A DC twenty-something's adventures in pursuit of financial independence
In lieu of making New Year’s resolutions, this year I decided to set 19 goals for the year of 2019. And it’s July August, which means it’s time past time to check in to see how I did during Q2.
(Remember what I said about being realistic about how I won’t work on posts during vacation even if they’re 90% drafted? Yeah, this has been sitting here mostly-written for a while.)
As I hinted in my last post, it’s been a season of existential crisis. I wrote about it two years ago—the summer is always a fun couple of months where I endlessly agonize over what I’m doing with my life and/or at the very least what I’m doing still paying as much rent as I do instead of moving somewhere slightly cheaper. And I chose not to move last year, either.
Well, I’ve got news for you: I’m moving! Continue reading “I’m moving!”
In lieu of making New Year’s resolutions, this year I decided to set 19 goals for the year of 2019. Given that it’s somehow (HOW) already May, it’s past time for me to see if I’m on track to complete them all. Continue reading “19 for 2019: Q1 update”
Happy New Year and welcome to…oh shit, we’re 1/6 of the way into 2019.
So that ship has sailed! Which is fine, because I hate New Year’s resolutions anyway. Last year I tried something new and did a series of monthly experiments instead of year-long resolutions. While that was fine, it was also hard to build any momentum. I don’t like the focus on “new year, new me!” that tends to come with resolutions in January, but there is value in tracking goals for a longer term/over the course of the year, rather than moving on after a month.
So this year I’m trying another new thing and doing a kind of bucket list for the year (credit to Sarah at Smile and Conquer for the idea). And 19 for 2019 sounds catchy, so 19 bucket list items/goals for the year it is!
First up, money things because I am a personal finance blogger. Continue reading “19 for 2019”
Yep, it’s the last day of January and I’m still doing 2018 wrap-up posts (this is what happens when you stop posting regularly, whoops).
In lieu of doing New Year’s resolutions for 2018, I did monthly experiments instead (and yes, the months I didn’t do set experiments were experiments in slowing down/taking pressure off myself. That totally counts 😉). But I also set some money goals for the year.
In that post, I wrote that I failed at my 2017 money goals. But failing while still making progress means failing upward, so for probably the first time in my life, I embraced failure.
Did I, seasoned money blogger that I now am, kick ass on my goals last year? Or did I fail upward (or just straight-up fail) for a second year in a row? Let’s find out. Continue reading “The year in money goals: 2018”
The fact that it took me multiple tries of adding up numbers to get ones that were reasonably the same means I a) am not as much of a recovering perfectionist as I thought and b) probably need to slightly rethink my system of tracking numbers. I think a lot of it is inconsistency in categorization, which is frustrating but ultimately doesn’t affect the total (so I could’ve spent a way healthier ratio of time spent writing this post compared to spreadsheeting for this post 🤦♀️).
But, I am finally done spreadsheeting. And in total, I spent $28,629.03 in 2018. Continue reading “Everything I spent in 2018”
Tl;dr thank goodness this damn experiment is finally over. Continue reading “Twelve months of experiments: December 2018”
I’ve taken a few months off of explicitly doing a monthly experiment. September/October were unofficially me decluttering my life and slowing down (ahem, a work in progress. I don’t have some big announcement to make concerning that) and I’ve been doing a no-spend month for November (tune in next week for the spending report to see how that went!). But for this last month of the year (!!?) I’m back to doing a monthly experiment in the vein of my previous ones. In December I’m doing a 30 day yoga challenge.
Yes, you read that right. And trust me, I’m as shocked as you are that I’m saying this. Continue reading “Twelve months of experiments: it’s the end of the year already?!”
I’m gonna be quite honest: September was a damn expensive month. How the hell did I manage to pull out not only a positive savings rate, but a halfway decent one? I honestly have no idea (although this is the power of including my 401(k) contributions in my income as well!).
I didn’t post much in September: I had four posts, three of which were for things that happened in August (CampFI and August’s spending report). And a lot of that is because that month saw a few big changes in my life that have occupied a fair amount of my time, including the resumption of weekly chorus rehearsals. Ah, sleep on Tuesday nights, I miss you dearly!
And of course I had FinCon at the end of the month! Continue reading “September 2018: I was NOT expecting this”
Since January I’ve had a box in my room designated as the place to put things I’m getting rid of, and I’ve slowly been adding to it, one item at a time. And eventually that box got full. Hooray!
But said box then continued to sit in a corner of my room for months. I’ve mentioned it here multiple times, saying I need to empty it.
Why was that? One simple question. Continue reading “Adventures in decluttering, round one”