January 2015 – Goals in Review

I can’t believe January is already done!  I’ve been reading quite a few post reviewing goals and resolutions, so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and review my goals for 2015.  I did a week 1 results post, but haven’t really reviewed my goals since, so I’ll go through them all quickly.

Financial Goals

1. I did indeed create a budget, but as I will discuss in a post later this week, I didn’t exactly do a great job of making it, so I definitely didn’t stick to it… progress, but not complete success yet.

2. I updated my status bars on the right side of my blog yesterday, so we can see that we have finished saving for the wedding.  Success!  Now we just have to get on the organizing (see Misc. Goals below).
The other two planned spending accounts (education & home reno funds) have not had much added to them, so we will have to step it up.

3. I haven’t done any increases to my RRSP contributions.  However, I have been learning about my investments.  I feel that my budgeting needs to be under control before I can safely increase my automatic withdrawals.  So, perhaps I won’t call this a total failure, but let’s say if I continue on this path it will be…

4. This is the pretty much at the same state as my RRSPs.  I haven’t put any new money in to my TFSA this month, but I learned about what I have already, and I have learned exactly where I stand with my current limits.  So, again, not a total failure, but I really need to get working on my savings.

5. I had this as a stretch goal to create an emergency fund.  I haven’t specifically created one yet, but I’m sort of realizing that my regular savings account has sort of already been an emergency fund without really knowing it.  I feel nervous if there isn’t a certain amount in that savings account (not enough for 3-6 months of mortgage payments though), and I always maintain the minimum balance in my chequing account to avoid my hated bank fees.  I guess that sort of means that I already have an emergency fund started, I just hadn’t designated it as such before.  I’ll give myself partial credit for this one.

Professional Goals

1. Fail.  Completely.  Okay, I haven’t technically missed any deadlines, but I said I would make a study schedule and get my documentation ready, and I’ve done nothing…

2. Let’s call this one in progress… I kept track of my arrival times, since that was the first step of my plan to be more productive that I laid out at the beginning of the month.  In January, I arrived at work by 8am only three times, but I also only arrived at work after 8:30am three times, and only one of those was after 9am and that was planned because of a morning appointment.  I call this definite progress (compared to 9/9:30 as before).  My productivity level at work still requires some attention, but I am getting better at making my daily to do list when I get in and following it for the day.

3. Fail.  Completely.  I haven’t even touched a book or text relating to work.  Time to play catch up.

Health & Fitness Goals

1. At my last weigh in, I was down 4.8lbs from my starting weight.  Pretty good for the first month, but that was the easy “Christmas” weight.  The next 10lbs will be more difficult for sure.

2. I registered for my 10k run in April, and I have been running regularly with my running friend.  So I call this a success so far.

3. I haven’t registered for a 1/2 marathon yet, but I laid out a training plan, which I hope to post on here at some point… not a fail exactly, but not a success yet either…

4. Success!  I have definitely been exercising at least 3 times a week.  This goal is easy when I’m at home, but when I’m traveling for work (later in the year) this will be where this goal gets difficult.

5. Another success!  I may have missed a week in the middle there… but I have planned and mostly followed through with the plans for the past couple weeks.  Just have to keep it up.

6. Another failure.  I have definitely decreased my drinking, and have had many “no drink” days, but I haven’t yet kept it limited to 7 drinks/week.  It makes me wonder how many drinks I used to have per week when I wasn’t monitoring it… kind of frightening to think about…

Miscellaneous Goals

1. Another sort of success… I have not completed a decluttering task per week, but I have done a couple, and will try and catch up…

2. Fail.  I have done zero work on learning about gardening or planning what I would like to plant.  I think I need to start planting things in March, so I need to get started on this ASAP.

3. Another fail.  We did manage to get all of our “Save the Dates” out, but I have not made a schedule for the remaining tasks, and we need to get a few key things sorted out pretty quick so we can get our invitations out.

So, not exactly the most successful first month, but perhaps I was a little over ambitious with my goals for the first month?  Progress has been made, and if I keep it up, I should be able to mark a few more successes down when I do my next review at the end of February.

How have your goals progressed this month?  Have you had more successes?  Or more failures?

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