Sunday, February 2, 2020

January goals recap

January was both a very long month (so dreary) & also went by quickly (two work trips). Here's how I did with my goals for the month.


1) Financial:

  • Stick to the budget - we actually did well! We were under on all categories, and snuck in with an under grocery month, despite the extra shopping day. 
  • Achieve the first mortgage paydown milestone - Yes! We are still on track to have 1/2 of the mortgage paid off by the end of the year. 
  • Track all clothing purchases. Known need - bra. Yes, I only purchased the bras. 

2) Family:
  • Do one fun activity with the kids - we skied several days. 
  • Off the computer by 7:30 each evening - mostly did this. 
  • Have two dates with M per month - we had one
  • Schedule a call with M's family - not yet. 
  • Learn 20 words of Farsi - No, but I ordered a book with flashcards. 

3) Fitness/health

  • Lose 3 lbs - I lost 3.8 lbs!
  • Run 10 times, start half marathon training - I ran 6 times. 
  • Track calories, eat five servings of produce/day. Aim for 1400 calories/day. - I was at 1529/day. The food at the work retreat last week was amazing, so that definitely pushed me up. 
  • Complete 1000 minutes of cardio, 10 strength & 5 stretching workouts. (910, 6 & 4, respectively)
  • Meditate 10 times. - I meditated 7 times. 
4) Personal/creative
  • Do something social at least once/month - I spent a day at the retreat with my friend. 
  • Volunteer - No. I still need to think of how to work this into my schedule
  • Journal 10 times - 12 times. 
  • Adapt a more positive mindset (judge less) - I'm more aware of this, and cutting down the snark when I'm being more thoughtful. Other times, it comes out without conscious thought, so I need to keep working on this. 
  • Listen more often vs talking - I'm trying to be more aware of this as well. I'm making an effort, but this is a very ingrained habit. I've probably made a 1-2% improvement, even with being so aware of it. Definitely a good focus area for me for 2020. 
  • Stop/greatly reduce swearing - I did really well the first three weeks of the month, and slipped back into old habits towards the end of the month. I will continue working on this. 
  • Read one non-fiction book - I finished one non-fiction book on the flight from Tokyo. I'm about half way through another book. 

Altogether, I'm pretty pleased with the progress, considering I had two business trips in a month. Those months are typically a disaster. I made focusing on m goals something I did at home, and when traveling. What about you? How did you do with your goals?

8 comments:

  1. Congrats on the weight loss! Nearly impossible with travel, my hat is off to you. We were a tiny bit under on our grocery budget and even though it was the month where we paid for truck insurance we had a rather low month budgetwise. So fantastic that you are on track to have your mortgage half paid on a high value house! It must be a relief to see you are getting somewhere with it and all that money you save on interest on trying to pay it down early. It kind of makes working longer/fulltime worth it.

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    1. Thank you! It was definitely a concerted effort to do things differently this go round with the travel. And yes, going back to work to see big progress on the house has been worth it so far. It also really reset my stress level, which has helped tremendously.

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  2. You dod really well. From someone who uses sarcasm that often comes out as snark, I get the challenge.

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    1. I come from a very sarcastic family, so this is very much a work in progress!

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  3. Congratulations on the weight loss and meeting your financial goals. That's great. :)

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  4. Go you! Just a couple of reds with everything else accomplished or with much progress. What a great month.

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  5. You did great, I would love to post mine but no time, where does it go?

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