Welcome to 2019, a fresh new year that’s just waiting for us to crush our goals and achieve our dreams. Also, I’m getting married this year, so that’s pretty exciting.
Before we start chatting about everything #newyear, let’s recap my 2018 goals shall we:
- Pay off my final credit card – no more consumer debt for me! (Goal is to have it paid off by my birthday.) DONE!!!!!
- Build up a semi-full emergency fund of $5000 (Goal completion date is December) Not even kind of done 🙁
- Learn German to nearly triple my salary at work No – but big things happening here 😀
Okay, so I sort of hit 1 for 3, which isn’t great, BUT there is some good news.
First, obviously, being consumer debt free is amazing. I still need to tackle the six-figures of student loan debt I have, but hey, that’s progress. Second, while I didn’t build up a semi-full emergency fund, I do still have my funded $1,000 emergency fund, and I have plans to add to it after this year. Third, I learned some German, and I definitely hope to learn more so that I can travel there and speak the language; however, I didn’t learn it to triple my salary because I actually got a promotion! I doubled my salary, with guaranteed raises/bonuses for future years AND now have way better benefits – so I’m calling this a win.
On to 2019: my motto this year is Captain Marvel’s “Higher, further, faster.” This year, I am hoping to accomplish the following money-wise:
- Cash-flow my half of the wedding expenses ($15,000)
- Develop a side-hustle income of $100 per month to go towards buffing up that emergency fund
- Start saving for retirement again
Priority 1 is making sure that I don’t go into debt while having the wedding of my dreams. With a little of my already-existing savings, and a lot of planning, I should reach my goal of completely cash-flowing my part of the wedding in December 2019. You can read more about this in our upcoming Wedding Series.
My side-hustle income is going to supplement any wedding-related costs, but it will also be going towards one of my 2018 goals – increasing that emergency fund. I’m exploring a couple different revenues for this, including the blog, surveys, and delivery services.
Finally, I am officially saving for retirement again! This goal is entirely automated, so I pretty much can’t fail, but I’m still very excited about it. When I lost my job back in 2017, I lost access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan (i.e. a 401k), and I was focusing on paying off my consumer debt at the time, so I stopped contributing to anything. With my new promotion, I now have access to a 401k again, so I am contributing 10% this year, with a plan to increase to 15% over the next few years. It’s not quite enough to full fund my retirement, but it’s definitely a much-needed restart.
Now that you’ve heard all about my 2019 goals, I want to hear yours! Are you planning on saving more or paying off a debt this year? Let me know!
-ECD