November Goals Recap

November was a great month, that included both a family vacation (Hawaii), as well as Thanksgiving at home. Work was pretty crazy, particularly before & after taking time off. Here's how we did with our Christmas goals!

Financial:

• Stay on track with our food budget, including both eating out & groceries. Even on vacation! We have a special part of the travel budget for groceries, and groceries in Hawaii are $$, so we'll factor that in as well. - Yes! We spent $545 of our $625 grocery budget, and $0 of our dining out budget (during the month, excluding vacation). We included our vacation groceries & eating out in our vacation budget, but I'm still happy with our tradeoffs, and not eating out any other time during the month!
• Come up with one way to reduce what we need/spend on an ongoing basis - We bought flasks for everyone. They were about $8/each at Costco, and we've loved them. We normally use plastic water bottles, but they don't hold up well to travel. These flasks have saved us so much money, as they keep water cold for 12+ hours. They can also keep hot beverages warm for an extended period of time, but we haven't tried it for that purpose yet. Typically on a vacation, we would have spent $25-40 on cold drinks, at the airport, around the pool, etc. Instead, we made great use of the ice machines, and filled with water & didn't buy any plastic water bottles or drinks (other than a couple of smoothies by the pool for the kids). Win! These will help us keep our drinks expenses even lower on an ongoing basis. 
• Earn another $600 in side hustle money. Split this between college money for the kids, & an extra payment on our vacation house mortgage. - I made $470 in side hustle. I forgot that selling on eBay when I'd be out of town wouldn't work terribly well, so I saved most of those items & they sold yesterday (12/1). I was able to send more than planned to college/mortgage paydown, as we received a check of $828 from our vacation house mortgage after we PAID IT OFF! :-) Escrow refund. We are now diverting extra funds to be shared between college money & our primary mortgage. 
• Continue our 2019 budget prep, including our plans to try & lower our mortgages, and potentially paying off our vacation house. - We paid off our vacation house, and spent quite a bit of time working on details for our 2019 planning, but it's still a work in progress. 
• Start & finish my Christmas shopping - We're about 75% of the way there. Still need a few ideas for Sam, but plan to take him to Target today to look around. We did purchase the skis for the kids, and I got my other gifts that need to be mailed out of the way. 

Family:

• Have one family evening together: cooking dinner, board games, etc - Definitely. We had a great time in Hawaii, but also have had several puzzle nights, and everyone helped cook on Thanksgiving. 
• Have a date night with my husband - Not in November, but we had one last night! Just a day short. ;-) 
• Continue financial help (knowledge, not money) with sister & friend, as opportunities arise - Nothing came up this month. I expect this to be something we chat about over the holidays. 
• Have a fabulous trip to Hawaii - It was absolutely great. No regrets, other than having the kids miss two days of school. It's never been a problem in the past, but the school is incredibly strict, and I didn't do enough research. Despite lots of pre-planning, notification, attempts to do the work early/after, both boys have had several classes drop grades, which is really sad. Lesson learned. Hawaii itself was amazing.

Fitness/health:

• Work out every day in November! - YES! I did 30 days of working out (a few days I worked out 2x to make up for travel days, etc). 
• Complete another full round of 21 Day Fix - Yes! I really enjoyed it. 
• Eat 5.5 servings a day of fruit & veggies - I don't think so. I didn't track super closely, but I'd say I was more like 4/day. 
• Lose 2 pounds - My weight stayed the same. 

Work:

• Work from home 2 days - I did this. 
• Work on my my "homework" from my coach - Sort of. I rushed through the work, post vacation. 

Personal/creative:

• Plan sabbatical! Start sketching out dates on the calendar - I haven't done this. 
• Make one new recipe - Yes! I made several new recipes - bacon stuffing for Thanksgiving, and a leftover rollup with crescent rolls. Both were great. 
• Spend time with a friend - I don't think I made this happen. 
• Volunteer at least 1x - Nope. November was hard. I did find multiple donation opportunities, and also went to a Dress for Success event to bring some work clothes I no longer need. 

Altogether, I'm really happy with how November went. What about you? How did you do with your goals? On to December!