Goals 2023

To get straight to the point, the goals I have this year are going to be pretty much the same as the goals for last year so this it's going to be a particularly long post.  However, we are still aiming for the same long term goals and this year should see us carrying on in that same direction.

Financial Fitness

• Four months emergency funds - with the cost of living going up and the added monthly payments for the car we needed to buy our four months emergency fund has now gone up to £7500.  This is going to be a long term goal and, having looked over all our incomings and outgoings over the last year, I know we won't be able to reach this in a year.  I would like us to get a third saved in 2023. That seems more realistic.
• Sinking funds - we need to build up our original sinking funds again.  The Christmas fund has been put up to £800 this year, so we'll need to put aside £75 a month to reach that goal.  Thankfully we only have to put in £50 to get the car repair fund back up to £500 so that'll hopefully be one off the list of things I have to worry about.  I've also added surfing lessons, which we want to do two more of so need to save up £240 for that.  We did however ask for money for Christmas for that so we're almost there on that also.  The last sinking fund is for sailing lessons, which I've worked out for both of us to be around £1400.  This isn't a priority though and we'll only put money in when we can.
• Pension and personal spending - to help with out financial goals I've decided to reduce my pension payments to the recommended 12.5% of your wage.  This does mean that the payments will be about half what they use to be, but at least that means there will still be some money going in.  We've also decided to budget our own personal spending to £25 a week.  That means if we want to buy anything that is more than that we'll need to save up a few weeks before hand.
• Changing my bank account - I didn't get around to doing this last year so I want to do it this year.  I know which bank I want to move to so it's just a case of sitting down and getting it sorted.  It really shouldn't take too long.
• Secondary income - if we're going to reach our financial goals a little quicker it would help if I could get us a secondary income coming in.  Unfortunately it can't just be a case of picking up some extra hours as my responsibilities have remained the same, so it needs to be something I can fit in around the other things I do.  As I'll be spending less time crafting this year I'll hopefully be able to work out what that might be.

Learning New Skills

• Skateboarding - this is still something I want to learn to do.  It's not like I want to be able to do stunts or anything like that, I just want to be able to ride along on one comfortably.  The truth is, I'm getting in my own way here and being lazy about it, so I'm going to put in a goal of skateboarding two times a month and go from there.
• Surfing - we already have some money to take another lesson and are saving up for the second lesson this year.  My brother has also said we can borrow his surf boards whenever we want so we don't have to spend money there (though I do need to work out how we're going to attach them to our car).  After that it would just be a case of getting out and doing it on our own.
• Sailing - unfortunately I don't think we'll get round to this this year as it requires us to save up enough money to get the lessons.  However, it is something we need to do before we take this long term goal any further as we might be terrible at it.  However, if we get the opportunity we'll be there.  I do want to carry on researching boats etc as well, just so we're ready when it comes.

And that's it this year.  It doesn't really feel any different from last year, though for some reason it does feel like I'm trying to fit less in.  Hopefully that'll make them easier to achieve and I am mostly focusing on finances this year.  Wish me luck or maybe just motivation - wish me motivation.