Happy New Year’s Eve!!!
Is it just me or did the first 9 months of the year go by slowly and the last 3 months…well…what even happened to them? Maybe it was just me…
Anyway, strap in for a long post since I have a lot of goals to recap!
My 2019 Financial Goals:
Goal #1 Keep spending at $40,000 for the year (not including tax) and invest the rest.
Status: Achieved!
We actually ran under budget all year and had a major budget surplus at the end of the year which we did spend some of during our Treat Yo’self Day in December.
This goal served two purposes:
- Stave off lifestyle inflation by keeping spending about the same. If you are unfamiliar with lifestyle inflation, it is basically the devil. It is a phenomenon where people unintentionally increase spending as income increases. This perpetuates the inability to pay off debt and save for retirement. If we are going to increase our spending level it should be intentional. So not today Satan!
- Learn to relax a little about spending budgeted money. I developed some bad habits while paying off debt; namely feeling guilt about spending any money on “wants”, even if we budgeted and saved up for the items. I don’t think this is a healthy way to manage money so we essentially gave ourselves permission to spend the full $40,000. Many times I caught myself thinking “we could cut this expense/optimize this expense and then be able to save more”. This thought helped me pay off debt fast but is part of the guilt problem. It was an interesting experiment in chilling the f out.
Here’s our spending history:
2017 Actual Spending: $38,952
2018 Actual Spending: $38,798
2019 Actual spending: $37,854
Goal #2 Increase “no spend” days from 70 to 100.
Status: Crushed by 37 days!!!
This goal also served two purposes:
- Decrease our number of spending days to help keep to the budget we set in Goal #1.
- Become more aware of our daily spending habits.
I just love using “No Spend” days to manage money. They are fun and competitive. They are like a reset for your wallet. It saves money during the challenge and I feel increased gratitude for what I have after the challenge so I think it leads to reduced spending after the challenge as well.
Here’s our “No Spend” day history:
2018: 70 days where we spent $0
2019: 137 days where we spent $0
Goal #3 Increase coaching hours from 100 to 150.
Status: Didn’t end up tracking this.
Oops, failed to track this one. While I did do a lot of coaching this year, I would have to go back through all my weekly planning pages to add up the amount of time I actually coached. Although I still don’t have formalized coaching packages, I did make progress in establishing a process to walk through for each client. I’ve been starting with a get to know you, then financial goal setting, spending tracking, budgeting, net worth tracking, cash management and lastly, investing education.
Goal #4 Complete one financial challenge each month (or 12 total challenges).
Status: Incomplete.
I published 4 public challenges and did another 6 challenges just by myself. So 10 out of 12 is decent. I’ll probably carry this one into 2020.
Challenges I attempted in 2019:
-No Spend after 2pm challenge
-Show your finances some love challenge
-Spring into savings challenge
-Extend your financial focus challenge
-4 Full no spend challenges of varying time lengths
-Treat Yo’ Self No Spend day
-A proper Treat Yo’ Self day
Goal #5 Create a YouTube channel for FinanceRox.
Status: Success!
I created the channel and posted 4 videos. I’m still in the process of learning how to edit videos in Lightworks so it takes many hours for me to edit videos. I do anticipate that the channel will grow slowly but I’m happy that I got everything setup.
Here are the links to the 4 videos:
2019 Goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsgGtfVQBCQ&t=48s
How we bought our $210,000 house in cash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAPBeryLMCw&t=506s
Money Mantra to help us spend less: I can go without: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwx29CJ3EAo&t=44s
Eat healthy and spend less money!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaKql9cvBkw
Goal #7 Continue weekly household financial meetings and monthly net worth tracking.
Status: Success!
We both really enjoy this routine now so it was pretty easy to keep up on this. We didn’t meet every week since sometimes we were traveling but I think we met every Sunday that we were at home. We budgeted for every month, tracked spending and net worth for the full year.
Goal #8 Read 12 personal finance books.
Status: Incomplete.
Read two personal finance books and two self-improvement books which is better than not reading any books but not what I had hoped for. I bought/acquired a bunch of books this summer so then I ended up starting several books (3 books) that I didn’t finish. Shiny book syndrome you know… Maybe I’ll make learning to speed read one of my goals for 2020 so I can read more easily.
Read:
-Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
-You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
-Atomic Habits by James Clear (This one was hands down my favorite of the year!!!)
-Girl Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis
Reading history:
2017: 9 Books
2018: 7 Books
2019: 4 Books
Non-Financial Goals.
Thought I would include these just for fun!!!
*Write and perform a 5 minute standup comedy routine-COMPLETED!
Went to an open mic night and did almost 6 minutes! I had really low expectations so based on that I crushed it 😊 Got a few big laughs, consistent small laughs and a gasp. Plus the emcee complimented me on how prepared I was, so that was nice.
*Learn how to handstand walk-FAIL!
I hurt my wrist at the end of 2018 on the handstand goal and so I didn’t really get back into it.
*Monthly memorable moments-COMPLETED!
January: Hosted first ever “No Spend after 2PM” Challenge
February: Went to a Clothing Swap!! It was free to attend, and I unloaded some unwanted clothes in exchange for some awesome “new” clothes.
March: Port in a fort (Had port wine for the first time and we built a blanket fort in the living room)
April: Ate food from a bus! I highly recommend both taco buses and tortas now.
May: Hiked to a quarry at the Red Rocks Open Space in Colorado Springs.
June: Kicked off my first 12 Week Year Accountability Group.
July: Dyed my hair brown (long time bucket list goal, finally worked up the courage!).
August: Performed my standup at Open Mic night!
September: Traveled to DC for my first ever FinCon! (The conference where money and media meet)
October: Gave my Toastmasters Icebreaker speech and had a “No Spend Treat Yo’Self” Day.
November: Go-Karts with friends in Missoula…I was horrible at it.
December: Legitimate “Treat Yo’Self” Day including clothes, massages, champagne and fine leather goods!
*24 hikes-SUPER FAIL!!!
I did 4 hikes. Between it being a cold, snowy spring and not doing the Grand Canyon trip, this fell to the bottom of the priority list.
*Learn some SQL-COMPLETED!
I took an online SQL course and passed with flying colors…whatever that means.
*Buy a truck camper-COMPLETED!
We ended up buying a prior year model new pop-up camper and we love it! We are planning so many camping trips in 2020.
*Continue decluttering our house and improving tidiness-SOMEWHAT SUCCESSFUL!
Got rid of a lot of crap that was floating around and I ended the year with PAPER-POCALYPSE (well, turns out getting rid of my piles and totes of paper is going to take more than one day but I did get a good start on having better paper management).
*BONUS
I hadn’t set an official goal to give more money this year but it was an unofficial goal of mine to increase our charitable giving. I’m happy to report that in 2019 we actually DOUBLED the amount we gave in 2018.
All in all, I’d give 2019 two thumbs up!
Discussion:
How did your year go?
Did you have any massive fails?
How many thumbs would you give to 2019?