Goals 2023 Update #4

It wasn't the most effective year this year when it came to reaching my goals and normally I do much better at these.  However, this year definitely feels like it's been one of those years in every respect, which means I'm not really too surprised by the outcome.  This is how it went.

Financial

• Four months emergency fund - on this we reached our 2023 goal and then some.  In fact, we've actually almost reached half our savings amount.  This is a pretty good achievement and I am happy about it despite knowing that we could have done better had we been stricter.
• Sinking funds - all of these were reached and we have been happily using them for their intended purposes.   This time of year has made it very clear how good it is to have your Christmas sinking fund all saved up as we've been able to spend without having to worry about how we're going to afford it all.
• Pension and personal spending - I reached my goal this year of putting 12.5% of each pay cheque into my pension scheme, which is good.  I just need to set up my pension with my new employee so that it automatically comes out of my wage without me having to do anything additional.  And that now ends the good streak moving us neatly onto our personal spending.  This definitely hasn't been great, for either of us, and it's something we'll need to work on over the next year if we want to reach our long-term goal.
• Changing my bank account - I still haven't gotten around to this, even though I know who I think I should change it to.  I am basically just being lazy about this, but there are some things I'm concerned about when it comes to moving to this bank.  I think I just need to write down a list of what they are and then research them instead of just putting it off.
• Secondary income - this has been on the back burner for now as I haven't really had the time or headspace to think about it properly.  This is something else to look at over the coming year.

Learning A New Skill

• Skateboarding - we did manage to fit some skateboarding in this year, but not as much as we had originally planned so I'm still not particularly good at this just yet.  Though at least I'm better than I was at the start.
• Surfing - we did have a lesson a little while ago and were told that we were good enough to practice on our own for a while until we felt it was time to go to the next level when we would need an additional lesson.  However, we haven't actually gotten around to that yet, partly because we find it difficult to find days off together that match and partly because on those days we're a little lazy.  Really I just need to be a little bit more organised.
• Sailing - this is still on the back burner whilst we learn other skills and save up to be able to afford the lessons.  As we do have other savings goals right now which are more of a priority it'll need to wait.

So not quite the year I was hoping for but we still haven't done too badly either and you can't have good years every year.  I also, perhaps, put a little bit too much on myself to accomplish this year anyway.  However, despite not completing everything we are still moving forward and that's a good thing.  I've also learnt some lessons which I can carry forward onto the next year.  One of the main reasons for not succeeding in the number of these goals was not properly organising my time, and that's a good lesson in itself.  Now I need to think about what I want to do next year, which will probably be along the same lines as this year but maybe with just a bit more teeth behind it.

New Hobbies and When Am I Going to Do Them

I do quite a lot of crafting at the moment and I really enjoy it, but for a while now there have been other things that I have wanted to add to my hobby time.  This is partly because there are so many things I want to learn or relearn how to do and partly because I know that developing new skills is a good way to keep my brain nice and healthy.  Although I do knit or sew in the evenings, we also have the TV on quite a lot of the time and whilst this is fine, we often find we've just turned it on out of habit and can't really think of anything we actually want to watch.  In the end, we usually just end up watching the same things over again.  At the end of the day, there are other things I could be doing.

Firstly there's the ever-present learning how to skateboard and surf.  These are both just things that Ed and me are learning for fun (or in his case relearning when it comes to skateboarding) we really haven't bothered to make the time to actually do them.  We do have to wait until we both have time off together, but that just means that we need to prioritise them when our days do coincide.  Theoretically, that shouldn't be that hard to do.

I had my flute looked at and fixed last month and I've decided that, instead of giving it away or selling it, I would like to try and learn how to play it again.  Unfortunately, because I've been ill I haven't played it as much as I had hoped, but I have managed to fit in a couple of sections.  It is strange how natural it feels to be holding the instrument again, but also alien in the fact that I'm having to start from scratch again.  It would be good to put aside one hour a week to practice this, which could end up being very unfortunate for my neighbours.

Like most people, I drew a lot when I was little and haven't really drawn at all as an adult.  I do remember enjoying it and, even though I'm not sure how good I would actually be at it, it would be good to try it again.  I'm thinking about trying different styles from what I used to do and, if it feels like it's going well, I might actually try painting again as well.  As with the flute playing it would be good to put aside at least one hour a week to practice this.

Playing board games is something that Ed and me used to love doing in the past, especially when we had no TV and a limited amount of lighting.  Even though we do take them with us when we go on holiday, we don't really play them that much and it's a shame to keep them all if we're not actually going to use them.  It would also be a good excuse for us to spend some quality time together, at least once a week, as our different work rotas mean that we don't actually get to spend that much time together.

Reading is one of those big ones that I always want to do more of but just don't put aside the time to actually do.  And I have books piling up that I want to read, both physically and on my wish list.  There is no real excuse, I'm just not making it a priority and I could realistically spend some time every evening reading quite easily.

Really this is about dedicating specific time to each of these hobbies every week and then keeping to it until they become a habit.  Right now I can do these during the day as it'll be a little while before my new job starts, but when it does start I want to try and fit these into the evenings.  So, this is the plan: I'm going to practice my flute for one hour on Tuesday night (though that does mean that my poor husband has to listen to me attempting to play), practice drawing for one hour on Wednesday night, and then Thursdays will be our board game /date night.  We'll skateboard or surf whenever we have days off together.  As for the reading, my plan is to start getting ready for bed at around 10pm and have reading as the last thing that I do, so that should give me about 30 minutes a day.  I haven't actually been the most organised recently so it should actually be quite easy to fit these in with a bit of planning.  I also have the weekends when Ed is working to fit in these hobbies on weeks when I haven't been able to fit them in for some reason, or to spend extra time on them if I want to.

Goals 2023 Update#3

I had planned on being more focused on my goals this quarter to get a number of them ticked off, but then life happened and I didn't get as far forward as I had hoped.  It is a little frustrating, but I've still managed to plod along quite well and get a number of them done.  It just means that I will need to really concentrate on them for these last three months.

Financial.

•  Four months emergency fund - I'm happy to say we're still putting money into our savings and we've already reached our 2023 goal of saving a third of our long-term goal.  In fact, it's looking like we'll be able to save half of it by the end of this year so I'm very pleased with that.
• Sinking funds - these have all been reached and we are now getting to spend these on their intended purpose.  It does feel a little weird spending them as part of you just wants to hoard what you've saved, but it also takes the worry or guilt out of spending on these things.  
• Pension and personal spending - I am still putting 12.5% of my earnings into my pension and it looks like I'll be able to carry on doing that until the end of the year.  It is a very nice feeling knowing that my pension is finally growing properly.  We've also finally managed to curb our personal spending and keep to the budgets we've put in place.  In fact, we've been underspending recently which means we should be able to put even more into our savings or, at least, not reduce what we're putting in when we need to spend on other things.
• Changing my bank account - I've decided to wait until my current contract is over before swapping over to a new bank as there isn't much longer to go and it seems it would be less complicated.
• Secondary income - I still need to work on this, but right now I'm concentrating on finding another primary income.  The biggest issue I have here is that I'm just not sure what other skills I have to help with a secondary income, I really need to try and work that out.

Learning New Skills.

• Skateboarding - we have managed to fit in some skateboarding practice, but not nearly as much as we wanted to.  We've found a good spot and I do feel that it's starting to click, but we've just been really lazy about it.
• Surfing - we've had another surf lesson and have been told that we don't need to have any further lessons just yet.  It's been suggested that we practice surfing for a bit and then book another lesson when we want to progress to the next stage.  Now all we need to do is find times when we are both off so we can hire some boards and practice.
• Sailing - this is still on the back burner for now and will be something we look into in the future, hopefully not too far away.

So, it's not going too badly really but, obviously, I could have done better if I'd put a little bit more effort into it.  I am still quite happy with what we've done so far though, mainly as it's been helping us become more financially stable.  Just the last quarter of the year to go now and the plan is to change my bank account, get another primary job (and then make a decision on the secondary income), skateboard six more times, and get a few surfing practices in before the end of the year.  Some of this needs to fit around Ed's work schedule though, but hopefully, it'll be doable. 

Goals 2023 Update #2

This year definitely feels like it's going by very quickly and I am a little surprised that we've gotten half way through half it already.  It has been a bit of a mixed batch when it comes to me completing my goals for this year, but now that I'm looking at them it has actually gone better than I originally thought.

Financial

• Four months emergency fund - this fund took quite a beating at the start of the year and I really thought we were going to struggle with getting it back on track.  However, we've not only managed to catch back up, but are actually over the half way mark I had planned for us for this year.  We should still be able to keep putting in a good amount for the next four months, but I'm not sure how it will go once my current contract is over in November.  I would still like us to reach our goal this year, but to do so we'll probably have to do some real saving this coming quarter.
• Sinking funds - apart from the 'pie in the sky' sailing lessons sinking fund, we have reached our planned amounts for all our sinking funds for this year.  I have of course already spend all of my craft sinking fund.  We will hopefully be spending our surfing lessons one soon, but the rest will sit there for future use.  One hopefully never (the car repairs) and one a little closer to Christmas.
• Pensions and personal spending - I'm still putting 12.5% of my wage into my pension.  I had hoped that, now that I'm employed, this would be done through my wage but at the moment it hasn't been set up that way so I'm continuing to just pull out that amount myself.  We haven't done as well on our personal spending as we have with all our other financial goals.  We were being good for a little while, but then a whole lots of needed things came up and then not so needed but definitely wanted things.  We are financially stable at the moment so the spending isn't putting us in any financial difficulties, but it would still be good to get control on this for this last half of the year so that we can do better at reaching our financial goals and we don't know how our finances at the end of this year.
• Changing my bank account - I'm still to do this.  There isn't really any reason for me to not have done this already, it's just putting aside the time to sit down and do it.
• Secondary income - this is also something I still haven't done.  I just can't decide which way I'm going to go.  If I'm honest I'm also a little bit nervous about it, but I should really just give it a go.  Even if I fail at least I tried.

Learning New Skills

• Skateboarding - this was something that I had planned to do about two times a month, but so far I haven't even done it once this year.  The reason is completely that I'm nervous about doing it.  I think I've found somewhere to practise that is relatively flat and that doesn't have too many people using it.  It's unusual for me to let my fear stop me in this way, so even if it's just for that reason I need to just go and do it.
• Surfing - we now have the money we need to book some more surfing lessons and I've been researching where we can go to have these lessons.  All we need to do now is book them, which I will do once I've found out what my husbands next rota is.  Quite excited to be getting back to it and hopefully, after a couple more lessons, we should be able to start going surfing on our own.  I might also look at joining a women's surfing group just so I can build my confidence a little more.  
• Sailing - this is obviously on the back burner at the moment, but it's still in my mind as something we would like to do in the not so distant future.  I will need to research where we can get lessons from, etc, but for now it would be nice to just get to know the coast line near us a bit better.  That of course means sorting out some walking and beach days - what a shame.

So, a mixed bag of achievements.  We've done really well in some things and, mostly I've done, really badly on others.  There's still another six months to go though, which is still plenty of time to pull everything around.  Skateboarding is really the one I want to concentrate a bit more on, specifically because it's fear that is holding me back here.  It would also be good for my mind and body to learn something new and that I haven't done before.  So, the plan for the next quarter is just to keep doing what we're doing, but to put a little more emphasis on the skateboarding and controlling our personal spending.  That seems very do-able.  

We Moved

So I've been away from this blog for a while now, but I do have my reasons.....we moved.  And by that I don't mean just to a different flat but from Plymouth to the Brecon Beacons.  I had planned to do some posts about packing up our things and moving but I have to admit that I did get a little bit overwhelmed by it, even though we were just moving within Britain and I've never really gotten overwhelmed about moving before.  I think part of the reason was that we had really set roots in Plymouth with a whole load of plans of places we wanted to go to and things we wanted to do, something I hadn't really done before.  It was also our first home after getting married.

However, we were still excited by the prospect of exploring a new location and of my husband starting a job more in keeping with what he wants to do.  Trying to focus mostly on that we packed up our flat, shoved it all into the back of a van, and headed north.  Before it came to our move date we had been spending all of our free time researching what type of properties we could rent, what areas we would like to/ would be able to move into, and what types of jobs I'd be able to get.  It was looking like we would have to rent an unfurnished property, which would have led to quite a big additional expense and I was also researching where we could buy secondhand furniture, but in the end we were able to find the furnished house (yes you read that right, we've been able to rent a house up here) to move into.

Due to the fact that we'd been a little bit sad about leaving our previous home I wanted to spend the first week or so getting this new house into feeling like our home.  It's amazing how just putting up our books around the place made it feel like our space.  Now that our nick nacks and pictures are everywhere it definitely feeling more cosy.  I also spent that time sorting out our council tax, insurances, changes of addresses (why are there so many), and, of course, joining our local library.

And then there's all the new locations to find and explore, and I've already started putting together a list of possible places for us to go.  It'll be especially good to get back into the mountains again as we're now right beside them and we also want to get back into wild swimming as well.  From the basis research I've done so far, there seems to be quite a few opinions around us.  The one thing we will miss though is the sea and it does feel a little strange to not be able to see it straight from our window anymore.  However, it's not too far from us and there are lots of walks we can do there as well.  I think we'll probably end up spending a lot of time there just to make sure we get our seaside fix.  We should hopefully be able to get back to learning to surf again as well.  

Another thing that was high on our list was to find out where we could get refills for our dry groceries and cleaning products, which we've been successful with thanks to the husband, and that search has meant we've also found some towns and villages with good looking pubs which could work well at the end of a walk to explore.

Now that we're all settled in I should hopefully be able to get back to blogging regularly again, this time with a Welsh flavour.  I'm hoping to document all the exploring we get to do in this new area, though there is a possibility that when I finally get work our shifts might not match up again so I might have to do some of that exploring on my own.  One thing we did feel bad about when it came to leaving Devon was that we didn't explore the area as much as we had intended to (a common issue I know), so we plan on making a real effort to not do that again here.  There is a lot to see and, you never know, we might get to see some of it on a rain free day............not holding our breath though.

Goals 2022 Update #3

There has been quite a lot going on this quarter and so I haven't been focusing on our goals as much as I probably should have been.  But that's fine, sometimes life just takes over and you just have to go with it.  That being said, we still managed to get quite a few things done.

Financial Fitness

The plan for this quarter was for us to have our four months savings to be 3/4 of the way there, for me to have made a full nine months of pension payments, and for me to have worked out a secondary form of income.  That didn't exactly go to plan, especially on the savings front where we actually had to take money out of there to cover our bills.  This was mainly due to me being ill so often that I haven't had a good earning year at all.  It also meant that paying in my pension didn't exactly go to plan.  However, in the end I was able to mostly catch up on this and only ended up missing one weeks payment, so I'm going to count that as a win.  I'll make up for the lost week over the next couple of months and that should mean I'll still reach my end of year goal there.  

As for the additional income, I have looked at possible things that I could do (mostly on the crafting front), which you can find more about here.  I haven't had the chance to properly try out these ideas yet so that's something I'll need to do over the coming months.  Changing my bank account to a more ethical bank was also something I had planned to do this quarter, but I just haven't had the chance to properly look into this yet.  I have done some research into this, but I want to find out a little bit more before I make a decision on that.

So, what are the plans for next quarter.  I want to carry on putting money into my pension so that I have paid a full year's worth for what I think will be the first time.  I also want to practise the ideas I have for the secondary income to see if it is actually something I can do or if I need to start looking at other ideas.  Then there's the more ethical bank.  I want to have made a final decision about this, at the very least, and hopefully have actually moved my account to it by the end of the year.  Finally there's our four months emergency fund.  It's very unlikely that we'll be able to finish this this year now, but I would like for us to have gotten it back to half way there if we can.  We have already started making changes to our spending and that has been helping us save a little more money so we do have a chance of reaching this new goal.  

Sailing Around the World

I've been looking into electric motors for boats and there does seem to be quite a few companies that sell boats with electric motors or provide the motors that can be swapped with the diesel motors that are already there.  There's still information that I need to find out more though, such as more about the different types of systems we can have, so that when we come to actually buying into this I'll know what I'm actually talking about....hopefully.  And that's my plan for the next quarter, learn more.  Unfortunately financially we probably won't be able to actually start having lessons this year like we had hoped, but we can add that to next year as this is a very long term goal.

Long-Distance Walking

In August we did a walk in the Brecon Beacons which we had wanted to do for a while.  Even though it was only for one day it was still quite a long distance and a small part of doing this was to see how Ed's knees were doing and if they would be strong enough to do a long distance walk in the near future.  The conclusion was that they aren't quite ready yet and need a little more time before we can sensibly do one of these walks.  So I'm putting long distance walks on the back burner for now.  We have a list of what we would like to do and I might research some of them now and then, but we won't be doing any any time soon.

Learning New Skills

We did actually manage to do some skateboarding this quarter and I did begin to feel more comfortable on the board, but no where near what I had wanted to do this time round.  I'd love to be able to come up with an excuse, but the honest answer is that I've been lazy when it comes to this.  I'd just rather stay indoors and have a slow morning on the days we both have time off.  Or, if I am going out, it's to go for a walk instead.  I'll try and change that this quarter and actually get out to do some more practising, ironically in the quarter that is probably going to have the worse weather.  However, Ed should have more weekends off during this time as well, which will make it easier for us to do this together.

As for surfing, we did book that lesson that I had planned to book using the birthday gift Ed had given me and we really enjoyed it.  I really felt like we learnt quite a lot this time, but we want to do a few more lessons before we go out on our own.  I'm not sure we'll manage to afford them this year, but if we do manage to save up enough to get some more lessons in before the end of the year we definitely be doing that.  This might just be something we do next year.

All in all there's probably more positives than negatives this quarter, it just hasn't been as successful as the previous quarters and as we had hoped.  I always knew that we'd picked quite a few goals in for this year which were a little bit unachievable so I am a little bit proud of how much we have actually achieved so far this year.  Our biggest goal was to save up our four months emergency fund and that is the one that we haven't really manage to achieve, but there's always next year where we can put more emphasise onto it.

Goals 2022 Update 1

Despite the last few months being a little bit of a disaster, at least on the health front, most of the goals actually went quite well this quarter...... surprisingly.

Financial Fitness

My plan for this quarter was for us to pay off my credit card debt, pay half of our Christmas sinking fund, fully pay the car repair sinking fund, have quarter of our four months savings paid, have paid into my pension every month, and researched additional incomes.

I did manage to pay off my credit card and fully paid our car repair sinking fund.  As for the Christmas sinking fund, we decided that due to the way our finances are going we should fully pay this off this quarter rather than spread it out over the first half of the year.  This meant moving money from our fourth months emergency fund to do this which, in turn, meant that we didn't reach out goal in this front either.  However this means we only need to concentrate on this for the rest of the year.  I also managed to put money into my pension every month, just not as much as I had hoped.  Once our finances are in a better place then I'll increase the amount I'm paying in to hopefully make up for this.

For the next three months I would like us to save up half of our four months savings, though that is going to be a real stretch with our low income and increasing cost of living.  I would also like to pay up my six months worth of pension with the additional payments made.  Again this might be a bit difficult. Lastly, I want to think more about what I could activity do as a secondary income.

Sailing Around the World

We're taking this goal pretty slowly as we can only really jump on it once we have some finances to, but it's good to keep it fresh in our minds and as a motivation for everything else we're doing.  We've found out about where we can get sailing lessons locally and the general cost, which are about £300 to £700 per person depending on what level we go for.  We are thinking about the more in-depth, more expensive one as this would give us a better idea as to what we could be letting ourselves in for and whether or not we'd be able to actually do it.

For the next three months I want to research more into what type of boat we might want and would be most suitable for us as a two person crew.

Long Distance Walks

This one was pretty easy.  I just added a notebook to my OneNote and then added a whole lot of sections for all the multi-day walks we are interested in doing in the UK.  There are some that we're more interested than others, but it's good to keep our options open.

I'm not really going to do much more with this whilst we're still sorting out our earnings etc.  But it'll be nice to start planning one soon, even if it's just theoretical for now.  

Learning New Skills

Yes well, this one didn't exactly go to plan.  We didn't manage to do any skateboarding in the first quarter, but hopefully we'll get some done over this next quarter so I can actually start to get used to it.

As for the surfing, we did research local surf schools we could go to.  These are also quite pricey if we went for private lessons, around £100 to £140 per person, though obviously much less if we just book with a group.  Depending on how our finances go we might get some lessons in the second quarter, but it's more likely to be later on in the year before we get a chance.

And that's it.  Apart from a couple of things, we've done a pretty good job at completing this quarter's goals.  I haven't made too many goals for the second quarter as I want to be able to relax for a bit after all the wedding planning.  We also don't really know what our finances will be like so we can't make any concrete plans on goals connect with this.  If we can do better than I will do more, but otherwise I'm going to aim at low hanging fruit this time.  But all in all I'm quite happy with how things are going.