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2019 Personal Goals

wxman1 said:
With my wife going back to school financial goals are pretty much out the window other than don't go further into non student loan debt and don't overdraft.

I need to lose weight. 40-50 pounds would be nice but a downward trend is all I am looking for. Haven't decided how to do this fully yet as time and money don't allow for a gym membership so I will be looking for at home workouts. Need to cut down on snacking at home as well. My metabolism seems to be non-existent as I don't have many unhealthy habits (don't eat out/fast food much at all, don't drink pop etc.) so It's not like cutting something out other than the snacks will do much. Probably going to focus on eating more salads.

Our other goal is to spend less time on our phones/social media etc.
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dmclone said:
  1. I lost 30lbs in 2018 even after gaining back 7 over the holidays. I'd like to lose another 15 this year and that would put me at a weight I would feel comfortable maintaining. Zero exercise just eating a little bit better and only drinking beer twice a week.
  2. I always thought I was good about investing for retirement (401k, Roth 401k, IRA, etc.) but I embarrassed to say that for the past 5 years I've never put anything extra in my HSA. Really stupid move so I just signed up to put in the maximum. Hopefully I get a big enough raise so that it doesn't hurt as much.
  3. Not shop for cars.
  4. Vacation somewhere totally new
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I'd encourage you to give intermittent fasting a try. The 16hr:8hr variety is quite doable (only eat during 8 hr window), as is the 5day:2day (where 2 of the days are ~500 calories)...Both lead to a natural calorie reduction, as well as redueced snacking reduction, and there are lots of claims about metabolism/hormones/etc.

I started on the 16:8 with the bulletproof coffee (it has calories, but there are claims it still works since cals are from fat vs carbs), then weened to just black coffee during the 16-hr period (8pm-noon). Pretty painless way to lost 15 pounds in couple months. Lots of people online do more/longer, or graduate to 'one meal a day'.

Overview (esp 16:8):
http://www.burnfatnotsugar.com/intermittent-fasting.html

More on 5:2:
https://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day/

Bulletproof (lots of sales propaganda there but it is true good butter is key, as is a blender/nutribullet/etc,..and good mct oil not just coconut. Coffee/tea/caffeine/decaf doesn't matter except for taste)
https://blog.bulletproof.com/intermittent-fasting-guide/
 
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jbindm said:
Depends on what you're snacking on, how much, and how often. I bought a food scale to help with portion control when my wife and I decided to get serious about cutting weight. That and a fitness/calorie tracking app can really help in the self accountability department.
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Some junk food but mostly kids snacks that are left laying out when I get home. Snacking has after work/school has always been an issue from me going back to elementary school.

One thing I really want to get done this year is to finish getting rid of the river rock around our deck/back of our house. I had planned to do it last summer but starting an MBA in the summer screwed that plan and really doing anything.
 
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cowgirl836 said:
Yep. It's pretty easy because once you get into a rhythm, you just rotate meals. I tried doing a week at a time for a while but I kept falling behind. One of my last days of maternity leave, I was stuck on the couch under napping baby and just planned out Halloween - Christmas and it worked so well that now I just go in and do a few days at a time so I sort of keep that two month buffer. Of course it can change as stuff comes up or like last week, we have more leftovers than anticipated so we're not making dinner the next two nights. And I may rotate that stuff in next week or just skip it til the next time.
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Our weeks consist of Monday half filled with basketball from 4-10
tuesday every one is baskeball 4-10
Wednesday wife runs church youth group and they get fed so its just me and youngest
Thursday is wrestling meets every week
Friday is basketball again
Saturday is wrestling until about supper time and usually a couple hours away
Sunday is open

So I guess we would only need to plan one or two meals. I generally also am one that goes by what I feel like that day and will set out that morning.
 
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Thanks for making me lookup last year's thread, @cowgirl836! I apparently didn't answer either, which surprises me. But I know that my main resolution was to lose weight, and I definitely accomplished that. I'm down 38 pounds from January 1st 2018. This took my BMI from obese territory (32.7) to overweight (28). Goal for 2019 is take BMI to normal, and another 38 pounds would do that.

Edit: the health benefits from this are pretty nice, to be honest. My knees are thanking me, especially the one with the torn ACL. Blood pressure reading last week was 120/78, and resting heartrate was somehow 46 bpm. That might have more to do with all the running, but still, it's nice.
 
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CloneFan4 said:
1. Join the 1000 lbs club by the end of the year.
2. Earn a promotion at work
3. Begin work on a novel
4. Be the best dog dad to my puppy that arrives in April
5. Continue to work on smiling at each person I pass
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I’ll do a friendly competition on 1 though you have a head start.
 
2019 goals - I was telling spouse that this is the first year in a while I haven't had big things I wanted to accomplish in the year. It feels weird. I still ended up with a giant list though....some stuff still needs fleshing out. This looks super long but several are connected to each other. I'm a very goal-oriented person if that wasn't obvious :p

  • Quality time with spouse.....not sure how to make this SMART but we're still kinda in survival mode and while we're ok, I want to put time into our relationship. I'm not sure what that looks like though. Spending time talking after little monster is in bed? Weekend trip without baby? Post-work walks once the weather is nice? This one needs work. Suggestions welcome.
  • Quality time with baby - putting phone away and reading books, playing with him, enjoying this stage before he too quickly grows up. Be better about being present, enjoying this time and not having so much guilt. Already started on this by moving all his books out of his closet and next to our well-loved rocking chair. Found we weren't reading them when we had to go to the closet.
  • Time with friends - did not want to be that person who dropped off the face of the earth after a baby. Need to make an effort here.
    • Invite friends for 1x month board game night
    • For real, work on finding a babysitter so you can leave house at night - would allow for date nights too
  • Fitness
    • Finish post partum exercise program - probably go back and repeat weeks at lower frequency once done in a couple months
    • Maintain current weight/decrease measurements
    • Gym class 1x week
    • Run race in April - put baby in stroller for runs once it gets nicer!
  • Time/household management - feel so short on time all the time when we're home. And it results in less quality time with DH and baby. So doing things like meal planning, maybe making a chore chart to keep up on cleaning a bit better, and using our marker board to note tasks/appts so we don't get surprised by them and can plan ahead better
    • Use my planner this year! DH got me one for Xmas but I always stop using it much by like Feb. I need to use it this whole year because there's too much to just expect my brain to remember and I'm dropping some balls.
    • Utilize marker board as chore chart/reminder
    • Look into pricing for house cleaner or robotic vacuum and seriously discuss
    • Meal plan dinners all year
    • Put recipes on cards so you stop having to scour the internet every time
    • Probably it's own goal - but become more of a morning person. Baby does that by default but going to bed earlier would make this easier. And can get stuff done so I don't feel so pressured to work on things in the evening. Would like to do exercise in the morning but that's just too much right now with unpredictable night wakeups
  • More yard work
    • Get section behind house leveled......maybe put in plants?
    • Plan out annual beds
    • Put in garden again,.....no muskmelon this year!
  • Financial -
    • Max roth IRA's
    • Start savings & education funds for little man.
    • Have 1.25x salary in retirement? Need to check current numbers to know how reasonable that is. After the stock market's last month, it may not be :confused:
  • Work
    • Get excellent reviews and hit the big goals you are targeting for year end
    • Work on meeting management skills,
    • Make decision on work/life balance and potentially drop down half day a week.
  • Vacation............tbd - where, with or without baby?
  • Read 10 high quality books. Recommendations welcome. This is low priority but I'd like to read some good books this year
  • Finish Christmas cross stitch for baby. This is a real stretch, lol. But we'll try.
  • Insulate garage???

Just a couple things :rolleyes:
 
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harimad said:
Thanks for making me lookup last year's thread, @cowgirl836! I apparently didn't answer either, which surprises me. But I know that my main resolution was to lose weight, and I definitely accomplished that. I'm down 38 pounds from January 1st 2018. This took my BMI from obese territory (32.7) to overweight (28). Goal for 2019 is take BMI to normal, and another 38 pounds would do that.

Edit: the health benefits from this are pretty nice, to be honest. My knees are thanking me, especially the one with the torn ACL. Blood pressure reading last week was 120/78, and resting heartrate was somehow 46 bpm. That might have more to do with all the running, but still, it's nice.
Click to expand...


When I was in labor, the dr's were concerned about my RHR and thought maybe they'd given me too much drugs cause it was like 50 during contractions. They said do you run??? I'm like "not well" but yeah, that's typical for me to be low. It'll get down in the 40s and sometimes I'll see during deep sleep it drops to like 39 and I'm like isn't that like.......dead????!!

Congrats on the weight loss and good luck finishing it off this year! That's awesome progress.
 
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BCClone said:
Our weeks consist of Monday half filled with basketball from 4-10
tuesday every one is baskeball 4-10
Wednesday wife runs church youth group and they get fed so its just me and youngest
Thursday is wrestling meets every week
Friday is basketball again
Saturday is wrestling until about supper time and usually a couple hours away
Sunday is open

So I guess we would only need to plan one or two meals. I generally also am one that goes by what I feel like that day and will set out that morning.
Click to expand...

yeah, we would forget to discuss in the morning so then we'd be limited on options if we wanted anything that had needed thawing. And we typically do pizza one night and leftovers on Friday so it's not every night that needs planning.
 
I just got 50 funny ratings on a post on another nfl board in 2 minutes not named reddit. That’s my goal on CF is to replicate the feat.
 
cowgirl836 said:
yeah, we would forget to discuss in the morning so then we'd be limited on options if we wanted anything that had needed thawing. And we typically do pizza one night and leftovers on Friday so it's not every night that needs planning.
Click to expand...
This is definitely the case in my household. DD has training most nights of the week, so planning dinners around softball practice, pitching lessons, hitting lessons, and the gym is very frustrating. One of my resolutions is definitely to do a better job of laying out a menu each week and actually cooking the damn thing each night, instead of giving in to the ease of picking something up on the way home from the activity.
 
cowgirl836 said:
2019 goals - I was telling spouse that this is the first year in a while I haven't had big things I wanted to accomplish in the year. It feels weird. I still ended up with a giant list though....some stuff still needs fleshing out. This looks super long but several are connected to each other. I'm a very goal-oriented person if that wasn't obvious :p

  • Quality time with spouse.....not sure how to make this SMART but we're still kinda in survival mode and while we're ok, I want to put time into our relationship. I'm not sure what that looks like though. Spending time talking after little monster is in bed? Weekend trip without baby? Post-work walks once the weather is nice? This one needs work. Suggestions welcome.
  • Quality time with baby - putting phone away and reading books, playing with him, enjoying this stage before he too quickly grows up. Be better about being present, enjoying this time and not having so much guilt. Already started on this by moving all his books out of his closet and next to our well-loved rocking chair. Found we weren't reading them when we had to go to the closet.
  • Time with friends - did not want to be that person who dropped off the face of the earth after a baby. Need to make an effort here.
    • Invite friends for 1x month board game night
    • For real, work on finding a babysitter so you can leave house at night - would allow for date nights too
  • Fitness
    • Finish post partum exercise program - probably go back and repeat weeks at lower frequency once done in a couple months
    • Maintain current weight/decrease measurements
    • Gym class 1x week
    • Run race in April - put baby in stroller for runs once it gets nicer!
  • Time/household management - feel so short on time all the time when we're home. And it results in less quality time with DH and baby. So doing things like meal planning, maybe making a chore chart to keep up on cleaning a bit better, and using our marker board to note tasks/appts so we don't get surprised by them and can plan ahead better
    • Use my planner this year! DH got me one for Xmas but I always stop using it much by like Feb. I need to use it this whole year because there's too much to just expect my brain to remember and I'm dropping some balls.
    • Utilize marker board as chore chart/reminder
    • Look into pricing for house cleaner or robotic vacuum and seriously discuss
    • Meal plan dinners all year
    • Put recipes on cards so you stop having to scour the internet every time
    • Probably it's own goal - but become more of a morning person. Baby does that by default but going to bed earlier would make this easier. And can get stuff done so I don't feel so pressured to work on things in the evening. Would like to do exercise in the morning but that's just too much right now with unpredictable night wakeups
  • More yard work
    • Get section behind house leveled......maybe put in plants?
    • Plan out annual beds
    • Put in garden again,.....no muskmelon this year!
  • Financial -
    • Max roth IRA's
    • Start savings & education funds for little man.
    • Have 1.25x salary in retirement? Need to check current numbers to know how reasonable that is. After the stock market's last month, it may not be :confused:
  • Work
    • Get excellent reviews and hit the big goals you are targeting for year end
    • Work on meeting management skills,
    • Make decision on work/life balance and potentially drop down half day a week.
  • Vacation............tbd - where, with or without baby?
  • Read 10 high quality books. Recommendations welcome. This is low priority but I'd like to read some good books this year
  • Finish Christmas cross stitch for baby. This is a real stretch, lol. But we'll try.
  • Insulate garage???

Just a couple things :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Just a thought, you can take it or leave it as you like...do you think it would be more effective if you cut back the number of goals you have? I think we're wired very similarly. Each year, I have 2-3 goals in each of these categories: family, health, financial, spiritual, community, and education. I've changed my approach this year to just have two goals: personal health and financial health. I think the focus on those two things, versus the shotgun approach will be more useful for me. It might be something to consider for yourself. (Unless your approach works for you, then by all means, ignore everything I just wrote!)

For us, I've had to recognize what season of life we're in relative to my goals. We are counting the days to baby #2 and I know many of the things I've been able to do the last two years (we have an almost 4 yr old now) will have to change. Don't beat yourself up for having to dial back your goals based upon what's realistic for your season of life.
 
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harimad said:
This is definitely the case in my household. DD has training most nights of the week, so planning dinners around softball practice, pitching lessons, hitting lessons, and the gym is very frustrating. One of my resolutions is definitely to do a better job of laying out a menu each week and actually cooking the damn thing each night, instead of giving in to the ease of picking something up on the way home from the activity.
Click to expand...

I just did a little study of our finances based upon our financial goal. I found that, on average, for every one big grocery trip we do on Saturday, we do 3 more little trips during the week. Those "little" trips end up adding 40% to our grocery budget each year. So the "I'll just pick something up" approach is definitely affecting our finances. Of course, that doesn't mean we'll eliminate the money spent from those little trips; we have to eat. But I think planning the whole week and doing it in one purchase may result in reduce expenses at Hyvee.
 
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mdk2isu said:
Thats on my list to read. Recenlty read "Start" by him and really liked his style.
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Yeah, "Finish" was good. Practical and funny, which I like. An easy read. I'm interested to see how his approach works for me. I know for a fact I'm a perfectionist. I'm for sure the guy who starts out on a great goal for 2-4 weeks, then I have one or two bad days and just drop the whole goal. Acuff's point is that you don't have to be perfect, you just need to keep going.
 
1: Payoff the $17K left on my wife's student loans. Then treat ourselves with a Hawaiian vacation

2: Reach out to friends and pro-actively plan gatherings. Even a simple bonfire or game night now and then... But not too often because I love my quiet downtime
 
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