Happy New Year everyone

[Distant dreamer]

HNY folks! Here’s to all your 2019 planned adventures.

I was wondering if we should do a mini 2019 goals thread for us UKers to keep us on track?

I have all the standard ones....get fit, recover from my injury, be healthy, look after myself mentally after what has been a very difficult year plus....pay off the mortgage, save £25k, and take a very non MMM trip to Asia.

I reckon that should do it for now.

[never give up]

Happy New Year Distant dreamer! I like all of your goals. To pay off the mortgage and save £25k sounds most impressive. Good luck with them all.

I’m still compiling mine but I will provide an update on them when I know myself. I’ve had a NYD buried in spreadsheets!

[Distant dreamer]

Yep, not sure how feasible it is given both of us are standard rate tax payers and don’t earn heaps but I’m going for some stretch goals : )

I done my 6 monthly finances yesterday with lots of pretty coloured graphs. Not really sure what they tell me but......they look pretty.

[Manchester]

I'm hoping to get past £25k N/W this year.  Which is a bit of a stretch on what I earn, but I have plans in place. :)

[Distant dreamer]

I'm hoping to get past £25k N/W this year.  Which is a bit of a stretch on what I earn, but I have plans in place. :)

Good luck Manchester! I think it’s always good to push. How does the saying go....if you reach for a star you may not get one. But you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.

[PhilB]

As a 2018 FIREee my goals for 2019 are basically not to freak out too much if and when the market slide continues.  More generally, after years of planning for the future I need to accomplish the transition to living much more in the moment and enjoying the freedom I worked for.
Good luck to all of you whatever stage of the journey to FIRE you have reached - may 2019 move you all further down the road to freedom.

[cerat0n1a]

Happy New Year everyone.

Just back from spending a couple of weeks off-grid in Skye (really beautiful place, but a lot of us tourists even in late December...) Still adjusting to this RE thing, particularly with regards to being at home with my wife in the day time, and being able to meet up with friends during the day.

My goals for the next 3 months include completing the first draft of a book I'm writing, to make something from the large pile of hazel coppice I've cut from the garden (probably a bench...) and to ramp up my running mileage with the aim of running the Hebridean Way once the days get a bit longer.

[UK Dancer]

Snap, Ceratonia! New year on Arran for us, similarly off-grid and actually remarkably few visitors, it was beautiful!

[cerat0n1a]

I keep making half-hearted plans to run the Mull of Kintyre half marathon (every May) and to go there via Arran, but once again, not this year.

[MarcherLady]

Hi everyone, sorry, late to the party.  My goals this year are more about life-stuff than money stuff:

• Sell my house and move 'oop North
• Buy a house (we're probably going to rent first due to a fear of building a chain of sales during Peak Brexit (although Nadir Brexit might be a better term)
• Achieve 1 and 2 while remaining married.
• Don't say 'oop North to any of my new neighbours. EVER. (I am the Southernest of Southeners)
• Get a new job and retain my mental health.
• I'm also thinking that hubs and I have got rather complacent and need to <<!Face!Punch!>> ourselves into being more mustacian, but I feel like goals 1-5 might be more than a stretch so, we'll see.

[TacheTastic]

Happy New Year everyone!

My goals for this year are mostly non-financial, but the whole year has a long-term financial goal.

1 - Finish my degree (aiming for a 1st for pure vanity reasons).
2 - Take a really amazing graduation holiday.
3 - Continue to save my student loan installments.
4 - Get a full time job and then move close enough to have the smallest possible commute.
5 - Continue to see how my (relatively new) relationship pans out.

2019 holds a lot of changes for me and I am really excited.

[shelivesthedream]

1. Stay married
2. Ensure BabySLTD feels loved and cherished.
3. Become more physically robust.
4. Keep the house cleaner.
5. Come up with A Plan for our next move in June 2020.
6. Make some money (and save it, obviously!)

[Zola.]

Happy new year all!

SLTD has similar goals to mine, I just tweaked them a bit!

1. Stay married
2. Ensure BabyZola feels loved and cherished.
3. Get stronger in the gym, add 15-20lbs of new muscle
4. Keep the house cleaner.
6. Make some money (and save it, obviously!)
7. Develop career further

[frugledoc]

1) work less
2) take most friday’s off

[Squelchy]

Happy New Year!
1. Finish our first tax year of putting income, expenditure and investment into a proper spreadsheet.
2. Keep expenditure below the 2017-2018 levels in 2018-2019. A specific target for investment is harder as my main contract comes to an end before then, but we aim to automate it so we are left with only as much as we need for spending.
3. Find a replacement job without compromising anyone's wellbeing (which, given childcare issues and the fact that I work in a field with very high dropout/divorce/suicide/alcoholism/depression rates probably means part time).
4. Grow or forage at least a third of our own fruit, and grow at least five types of vegetable.
5. Exercise at least twice a week.
6. Buy nothing new for myself this year, except necessary materials to help me finish projects using up my fabric and yarn stash.
7. Take advantage of having more time to carry out various works around house to solve condensation issue, upgrade poor insulation and create a viable space to work from home in preparation for being busier next year.

[Distant dreamer]

HNY folks! Here’s to all your 2019 planned adventures.

I was wondering if we should do a mini 2019 goals thread for us UKers to keep us on track?

I have all the standard ones....get fit, recover from my injury, be healthy, look after myself mentally after what has been a very difficult year plus....pay off the mortgage, save £25k, and take a very non MMM trip to Asia.

I reckon that should do it for now.

I’m checking in for an update. As of today we are mortgage free wooohoooo! The rest is all still on hold as I’m still off work and broken but I’m trying very hard to not let that put a dampener on an otherwise awesome day! Oh, and the sun is shinning.

[never give up]

Congratulations Distant dreamer that’s an amazing accomplishment. Very well done. Your cash flow will improve significantly and you’re certainly entering a new financial phase now on your route to FIRE. I hope you recover fully soon.

[Distant dreamer]

Thanks NGU. It does feel rather good. We ploughed money in to it in the past so will certainly have more cash now than I think we ever have had.

[MarcherLady]

Congratulations, it's a great feeling isn't it?

[shelivesthedream]

Great job, Distant dreamer! Nice to tick one off so early!

[Distant dreamer]

Congratulations, it's a great feeling isn't it?

It hasn’t quite sunk in yet tbh, and I’m not sure it will until I get to keep my next wages at the end of the month. For the last couple of years my entire salary save for about £30 each month has gone to it so it is sure going to be different.

[UK Dancer]

Massive congrats distant dreamer, I dream of that day, probably still 5 or 6 years away though...

[PhilB]

Shhh!  Someone will tell you off for paying of your mortgage rather than investing the surplus cash and beat you to death with maths!

[robartsd]

Shhh!  Someone will tell you off for paying of your mortgage rather than investing the surplus cash and beat you to death with maths!

No doubt an American who assumes 30 year fixed rate mortgages exist everywhere in the world.

[Distant dreamer]

Shhh!  Someone will tell you off for paying of your mortgage rather than investing the surplus cash and beat you to death with maths!

Oh I’m sure there are plenty but we thought about it long and hard and are happier with it gone. Once you get to the 20k mark it’s surprising how few lenders will touch you and ending up on variable rates of 4.5%. At that point investing vs not lining the pockets of bankers seemed an easier choice to make.

[Distant dreamer]

As the end of the year is approaching I thought I would check in and see how everyone got on. Did you meet your 2019 goals? It’s been a rubbish year in the DD household (and hence my forum absence).....I am still injured and lost my job as a result so didn’t achieve some of the goals I posted 12 months back but we did pay off the mortgage and save the 25k we had hoped. And whilst it’s not the path we planned the last while has really changed our perspective on life and what we want to achieve. Plus I get to pretend I reached FIRE by just being unemployed instead :)

[shelivesthedream]

Ooh, how nice to see this again! It sounds like you've had a strange year, Distantdreamer - sort of bad on the outside but good on the inside? I too have not had the year I expected to have, although it has on the whole been resoundingly better.

1. Stay married
2. Ensure BabySLTD feels loved and cherished.
3. Become more physically robust.
4. Keep the house cleaner.
5. Come up with A Plan for our next move in June 2020.
6. Make some money (and save it, obviously!)

1. Hurray! Win!
2.  Also win! He is lovely and cuddly and now ToddlerSLTD.
3. I reversed this by being pregnant again and being even less active than I was last time, so I am now in worse shape than I was in January and likely to face a longer, steeper uphill slog to re-becoming a function human after giving birth.
4. Like... sort of? But mainly because Mr SLTD is home all the time and a much cleaner person than I am. We also moved to a new house whose ground state is "clean" rather than "low-level endemic filth". See also: pregnant. So we live in a cleaner house but I can't really take any credit for it, and am definitely still Chief Creator Of Mess Which I Totally Will Clean Up When I Get Round To It. On the plus side, I am teaching ToddlerSLTD to "help" with sweeping and dusting, which is no doubt an investment in future cleanliness ;)
5. I overachieved on this by moving this year!
6. Yes! I actually did this! I did two proper jobs and two tiny side projects, and we've done really well at saving.

I will now have to start thinking of some resolutions/goals for 2020!

[never give up]

Hi Distant dreamer (waves). I’m sorry you’ve had a difficult year but it’s great to hear from you. Congratulations on hitting your financial goals. Very well done.

I was a bit mixed in terms of my goal success but I did make a proper pizza for the first time and I achieved my clothes budget target in spectacular fashion.

[MarcherLady]

Hi Distant Dreamer, sorry that you have been injured, I hope you are beginning to be on the mend.

• Sell my house and move 'oop North - Done!
• Buy a house (we're probably going to rent first due to a fear of building a chain of sales during Peak Brexit (although Nadir Brexit might be a better term) - Done!
• Achieve 1 and 2 while remaining married - Wow, was this one prescient or what? There was a little wobble in there, but Done! for now at least.
• Don't say 'oop North to any of my new neighbours. EVER. (I am the Southernest of Southeners) - Done! (Although we have just been invited round for Christmas drinks on Thursday, so there is still time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.)
• Get a new job and retain my mental health - New job achieved, my mental health teetered on the balance for a while there... but all in all... Done!
• I'm also thinking that hubs and I have got rather complacent and need to <<!Face!Punch!>> ourselves into being more mustacian, but I feel like goals 1-5 might be more than a stretch so, we'll see - Yeah, this didn't happen, but I will be FIREd by the end of January, so that one will be rolled over to next year.

[Distant dreamer]

Pats on the back all round! F**k we are awesome :)

Yeah SLTD, it’s been kind of odd. It has been terrible on one hand, in a darker place mentally then I could have ever imagined yet at the same time kind of liberating. It has turned me from a somewhat risk averse person to one that just doesn’t care now, instead just desperate and thankful to be living in the moment and keen to see how far we can take this. For too long we were living for the future and from really shit first hand experience, I see how risky this is now. Well done on everything you have achieved this year....let’s see those 2020 goals!

Hey NGU, I did read about your pj fiasco! And the pizza but what about finding a date....don’t think we don’t remember......

Haha MarcherLady, I did wonder if you had managed to avoid saying ‘oop North. Perhaps lay off the mulled wine on Thursday just in case but yay for making new friends in your village already. And I did read about your work situation...super excited for you! Life is too short to put up with that crap, go and build a sand castle on your local beach or something instead.

It’s funny to think how far we have all come in 12 months, who knows what the next will hold.

[SpreadsheetMan]

Missed this thread last Jan. Not exactly a great year for me on a life event level, but I dropped to part time in August and then gave notice this month of retiring next Summer. The FI(RE) plan is on track at least, whatever else has been going on.

[never give up]

Sorry you’ve had difficult year SpreadsheetMan but congrats on the FI(RE) date.

[PhilB]

Hi distantdreamer - sorry you have had a bad time health wise.

As a 2018 FIREee my goals for 2019 are basically not to freak out too much if and when the market slide continues.

 
Well we all know how that one turned out.  My don't-freak-out circuits remain untested after markets bounced back almost immediately.  Financially I'm quite a way ahead of plan.

More generally, after years of planning for the future I need to accomplish the transition to living much more in the moment and enjoying the freedom I worked for.

A mixed result on this one.  A couple of times I got too hung up with my one-day-a-week job or spent too long sweating the small stuff on the numbers.  At other times I managed to not check anything for weeks and to get on with having fun.  Not as much achieved around the house as I hoped, but spending 20% of the year on holiday is a contributing factor.
Overall though it has been wonderful in a thousand and one little ways.  The number of times my wife and I have turned to each other and said 'Guess what.  We're retired!' must be in the hundreds. 

[Manchester]

I'm hoping to get past £25k N/W this year.  Which is a bit of a stretch on what I earn, but I have plans in place. :)

Hey @Distant dreamer

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life.  Sorry to hear your year hasn't as great as you'd wished.  Sounds like you've taken the hardships life could throw at you on the chin.  What doesn't kill you....   :)

The following has happened for me in 2019:

- More than doubled my N/W (not including home equity) to £25k+
- Become engaged
- Completed a trail running half marathon
- Continued learning another language (to a point where I can nearly speak fluently to relatives)
- Watched my football team win an unprecedented treble (thank you Pep - if you're reading this, you're my hero)

So it's been a really, really good year for me. 

There are a few things I'd like to improve on next year on a personal level.  I'm going to have a think of some goals to set for myself come January.  But main ones will be focussed on:

- reducing my environmental impact
- becoming more pro-active and reduce procrastination
- get my body 'wedding ready'

[shelivesthedream]

Here are my draft resolutions:

1. Stay married.
2. Ensure toddler and baby feel loved and cherished.
3. Survive first ten months of new baby without totally losing perspective on life.
4. Spend more time outdoors.
5. Become more physically robust.
6. Publish a second ebook.

There are lots of ancillary things I'd like to do next year (Mr SLTD and I are talking about making our own nativity scene somehow in time for next Christmas) but given #3 I think I'd better accept that a lot of life will be on the back burner for 2020. I hope to achieve #4 and #5 in tandem. And I'm 10k words into ebook number two (out of...lots. Maybe 75k? Hard to tell at the moment which bits of my outline will balloon in verbosity and which I'll be able to be crisp and concise), but to be honest if it's not done and dusted by my due date (end of Feb) in at least a rough and ready form, it's probably not going to happen. But hey, there's motivation! And I'm sure it's something I'd come back to in 2021...

[oneyear]

Love this and here's to an amazing New Year for all the UK MMMs.

• 1. Sell my business
• 2. Spend as much time with my family as possible
• 3. Give up my fancy pants car in favour of my FIRE car
• 4. Become more physically active
• 5. Eat better, drink less

Just reading through this, all my actions are prep for fire. Regardless if certain things come off or not, 2,4 & 5 are the points I need to focus on.

[MarcherLady]

Hmm, let me think:

1. FIRE !!!!
2. I want to do better at living in the moment. This year there has been too much planning and waiting.
3. Continue to assert myself in my relationship with Hub. Work out what I want and advocate for getting it.
4. Build a community here: friends, volunteering, exercise.

(Can you tell I was at therapy last night?)

[TacheTastic]

Happy New Year everyone!

My goals for this year are mostly non-financial, but the whole year has a long-term financial goal.

1 - Finish my degree (aiming for a 1st for pure vanity reasons).
2 - Take a really amazing graduation holiday.
3 - Continue to save my student loan installments.
4 - Get a full time job and then move close enough to have the smallest possible commute.
5 - Continue to see how my (relatively new) relationship pans out.

2019 holds a lot of changes for me and I am really excited.

1 - Check, including the 1st
2 - Check, Cuba was amazing!
3 - Overall yes.
4 - Full time job, in a job I completely love. Plan for moving changed slightly though. Commute easily done by train and bike under £15 a week.
5 - Yeah, this one was a bust. But did I mention that Cuba was A-Maz-Ing…

Are we putting resolutions for 2020 here or in a new thread?

[poppydog]

As a 2018 FIREee my goals for 2019 are basically not to freak out too much if and when the market slide continues.  More generally, after years of planning for the future I need to accomplish the transition to living much more in the moment and enjoying the freedom I worked for.
Good luck to all of you whatever stage of the journey to FIRE you have reached - may 2019 move you all further down the road to freedom.

As a fellow 2018 FIREee I pretty much agree with PhilB’s sentiments.  I’ll add that, at 65, I’m conscious that I’m getting older and so need to enjoy myself as much as possible.  We don’t get today again!

[MarcherLady]

@poppydog that is a lovely saying, I like it. Happy New Year to you all!