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.

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.  

Goals 2023 Update #1

Things didn't exactly gone to plan this quarter with a move across country has been the main reason why not, but I have to admit that not being very motivated has also played a part.

Financial

• Four Month's Emergency Funds - this went down this quarter instead of the intended up.  There are a few reasons such as we had an overlap of the properties we are renting so we had to pay two different rents at the same time and a deposit before our other deposit has been returned.  However, this is what this fund is there for so I don't feel too bad about it.  We'll just need to start building it up again.  It does mean that for us to reach our goal of saving a third of the savings this year we'll need to put aside £835 this coming quarter.
• Sinking Funds - our car repair sinking fund is now back to £500 and we should hopefully not need this for our new car, but it's always good to have it just in case.  We have managed to put the £75 a month into our Christmas fund this quarter and will need to carry on doing this over the next quarter.  We have also been putting money into a surfing lesson sinking fund and we only need about £60 for this.  Once I've done my tax return this year we should hopefully have some money to put toward these funds and our emergency fund.
• Pension and Personal Spending - I did manage to put 12.5% of my income into my pension whilst I was earning, though now that I'm jobless there hasn't been any more going in these last few weeks.  Hopefully, that won't last for much longer though as I am job hunting at the moment.  We have also been pretty good at keeping our spending to just £25 per week, apart from in March when everything just went south.  Next quarter we will need to get our spending back into control again if we're going to reach our 2023 financial goals.
• Changing My Bank Accounts - I haven't gotten around to this yet as I haven't set aside the time to make the change and to double check how this new bank account will work with my other financial accounts I have, such as my savings and credit card.  I also need to have an income coming in as well as the new bank account does have a monthly standard fee.
• Secondary Income - this also hasn't been done yet as I just can't get my head round what I could actually do for a secondary income, skill wise.  Though this coming quarter I need to concentrate on getting a primary income first and then think about a secondary income after that.

Learning New Skills

• Skateboarding - we haven't done any skateboarding yet this year and that's a shame on our part as we had a perfect park beside us to do it before.  Now that we've moved I'll need to find somewhere new for us to go and make it one of our priorities whenever we have time off together.
• Surfing - we were going to book to have lessons where we had gone the last time, but now that we've moved to Wales it would make sense to find somewhere here instead as it would be a bit costly to travel to Devon every time we wanted to go for a surf.  Once we're completely settled in that's what I start researching.
• Sailing - this is still something that's just on the back burner for now, especially as we're now further away from the sea.  We need to get our finances in order first as well before we can start spending it on this quite expensive little dream.

And that's it.  It actually hasn't turned out too badly despite everything.  Next quarter it would be really good to concentrate on getting our finances back on track so that the rest of the year can be a bit more relaxed and enjoyable.  It is possible, but it will definitely be easier to do if I can get work and soon.  That is my main focus now.

February and March 2023 Budget

I did think about writing two separate blogs about our February and March budgeting but then decided that I'd much rather write about other things and so they are going into one together. It is a tale of two months with one going pretty well and the other completely falling off the wagon.  In our defence, we did move in March so we had other things to make decisions about and there was some overlap in the properties we were renting which meant we had to pay two rents, pay a deposit for the new property and cover things like heating etc when we'd already paid by direct debit for the old flat.  

We did get some of the money back and we should be getting our old deposit soon. One of the biggest expenses was hiring a van (which with a mess up from the company we originally hired from ended up being a lot more expensive than we had originally budgeted for) and covering the fuel costs.  This all meant that we had to take out most of the money we had saved into our four months emergency fund, which we decided to do over our own emergency funds, but that is what that's there for.

February was quite a good month.  We stayed within our budgets for groceries, eating out/ takeaway, fuel, and personal spending.  I also put a good amount into my pension as well.  We had money to put into our Christmas sinking fund, but I forgot to transfer it in February so did it in March instead.  We didn't put any money away into our four month savings but by the end of February I knew we were moving and so decided to leave all the money in our main account.

Then March came along.  We actually didn't do too badly on the groceries spend, but the eating out/ takeaway budget went out the window a long with spending on household goods are we settled into the new place.  There isn't a lot of storage space here so I had to find items that would help with that.

Fuel was another expense that went up as we travelled to and from Wales a couple of times and had to pay for fuel for the van (which was an extra £100).  As the car should mostly be travelling the same distances it did down in Plymouth now we're expecting that the cost should go back down to what it was before.  I also wasn't able to put more money into my pension after the first week of March as I wasn't earning any income to put that into.  I am job searching at the moment so that should hopefully change in the not so distant future.

Our general spending wasn't actually too bad, though there were some major costs that we couldn't have saved up for as we didn't know about them until this point, such as the van rental and buying some new clothes for my husband for his new job.  The only point where we'd both been quite naughty was our one year anniversary gifts we got each other.  We had a budget, neither of us kept to it. 😂

So, what are the plans for next quarter?  Obviously I need to get a job and we need to get back to keeping within our budgets again.  I will be doing my tax returns next month and that should mean that we get a little bit extra coming in to put back into the savings.  I have worked out that if we want to still reach our goal of a third of our four months emergency saving by the end of this year we need to put in £280 a month for the rest of the year.  I'll need to see a couple of months spending, especially with out fixed monthly bills, before I can see how realistic this is going to be, but it's good to have it to aim for for now.  

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.