It’s the last day of 2008. Time to take stock of things. What went right? What went wrong? What changes can I make next year to right the wrongs?
This year began with my family on shaky financial footing. My husband was filling in as the sports reporter at KDOV radio, something we hoped would turn into a full time job someday. On the 14th of January, that happened. My husband was hired full time as the sports director, and he’s been steadily employed there ever since. That was an answer to prayer!
The rest of our year went really smoothly. No major job upsets. No huge unexpected financial disasters. We were just rolling right along, when housing prices started to drop, and interest rates continued to be at record lows.
For the fun of it, we started browsing local real estate websites, looking at homes. We came across a home that was reasonably priced and located in a nice area, right outside town. We dragged my dad along, and to make a long story short, we bought a house and took on a huge interior remodel.
The second half of the year is a blur to me. We moved into my dad’s house for a month between the time school started and the time our house was in livable condition. Both kids adjusted to their new school beautifully. Meanwhile, I felt like I was spinning plates between establishing new routines, keeping Being Frugal going, and working on the house. I definitely learned that I need a little more organization around here!
Amidst the craziness of buying a house and moving, I became one of Walmart’s Eleven Moms. John at Walmart has been great to work with, and the other PF and Mom Bloggers have taught me so much along the way. This gig has been a huge blessing to me, and I look forward to seeing what the Eleven Moms do in 2009!
Now for the not so great part. My goals for 2008, and my progress (or lack thereof) in meeting those goals.
Financial Goals
- Pay off credit cards by September ‘08 - Check. We paid off the last of our credit cards a full 4 months early in May.
- Make a budget and stick to it. - We were doing pretty well with this one until we moved. The month I was at my dad’s house was rough, because I couldn’t access anything online, and I didn’t think to put everything down on paper. Since our move, I’ve been working on revamping our budget, but it’s been difficult, not knowing what our utility bills will look like during the winter. I’ll be working on this one again next year.
- Limit eating out to 4 times a month. - Massive failure. We did well for a while, but this goal kind of flew out the window mid-year.
- Save 5% of our income. - Again, we did well until we moved. I’m looking to get back on track with this one soon, too.
- Get health insurance. - We got health insurance in May through my husband’s job. Meeting this goal was harder than I thought it would be, as my daughter and I were denied private insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
- Update our will. - Didn’t happen.
Blogging Goals
- Hit 2000 subscribers. - I thought it was an ambitious goal. I was wrong. I had to set another goal, because I hit 200 subscribers in April!. My new goal was to hit 5000 subscribers by year end. I hit the 4000 mark, which is good enough. Especially considering I was featured at CNN.com and on the front of my local paper. I can’t complain at all about the growth of my blog!
- Consistently have posts written one week ahead. - I wasn’t too successful with this one, but most of the time I managed to have posts written a couple of days ahead. That’s an improvement from the beginning of the year.
- Guest post at least once a month. - I did a lot of guest posts early in the year. Then I got to the point where I couldn’t keep up with posting on my own blog, much less writing posts for other people. Goals are meant to be adjusted, right?
- Learn the ins and outs of SEO. - I know a lot more about Search Engine Optimization than I did in January. So that’s a success.
- Continue to post authentically, from the heart. - This is my most important goal for my blog, and I think I’ve managed to succeed in this area. I think I’ve been a bit more factual than emotional this year. But that’s me…emotional when things are bad and factual when things are good. So I’d say I’ve been pretty authentic!
What I’ve learned over the last year is that goals have to be flexible. A lot of my goals were derailed by our home purchase and subsequent move, something we didn’t see coming at the beginning of the year.
I’ve also learned that organization is important. Some of my goals I flat out forgot about, because I didn’t have a system in place to remind myself what I was working toward. I’m going to work on remedying that for the next year.
It’s incredible to me how quickly our lives went from financial uncertainty in 2007 to my husband landing the job of his dreams and owning our own home in 2008. I hope anyone out there who is in a discouraging financial situation can find some encouragement in that. Bad times don’t last forever, and sometimes they turn around very quickly.
Stay tuned tomorrow for a look at where I’m going in 2009. It’s going to be an exciting year!
Photo by Powi.
Now that the weather is cold (and rainy in Oregon), it’s the perfect time to save money with a soup night. I like to schedule a soup night once a week, because it’s a great way to use up leftovers that might otherwise go bad in the back recesses of the refrigerator.
5. January 2009
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