid and we could only borrow 75% of the homes value. Luckily we had the money to do this and now we owe about 20k less on our mortgage.

In the coming days I'll be updating some of our financial goals for the year and adjusting some future goals I had. Perhaps I'll keep them the same to see if we can aggressively go after them and maybe make up for this year.

Some final #'s for 2008
Assets: -$73,0000
Liabilities: -$25,000

Overall, we were down about $48,000. Not quite what I had in mind for the year, but having our debts down over 25k certainly is a good thing.

I am anxious to put up my new goals for the new year. With much fewer big things planned for 2009, I definitely see a big improvement over 2008. I just hope we surpass my initial expectations for 2008.

We shall see...