2011 Goals in Review

Although I wasn't blogging at the start of 2011, I still thought it would be helpful to focus on my (extremely LONG) list of goals & the progress that was/wasn't made. Here goes!

1. No shopping for clothes, shoes, or makeup for myself. Oh, the irony of this one, given the December numbers I just posted. To be fair, I spent $0 until mid-April, then things fell apart. I'm trying to be smarter with my goal this year, and I'm instead allocating $500 for myself to spend for the entire year.
2. Payoff my 401K loan by 9/15/11. Done. This was paid off in the spring. It wasn't even on the radar that we would also be able to pay off M's 401K loan this year. In total, we paid off almost $90,000 between the two. This money was used to buy down an enormous refinance that will benefit us for the entire length of our mortgage. It was spendy, but totally worth it.
3. Complete 4500 minutes of cardio. Blew this one away. I completed 8700 minutes of cardio.
4. Complete 1500 minutes of strength training. Honestly, I stopped tracking, but I'm sure I was no where near this. I started running & stopped lifting for most of the year. My goal for 2012 is around number of strength workouts, which I think will be more helpful (and easier to track).
5. Complete 1000 minutes of flexiblity/stretching. Fail. Stopped tracking & barely did any.
6. Organize one room in the house per month. I did this for 9ish months, but stopped. I'm left with the major tasks/rooms now. :-)
7. Achieve goal weight of 130. I did lose weight in 2011 (at one point, my total loss for the year was 20 lbs), but I netted out at 13 pounds for the year. Still focused on this goal for 2012.
8. Minimum of one date per month with M. Did this! And loved it. This is on my 2012 list again.
9. Get together with two friends per month. Did this, and loved it as well! It's easy for me to let months go by without seeing my friends, so it was so nice to make this a priority & schedule time to myself.
10. Take a photography class. Fail. Didn't do this - I'd still love to. My photo skills are atrocious.
11. Create wills/trusts/guardianship. Fail. This is just terrible, & is on my immediate list of things to do in 2012.
12. Get additional life insurance. Fail. I'm embarrassed to even explain this, but I wanted to be at my goal weight to secure a great rate, and obviously never go there. This is a must do for 2012.
13. Create a list of 25 favorite meals. This is an ongoing work in progress. M is *very* picky, so finding 25 meals that he loves is no small task. I do have a list of 10, and will keep working on this. 
14. Learn to bake bread. Failed. I did try & still would love to master this!
15. Take a pilates class. Sadly, never did this, but I did swim laps (many laps), so I'm proud of myself for branching out a bit.
16. Run a 5K. Major success. I've had this on my yearly resolutions for at least four years. I finally bit the bullet & promised myself I would actually do this in 2011. And much to my surprise, I ran a 5K, fell in love with running, & started training for a half marathon. I broke a bone in my foot in May, so I was unable to continue running for six months, but I'm back & running again!
17. Make a 2010 family photo album. Kind of  - all the pictures are uploaded & ready. Now it's just a matter of ordering.
18. Make a 2011 family photo album. Same as above - just need to do this.
19. Take the boys to Disneyland. We opted not to do this in 2011. We did a ton of fun trips, both with the kids & with my parents/family.
20. Read 12 books. Done! I read 22 books last year & stopped tracking mid-September.
21. Relearn to ski. Kind of? I took lessons, but got snowed out for at least half of them, had kid drama another weekend, and I'm pretty sure I'm about where I started last year, in terms of skill. 
22. Teach our older son to ski. Done! He's skiing blue/green, and he's 5.5. Definitely more advanced than I expected for his age.
23. Introduce our younger son to skiing. Done! He's comfortable riding the magic carpet up & skiing down the kid runs by himself.
24. Consciously consume. Well, I've done better in the last year than I ever have in the past, but it's definitely not even close to as good as it could be. Room for improvement in 2012!
25. Have 50 no spend day. Hmm, I stopped tracking this early on in the year. I'll assume it was a fail.

As you can see, I was grossly optimistic last year & created way too many goals. Jack of all trades, master of none. :-) My list is much more feasible this year. How did you do with your 2011 goals?

Tentative 2012 Goals

I'm working on our 2012 goals (both family, financial, & personal) & have quite a few lofty aspirations. I may need to whittle the list down a bit. :-) I also need to review our updated income/bonus projections & determine if any of these need to be adjusted based on reality.

Family goals:

• Take a family trip. We're planning on Hawaii over spring break.
• Teach our youngest son to ski, and continue to help our oldest son improve his skills.
• Set up will/trust/guardianship for the kids. This is getting carried over from 2011, because I don't see this happening in the next few weeks.

Personal goals:

• Get promoted at work or find a new job
• Start volunteer writing
• Achieve/maintain my weight at 130
• Run a 1/2 marathon
• Complete 8500 minutes of cardio
• Learn to bake bread

Financial goals:

• Fund boys college accounts to 50% (currently at 40% each)
• Pay down vacation mortgage to $200,000. This will mean paying off roughly $107,500 of the principal this year. Still crunching the numbers to see if we can do this.
• Pay off M's 401K loan. (We may get this done this month in 2011, but it takes a long time to get the paperwork to clear. Funds, however, are ready to go for this.)
• Pay down HELOC to under $100K This will mean paying off roughly $80,000 of principal in 2012. Still crunching numbers to see if we can do this.
• Consider/research/investigate rental property

Are you working on your goals for 2012? What are you hoping to accomplish in the year ahead?

Goals for November

Wow, I can't believe there are only two months left in the year!

Here are my goals for November:

1. Complete 500 minutes of cardio
2. Lose 5 lbs. Starting at 146
3. Sell 2 items (or more!) on Craig's List
4. Decorate house for Christmas
5. Finish Christmas shopping
6. Clean pantry
7. Clean both fridges
8. Complete 8 strength training workouts
9. Complete guardianship/will/trust for kids
10. Research life insurance
11. Create a list of all shared accounts (between myself & M) to store in safety deposit box
12. Plan ski week with my sister, nephews, and our kids
13. Decide on winter activities for boys
14. Track all spending
15. Reduce monthly expenses by $200
16. Get together with two friends
17. Decide on/register for benefits at work. There are a bunch of changes to our health care plans, so I need to figure out which is best for us.

Have you thought of your goals for November? What are you most hoping to accomplish? :-)

2011 Goals

I realize that it's October, and I'm putting up my 2011 goals, but I want to have them easily trackable. And, even though my blog is new, I've been working on these goals all year, so I should be held accountable. :-)

Here they are, in no particular order, along with the current status.

1. Pay off my 401K loan. - Done. Due to a windfall from M's work, I was able to pay this off even earlier than I expected.
2. Fund both kids college accounts to 40%. - Mostly there. I am at 40% for S's account, and 37% for N's account. I have the money to get N's account up to 40%, but I'm waiting for a refi on our second property to close, in case I need to bring money to the table to wrap it up.
3. Run a 5K - Yes! I was actually a week away from completing a 1/2 marathon when I broke my ankle in May. :-( I fell in love with running & can't wait to get back into it!
4. Learn to bake bread - Epic fail. I did make corn bread recently? ;-)
5. Complete 4500 minutes of cardio workouts. - Huge success! I'm currently at 7198, and that includes taking time off for my broken foot. I crushed this goal.
6. Lose baby weight. - Well, I achieved this back in July, but I've regained 3.2 lbs. I need to focus on this one, so I can end the year with a success on this goal.
7. No shopping for clothes, shoes, jewelry, or makeup. - I made it for three months, but that's it. To be fair, I've done really well with conscious consumption this year, and replaced a few essentials (I had to buy several pair of flats due to my injury, as I'm normally an exclusive heel wearer at work.)
8. Get together with two friends per month. - I stopped tracking this at some point, but for the most part, I think I've done this.
9. Create a list of our favorite 25 recipes, to make meal planning easier. - I created the list, and we're now in the process of testing the old favorite recipes & making sure that they are: easy, kid friendly, and relatively frugal. So far, I have 10 recipes that meet this criteria.
10. Track spending all year. -  Eh, I wasn't very good at this. However, I've tracked all of August, September, and I'm currently on October. Honestly, I've learned a ton about our spending by doing this and wish I would have done it all year.

How are you doing on your 2011 goals?

Financial Background

With my first few posts, I'll try and provide a bit of background on where we currently are with our finances, and our goals - both short-term and long-term. I'll discuss the challenges we're currently facing, and the opportunities.

My husband and I are planning to retire in 20 years, which will make me 55 and my husband 64. At that point, I imagine both of us will choose some sort of part-time employment, be it volunteer or for pay. We'd like the flexibility of not working if health is a concern, but both like to be busy with activities. I'm not sure how that will change as we enter our 50s and beyond. :-)

Goals:
Our goal is to move, sell our current home in Seattle (it will need to be fully paid off at that point), and take the settlement from that house & buy a house outright in Hawaii. We're anticipating downsizing, and hope to have additional funds leftover to cover taxes, insurance, start up costs (furniture), etc on our new home.

The Plan:
Obviously, we're a long way from making this a reality, but planning for retirement requires a bunch of steps along the way, so I am looking at 1 year, 5 year, 10 year, etc plans to get us there and make sure we are no track for retirement. We also have other financial goals related to our children, like sending them to college, so you'll so those goals weaved in as well.

Here are the things I can currently think for our retirement plan:

• Primary residence fully paid off (we're 5 years in to a 30 year mortgage, so we'll need to accelerate payments to make this happen). Goal is to pay this house off in 15ish years - so have it paid off by 2027.
• Vacation home fully paid off. We may or may not sell this house when we retire, but it will need to be paid off. We're aggressively paying this off, and my goal is to have this house paid off by February, 2017.
• Fully fund our kids college accounts. We're currently saving in GET accounts, and I have 40% of tuition credits saved for our oldest, and 37% for our youngest. (Our kids are 5 1/2 & 4 1/2.) I'm still wrestling with how much we will need to save, so more to come as I work on this goal.
• I've run quite a few simulations on how much money we will actually need to retire, and I'm just not sure I have a firm answer. I'm using $6,000,000 as our current target, but I'm sure that will get revised along the way.
• Retire with no debt (credit card, auto loan, etc).

Ahhhh, such small goals to focus on. ;-)