2018 Goals: How’d we do?
January 7, 2019
How did we do with 2018 goals?
{Money Goals}
- Max out PiC’s 401(k), my IRA, his IRA, and one parent worth of contributions for JB’s 529. Done on all fronts but we had a cash boost from the home sale.
- Save 35% of our income in addition to the above contributions. No but this was always a stretch.
- Invest at least $50,000. We had most of this from our home sale, I did cash flow the rest of it and achieved the hardest part – committing the money to investments. I didn’t love buying high earlier in the year but the important thing was getting myself in the mindset to invest whatever cash we’re holding above our emergency fund cash, and that worked out well.
- Reduce mortgage principal by another $10,000. Win! Paid down $12,000 to principal.
- Increase charitable donations by 50%. Win! We did it.
- Increase side income from $2000 to $5,000. I didn’t hit $5000 if you don’t count investment income, I don’t.
- Create a FIRE outline. Nope.
{Health & Fitness}
- Walk or run an extra mile every day for an average of an additional 365 miles this year. NOPE.
- Put on sunblock before we go out every morning. Mostly yes. I also started carrying sunblock with me so when I forgot to apply before leaving, I could still apply.
- Get PiC out for runs at least 3x a week. Nope but we did start getting him out on the weekend most weekends.
- Read Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s The Odyssey. This didn’t happen. I don’t know why I’m never in the mood to read a classic.
- Sleep train JuggerBaby again. This worked out a lot better than I expected! Sleep has gotten a little weirder (zir needs are inconsistent) but easier somehow. It’s less of a struggle compared to the earlier years, we can offer a few minutes of snuggling after storytime and leave without huge incidents (usually). Ze adapted again and has been much better at sleeping at night but we lost the midday naps this year. Drat. On the plus side, ze will sometimes voluntarily even put zirself to bed midday when the morning was too tiring!
- Supplement Seamus’s diet with veggies so he doesn’t think he’s starving. He gets green beans daily and he’s never looked fitter!
{Life}
- No more hard boiled leprosy eggs. I’m baking our eggs from now on. Cancel that, the baking was annoying.
- Bake mini muffins once a month. I stopped after a couple months because of the changes to my diet.
- Mail hand-written letter to one of JuggerBaby’s surrogate grandparents every month. Mostly!
- Perhaps add to our family. We did but this might have been a mistake. Come on, Sera, like ONE of us!
That was a nice goal of walking an extra mile a day. Are you gonna try and implement that as one of your goals for this year again?
I accomplished most of my goals last year except for buying a home. We’re hoping that we can lock down one sometime this year. We will see how the housing market goes here in the Bay Area!
I don’t know why that goal didn’t resonate for me this past year, considering how much better my pain has been, but I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that my fatigue has continued to weigh me down.
I won’t set that as a goal this year but I am going to focus on lengthening our walks and increasing the frequency.
Good luck with buying a house this year, I hope the market drops significantly this year just for you and then comes back up?
You guys knocked your PF goals out of the park! Good job! They were all measurable and “SMART” goals too.
GYM recently posted…16 Ways to Save Money Fast in 2019
Thank you! The money ones were easier because they were pre-fueled by the home sale last year. This year it’ll be all us!