2018 Goals, and a 2017 Review

Welcome to 2018! I hope the end of 2017 treated you well! For me, this past December was an interesting one.

For the last half of the month, I had a hard time focusing on anything specific. The kids were coming home with illness after illness, and when my sinus congestion started, I thought I caught whatever new germ was in town. Within a few days of the congestion, I had a hard time breathing. So I started taking my inhalers daily, and then the dizziness and disorientation started. Both of which are side effects to my inhalers, but they’ve never left me that out of sorts.

Then two days before Christmas, I lost my voice. The weirdest part about this whole experience is, my symptoms never went to full-blown “cold” symptoms. They hung out in the realm of what I experience every May with allergies. Except worse. My allergy meds didn’t even touch these symptoms. Needless to say, the last half of December became survival mode for me.

Thankfully I had a well-exam scheduled two days after Christmas. While I was there, I was given a referral for an allergist. I don’t go see him until February.

But in discussing this with my husband, I had wondered if our tree was causing this reaction. He thought it was something else in the house, but went with me on my crazy hypothesis. I mean, it wasn’t the first time we’ve had a live tree, but it was the first time this had happened. So I can see where he thought me asking if the tree was guilty in my squeaky mouse voice did sound a little crazy.

We left the tree up until New Years Eve. It gave us enough time to be festive, and see my family, but not feel like the Grinch taking the tree down the day after Christmas.

Wouldn’t you know it, but within hours… yes hours… after tearing down and removing the tree from the house, my symptoms started to clear up. I was able to speak! My congestion hung around for a little longer, and two days later I was able to breathe easier. All that to say… I guess this year will be devoted to spending tons of time at the allergiest and finding out my new triggers.

All that craziness aside, I guess it’s a good thing I’ve never been one to figure out all my goals for the new year right before the new year happens. For me, the end of the year is a time to frantically prepare for Christmas three ways, and to spend as much time with the kids and Hubs while we all have off. It’s just the schedule I’ve been used to forever now, and it’s pretty hard to get my brain to switch out of that mode, so I work with it.

2017 Review

Debt Paid

Throughout 2017, we have paid $15,464.26 in debt. While it’s not the $23,000 I had hoped to pay, and it’s no where near our best year on debt payments since we started getting serious about our finances, I still think we’ve done a fantastic job.

If you remember back at the beginning of the year, I was fairly certain we wouldn’t make that amount since we were still unsure of what our income changes would be, and what our out of pocket portions on medical expenses would be. Given that we had a really weird year medically, with two cases of Lyme’s disease between Hubs and Monkey, a prolonged Lyme’s preventative treatment for Lady Bug, along with some blood work, a few UrgiCenter visits for possible fractured fingers, and paying nearly $550 for Monkey’s methoacholine challenge… the fact that we were able to pay it all out of pocket and not add it to our debt makes me very happy.

When I look back on the year, we were able to achieve:

- pay $3,481.49 medical expenses out of pocket — or in other words, did not add it to debt
- saved $7,800 for birthdays, Christmas, and bills that don’t occur monthly — this by far is our best year in preparing ourselves for these types of expenses
- started implementing a cash envelope system
- cash flowed spring & fall soccer for all three kids
- cash flowed a family camping trip to Hershey

Since we started getting serious about reducing our debt in 2014, we’ve paid off seven accounts and $81,544.28 in debt!

Cash Flowed Activities

At the beginning of the year, I wanted to cash flow soccer and a camping trip as a family. I know most people will say to hunker down and pay down debt as fast as you can, and while I do agree with that, our student loan debt isn’t something that will paid off within two years.

Before the changes to our medical expenses this year, we were on track to get all debt, except our mortgage, paid off within 8 years. In 8 years, my oldest will be 20, and the youngest will be 13. I want them to have memories of spending time as a family and taking family vacations, not memories of doing absolutely nothing beyond being hermits at home because we were focused on throwing all our money to Nelnet.

But now that our medical expenses have become more… well, expensive… I want the kids to be able to say that they went on a family vacation over the summer, even if it was a vacation on a budget.

This past summer we took a trip to Hershey. It’s far enough away to be considered a vacation, yet it’s close enough that we’re not stuck in the car for more than a day. While we were on our trip, I had a major sinus infection, Lady Bug had just finished her round of antibiotics for Lyme, and Hubs was showing some major illness symptoms, which later turned out to be Lyme.

Even through all that, our kids remember the fun they had, and have already been plotting what rides they’re going to go on, keep checking their height to see if they’re tall enough, and are thinking through what other places they want to go while we’re there. They even ask to count the cash we have in the envelope while we stash the money aside each week.

As long as we are cash flowing activities and sticking to a specific budget for all activities, I don’t mind taking a detour on this. While it may not be paying debt off the fastest that we can, it’s also teaching our kids to budget and be intentional with their money.

Garden

Last year my goal was to take it easy in the garden. I can say with absolute certainty that it’s exactly what I did. I can also say with the same amount of confidence that I felt like such a slacker!

The reason I didn’t want to go crazy on the garden is that I wanted to relax a bit, go through and use up what we had on hand, and basically make sure I didn’t have any major asthma issues by the end of summer/beginning of fall. While I didn’t send myself into asthmatic stasis like I did two years ago, I did still get sick during our apple processing season.

My break came at a decent time. We had some pretty weird weather that rocked our growing season. Our of 32 pepper plants, I didn’t get a darn pepper. Not one! I also had issues with tomatoes.

2018 Goals

Debt

This year I am not going to set an amount I want to pay on debt because, surprise surprise, our income in changing yet again. Instead, this year I want to aim for finishing off my credit card. That’s the last of our consumer debt, and is the last debt in our way before paying off student loans.

As for our income changes, our health insurance coverage is staying the same this time, but the deductions coming out of Hubs’ check are doubling the current rate while the deductible remains at it’s new higher level.

Another change to our income comes in the form of removing a deduction. For the last 5 years, Hubs has had $15 taken out of every paycheck for the company truck that he drives. The company is now making employees responsible for personal miles driven on the vehicle, and driving to and from the office each day is considered personal mileage. The only time it’s not personal mileage is if he’s driving from the house to a job site.

Then at the end of 2018, one of Hubs’ paychecks will have the amount he’s being “taxed” for personal use of his truck deducted from his paycheck. This could mean a really shitty check on our end because we live 20 miles one way from the office.

Savings

Savings is something that has single-handedly helped our budget for the better. And, income changes aside, it has also brought our debt repayment down a little. But saving a little money each week, and keeping track on my 52 week savings tracker, has helped our budget immensely. The money is already there and I don’t need to come up with it on the spot.

This year, we’ll still be setting aside money each week for our gifting account, and our main savings account. Our gifting account is what I take money for birthdays, Christmas, any kids’ birthday parties we were invited to, as well as for Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinners.

Our main savings account I treat as a lump sum savings for car repairs, non-monthly bills, prescriptions, and any medical/dental/vision out of pocket expenses we have.

As I mentioned before, I’m also starting a savings account to make up for Hubs’ truck deduction being taken annually rather than weekly. To account for this change, I’m setting aside the $15 per week that they’re no longer taking out. This way when his vehicle usage is deducted from his check, that money will make up for the difference in his income. Since I’m unsure on mileage rates, we may have a surplus of money by the end of 2018. If that’s the case, it’ll go to debt. If I’ve under saved, I’ll pull the remainder from the month’s budget. Either way, we’ll have to readjust that sinking fund as needed for 2019.

I’m also going to continue a savings account from 2017, and that is for having our septic tank pumped in June. As of this posting, I have $100 set aside already; only $200 more to go.

The last thing I’m saving for will be the back to school rush, but that’s further down in it’s separate category.

Continue Using Our Cash Envelopes

Midway through 2017, I started using cash in an experiment to see if it helped us spend less money while we’re out. At first, it was a bit of a struggle, because I had to be on top of how much I was spending and how much was left. Thankfully I also had the kids with me when I started, and they would help add up what we were spending, and honestly didn’t ask as much for us to buy things. They knew we were walking in the store with a specific amount, and we had to stick to it.

Since starting cash envleopes, I’ve fine tuned what my categories are that I take out, as well as how much I take out each week. In 2018, I’m planning on keeping up with this system, and continuing to fine tune it as I go along.

Cash Flow Activities

This spring, all three kids are planning on playing soccer again. Since our spring registration comes out of the money we paid in the fall, I don’t have to worry about it for now, but I will start saving for the fall when signups come again.

As for any other activities that they want to be in, we’re getting to the point now that their interests are shifting to other sports and activities, but I’m personally limiting them to no more than one activity that is not school related. This will not only help our budget, but it will also help my sanity by limiting how much overlapping I’ve got between their schedules.

Cash Flow Back To School

The beginning of our school year brought some major expenses that I hadn’t expected this year. With all my kids in school now, I knew there were some expenses that remain the same year to year to year. These include backpacks, replacement lunch pails, etc etc etc. I had purposely started shopping in March to help keep our costs down and end our shopping early, and that didn’t happen.

What I wasn’t expecting is that even though their district had a much later than normal start, and every chance in the world to be prepared for the start of the school year, it simply didn’t happen. Reconstruction on one of the buildings was behind schedule, and not finished despite our late start. Malware had attacked the school system making it impossible for student schedules to be ready in time, or parents to be aware of what the required supply lists were. They had even gone through and massively changed up the bus routes this year, thinking it would help reduce expenses, but wound up creating even more confusion.

I was sent on a wild goose chase for the first month of school for items that were considered necessary, like a specific calculator for Bookworm’s prealgebra class, a planner for Bookworm since the agendas the school had printed had errors and the reorders didn’t arrive in time. We were waiting on busses that were routinely late with the new schedules, and were still going through scheduling changes for the first month. I felt like everyone was literally flying by the seat of their pants for the first few weeks this year.

To help make up for some of the extra costs we experienced this year, I wound up having to reduce our debt payment in the late summer and early fall.

So this year, I will be setting aside $500, roughly what I spend on all three between required supplies, required classroom donations and last minute supply runs. Since construction on the high school is finally done, I’m anticipating their school year to start normal time, in August this year, giving me 32 weeks to set aside $500. This is can easily be achieved by setting aside $15 per week, or $30 every other week, and will save me from dipping into our monthly budget to cover the costs of any supplies that are needed for their school supplies.

Continued Organization

This was one of my goals for 2017, and it’s still a goal for 2018. I think that in general it’s a good idea to be organized, and while I’m not expecting my house to have the same organizational flow as the dewey decimal system at the library, I do expect things to in our hosue to have a purpose and a use.

In the last year I’ve gotten better at keeping up with their extracurricular activities, and what is due when, but my system only works as good as it can. There are days I don’t hear a peep from the kids as far as things they need for school, and next thing you know they’re reminding me the week of a big event in the true “oh yeah mom, by the way” fashion.

Last year, even up to the very end of the year, we did a phenomenal job at only bringing in things that have a use and are necessary. This year I want to continue on with that. While I don’t expect my house to be the epitome of minimalism, I do want everything in our house to have a purpose and a place.

Garden

This year I want to get back into some massive gardening. I also want to get better at growing for fresh use rather than mainly for preserving. I’m hoping that after visiting the allergiest in February, I’ll have somewhat of an idea what my new triggers are, and can get some better management into the later summer and early fall.

I also want to continue with the modified SFG planting we went back to last year. While we had a really weird growing season weather wise, I know that if the weather cooperates with me, we’ll have another awesome harvest year.

As far as individual goals for our garden, rather than overall, this year I want to:

thin out our strawberry plants
transplant raspberry plants to the new best Hubs built last year
tend to the pollinator garden Hubs created around our fence perimeter
get better at, and stick to, a watering and fertilizing schedule
utelize our rabbit for her fertilizing capabilities

How I Plan On Staying On Top Of My 2018 Goals

After coming out of my allergy-induced brain fog, I set up my planner system for 2018 {post coming next week on my system}. I’ve got a few different things going, but I am the type that needs things compartmentalized. If I have everything in one place, it gets too cluttered for my brain to handle. And this system has worked for me over the last 4 months, so that’s definitely got to count for something. Right?

Besides writing all my goals out in my planner, and breaking some of them down into weekly increments, I would love to do quarterly check-ins. Some things, like the garden, may be better broken down into monthly since we have a short, and busy, growing season.