I recently posted an accounting of how I fared with my 2018 Resolutions / Goals. With the calendar about to turn over to the new year, I wanted to publicly post my Goals for 2019. I have decided to call these my goals rather than resolutions. Resolutions sound more about changes you wish to make for the upcoming year while Goals, to me, sounds more like lasting life changes. It may be word games, but it is something I wanted to point out.
Another thing I have decided to do for this coming year, is to have my family participate as well. I won’t publicly display their goals here, but the game plan is to have each person in the family come up with a list of personal growth goals for the year, write them down and then we can revisit those periodically to see how we are each doing and hold each other accountable.
So, onto my 2019 Goals.
In 2018, I mentioned a few items where I failed to reach my goal. I will start with those items in 2019. My weight is a big one, as it is for many people at this time of year. I lost some of the discipline that allowed me to lose a significant amount of weight. I saw my diet slowly but steadily go away from a lower carb, healthier list of foods. I allowed my sweet tooth to reintroduce itself and this is something I plan on addressing in the coming year. I am currently nearing 250 pounds, so my goal is to get this back in check. I plan on doing this in a tiered approach to help me track this and hopefully hold myself accountable. My goal is to get my weight under 240 by February 1st. Then continue along this path and lose an additional 5 pounds by March 1st. At that point, would like to hold my weight in that range (below 235) for the rest of the year. I plan to weigh myself and document it on the first of each month.
The other goal that I failed to reach in 2018 was improving my taxable investment account to over $50K. On December 5th, I documented that I had only reached $38k in that account in 2018. In the three weeks since that post, the account has dropped an additional $4k to $34k. We are currently in a bearish market so that decline is despite continuing my bi-weekly contributions automatically. I intend to continue my bi-weekly contributions, currently $525 every other Friday. This will account for an additional $13,650. I hope to increase the automatic contributions as well as I continue to find small, incremental savings each month. But simply taking the additional contributions that are currently planned, that should bring the account to over $47K. My goal for 2019 will be to find those small, incremental monthly savings as well as finding additional “one-time” contributions throughout the year. Keeping those goals in mind, but still accounting for market conditions being outside of my control, I would like the end balance to reach at least $55k by the end of the year.
One new goal for this year is to focus on reducing one of my remaining debt instruments. This is my Home Equity Line of Credit. I currently have a balance on this of a little over $37K. My goal for 2019 is to increase my monthly payments whenever I can comfortably do so and bring that balance below $30,000 by the end of the year.
The remainder of my goals are similar to last year’s successful goals, so they don’t necessarily warrant discussion. Below is the full list.1. Keep Weight under 235 (see above for incremental goals)
- Keep Weight under 235 (see above for incremental goals)
2. Max my 401K contributions
3. Fully Fund Wife’s ROTH IRA (Stretch Goal: Fully Fund my ROTH IRA as well)
4. Read at least 24 Books & Listen to at least 24 audio books
5. Re-read “The Millionaire Fastlane” by MJ DeMarco & “Set for Life” by Scott Trench
6. Get Vanguard Taxable Investment Account over $55k
7. Pay Credit Cards in full each month
8. Get HELOC Balance under $30K
9. Continue to Blog weekly
10. Earn additional $100 per month in income through various side hustles
So, there you have it. Those are my goals for the coming year. If I follow goal #9 and continue to blog through the year, I will report on my progress near the end of 2019. Feel free to list some of your goals in the comments and perhaps we can work to hold each other accountable. Thanks for everyone that has read this blog, I truly appreciate all (both, haha) of you! Happy 2019!!
I will write mine down and let you know if I am okay with you sharing them. I think maybe that would make me be held accountable. But I don’t know that all of mine are “measurable” goals so it’s hard.
I think the simple act of writing them down and sharing them (with anyone) is such a powerful tool in helping reinforce the behaviors to ensure you execute. Once written, don’t forget to revisit them regularly to keep them in focus.