2012 Part Two: Goals
It's a completely arbitrary and meaningless date change, but with a new year comes a certain amount of introspection. I accept this and embrace it as a good, motivating thing. So, with 2012, I'm going to be focusing on a couple of big things.
1) First and foremost, there's my finances. For the first time in my life, I'm actually taking money seriously. I never had strong financial guidance growing up, I came from a very working-class family that essentially lived paycheck to paycheck, so that's how I've lived most of my working life, too. No more. In 2011 I took some control and paid down debt like crazy - as of today, I have only my car loan and a student loan left to pay off. I am well on track to be 100% debt free by this summer, and to have a good nest egg saved up by 2013. Finally! I should have laser-focused on this years ago, but I simply couldn't (or wouldn't). It's not too late. And that leads directly into #2.
2) Eye on the Prize: A House. The reason for saving up so aggressively right now is simple: I want to buy a house, and to have some land. I've lived in rentals almost my whole life. My parents didn't buy a house until I left for college, and they sold it 10 years later. So, again, I had no financial guidance there. I've just sort of moaned and whined about how I wanted a house, but I've never done anything about it. So now, I have a real savings goal, and a real plan, and I know that when I put money into my savings account it's going into there for a very specific purpose: to buy a house.
I'm so set on this because I've always keenly felt a need to have a place that's all my own, something that I owned, something that I knew I had control over. I've never felt truly at home anywhere while renting. I've denied myself pet ownership because of it, too, and that simply has to change. So while I won't be buying a house in 2012, I will be focusing on that as a goal in 2013 or 2014.
3) Health. 2011 was a very good year for my health. I got serious about it and lost 50 pounds. But then I let myself go a little bit, and re-gained ten of them. It's time to assert control again, to get myself down another 50 pounds in 2012. I know it's doable, because by golly I just did it.
In the immortal words of Leeroy Jenkins, "TIME'S UP. LET'S DO THIS!"
1) First and foremost, there's my finances. For the first time in my life, I'm actually taking money seriously. I never had strong financial guidance growing up, I came from a very working-class family that essentially lived paycheck to paycheck, so that's how I've lived most of my working life, too. No more. In 2011 I took some control and paid down debt like crazy - as of today, I have only my car loan and a student loan left to pay off. I am well on track to be 100% debt free by this summer, and to have a good nest egg saved up by 2013. Finally! I should have laser-focused on this years ago, but I simply couldn't (or wouldn't). It's not too late. And that leads directly into #2.
2) Eye on the Prize: A House. The reason for saving up so aggressively right now is simple: I want to buy a house, and to have some land. I've lived in rentals almost my whole life. My parents didn't buy a house until I left for college, and they sold it 10 years later. So, again, I had no financial guidance there. I've just sort of moaned and whined about how I wanted a house, but I've never done anything about it. So now, I have a real savings goal, and a real plan, and I know that when I put money into my savings account it's going into there for a very specific purpose: to buy a house.
I'm so set on this because I've always keenly felt a need to have a place that's all my own, something that I owned, something that I knew I had control over. I've never felt truly at home anywhere while renting. I've denied myself pet ownership because of it, too, and that simply has to change. So while I won't be buying a house in 2012, I will be focusing on that as a goal in 2013 or 2014.
3) Health. 2011 was a very good year for my health. I got serious about it and lost 50 pounds. But then I let myself go a little bit, and re-gained ten of them. It's time to assert control again, to get myself down another 50 pounds in 2012. I know it's doable, because by golly I just did it.
In the immortal words of Leeroy Jenkins, "TIME'S UP. LET'S DO THIS!"