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 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.

Goals for 2021

 

Last year I had a few goals and, despite the year we had, I unexpectedly managed to get quite a few of them done.  However, the one thing I did realize was that having a number of goals on the go at the same time meant that I wasn't able to really concentrate on the important ones.  Due to this year, I've decided to just go with one goal, and that is to become financially fit.  The reason I've chosen this and not something like healthy eating is because having financial stability would put me in a much better position to follow some other very long term goals I have.

I've dabbled in this over the years.  However, I never really concentrated on it properly or been able to keep it moving forward, always going back into credit card debt (a little bit, nothing major) and I always end up eating into my emergency fund for things that aren't really emergencies.  So I've decided that this year is going to be the start of a full-on run into financial stability, no matter what income I have coming in.

So, this is where I am at the moment.  I have some debt on my credit card from having to buy the car - about £750, and there is the student loan I still have, but which I am probably going to ignore a little as most British financial advisors tell you not to worry about it too much.  I do want to get it down though, once I'm a little more financially stable.  I have managed to build my emergency fund back up to £1000 again, but I don't have any sinking funds going.  I have a little money in my pension, but not nearly enough to give me a comfortable retirement.

The long term goal is to still have my emergency fund, 6 months savings to cover rent and amenities if needed, no debt (including getting rid of my student loan - though that's very far away I think), have sinking funds for Christmas presents, birthday presents, and car repairs (between £500 to £1000), and me putting a good size amount into my pension on a monthly basis.  There's also the very long term goal of saving up for a deposit to buy a home.  I figure this will probably take five years to complete, but I think a big bulk could be done in the first couple of years.

My plan for 2021 is:

1. To keep my emergency fund
2. Be rid of my credit card debt
3. Have 4 months of the 6 months savings in place
4. Have around £2000 towards my student loan 
5. Be ready for Christmas 2021 with my, not surprisingly, Christmas sinking funds
6. As well as having my car repairs fund at least halfway (I feel we're going to need it for this car).  
7. Put £200 a month into my pension

That's a lot of money that I have to find, about £9400, out of what might not be a particularly high earning pot, depending on whether or not I get the apprenticeship.  I won't be doing it alone of course, but it is still going to be a bit of a push.

On a lighter note, I do have one small additional goal.  To learn to skateboard.  I'll leave it at that for now.