2011 Financial and Life Goals Recap

At the beginning of 2011, I set some financial and life goals for myself and Mr. Money. Here’s how 2011 played out for us:

1. Keep up with the clutter and declutter 365 items from our house this year. SUCCESS.

I know I decluttered and donated a lot more than 365 items from our house this year.

2. Pay at least $3,000 down on the principal of our mortgage. FAIL. We did pay off $2679 off our mortgage prinicpal, so I think that’s pretty good! Our extra money this year went to our savings account. Honestly, I’m not too concerned with paying down our mortgage aggressively at this point. We’ve got other priorities. I do wish our mortgage balance was lower, but we can chip away at it.

3. Travel to somewhere fun and exciting. SUCCESS? We took a trip to Colorado when I was around 20 weeks pregnant. It was our last trip as just the two of us. I really wish we had gone to Hawaii last year for our fifth anniversary, but I was a tightwad and didn’t do it. Oh well. The nice thing is that we saved money by not going, allowing me more flexibility to be a stay at home mom.

4. Get knocked up. SUCCESS. I am most proud of this goal, as we’ve been trying to have a baby for quite some time. We are really excited to welcome our baby in 2012.

5. Live on one salary. SUCCESS. We did successfully manage to live off Mr. Money’s income. My income did pay for health insurance and retirement savings, so we didn’t factor that into the equation. I’m okay with that.

6. Make more money from side hustles. SUCCESS? I did make money blogging this year, although it wasn’t enough for me to quit my day job. I’m hoping 2012 provides more money making opportunities from home for me. Of course, I’m going to not stress about it because I’ll have a new baby.

7. Stay debt free! SUCCESS! We did stay consumer debt free this year, and only have our mortgage debt. It feels like in the past few months we’ve been spending money like crazy, but we’ve saved for this, so it’s okay.

For 2012, I’m going to make some realistic financial goals. I have no clue how our budget will be affected by the baby, but I’ve decided that I’m not going to be too hard on myself. What’s the point of having tons of cash in the bank if my life is miserable? I’m going to do my best to find a nice balance in 2012 between budgeting and living life. I’m anticipating it to be the best year of my life ever, so that’s a positive start!

I need to decide what to make our 2012 goals and come up with a new budget for after the baby is born. Fun!

Overall, I’m happy with the way we spent 2011. I’m very thankful we didn’t have any huge expenses (well, minus paying for the baby’s birth ;) ) and that we were healthy and happy throughout most of the year. I feel very blessed, and am sure that feeling will stick with me throughout the next year!

Happy New Year!