My new year’s resolutions for 2014

2013 has gone by very very quickly, which as we all know seems to happen each year that goes by. This time last year I was a blissfully in love newlywed, on my honeymoon in Hawaii and eating as much peanut butter and chocolate combination foods as I could get my hands on.

One year down of marriage, and I would say I am still blissfully in love, which is a win! As well as surviving the first year, I finished my degree (with distinction), had a holiday in Bali, learnt to surf (well better than I was anyway) and started this very blog.

I’m a goal setter, I can’t really help myself, and whilst some people hate new years resolutions, I love an excuse to make a goal, so I am first to jump on the band wagon.

So, 2014 has been dubbed the ‘Year of Awesome’. Why? Well because I turn 30 this year, so instead of being slightly miserable about the ageing process that is taking place, I thought I may as well get excited and ensure that I have done everything I wanted to do prior to 30.

So then here they are:

• The epic adventure. About 10 years ago, my closest friends and I said that we should do an epic adventure the year that we turn 30. It didn’t matter if we had kids, cancer or careers; we had to make it happen. Interestingly we used that exact wording 10 years ago, and fortunately kids and careers happened within our group, but so did cancer (stupid cancer). Anyway, the time has come, and no excuse has been made, we are going. I intend on fully celebrating and enjoying the fact that my closest friends are on a luxurious and amazing holiday with me, and I cannot wait!
• Read 12 books this year.  I read every single day, but sometimes I forget that I really love to read novels. When studying I had a rule that I was not allowed to read novels because I should have been reading text books. Now that I am done and dusted with study, I intend on reading a book each month. Anything my heart desires. Fiction or non-fiction it doesn’t matter.
• Increase my blog followers to 100 by the end of the year. Hint hint, you can help with that one by subscribing below where it says ‘follow blog’ if you already haven’t. Ta. 🙂
• Complete the 10km run in the Noosa Winter festival in April. This is not necessarily hard for me, the difference is, I am gunning for a specific time. The run has to be under 55 minutes. My stretch goal is 50 minutes. I haven’t been running as much in the last few months so want to get back to my previous running fitness.
• I want to do 10 pull ups (no ropes, pullies or assistance) in a row by the end of the year with no break. I am currently sitting at 4 in a row without a rest, but I really want to get to 10. Easy for some I am sure, but a challenge for me.
• Become proficient at Illustrator. I feel like having this skill will be useful for a variety of reasons, this blog included. I would like to spend an hour to two per week learning the program and honing my skills. I don’t think I’ll ever be a graphic designer, but I would like to be able to create basic invites etc.

On the financial side of things this is what we are intending to do:

• Pay approximately 50% off the balance of the home loan. It is likely we will not be moving in 2014. Whilst I was hopeful to move this year in order to get a puppy, there are other factors for us to consider, so we should be able to dump a heap of money onto the loan in the meantime.
• Reinvest all earnings from our investment portfolio. We are letting this grow for us and I am currently happy with where the money is, so will re-evaluate as the year goes on.
• Stick to the 2014 “budget”. Nothing else really needs saying on this one.

Here are the weird ones

• Floss every day. We all know we should do it more than once a week. Now that I am turning 30 I feel like I should do this one and be a real adult.
• Go 1 month without drinking any softdrink. I don’t drink softdrink every day or anything, but I feel like it has crept into my diet more than I would like. So I would like to cut it out for a month. February will be the month. Not because it is the shortest, but mainly because I am going to Japan in January and feel that I will likely be drinking a variety of weird concoctions and some of them will involve softdrink. Hey, I’ll be on holidays, give me a break.

So that’s it for me for the moment. After 5 days with my family in Melbourne I think I am ready to start the Year of Awesome, and get back to the regularly scheduled finance topics on this blog.

If 2014 is the year that you decide to finally ‘sort your finances’ then drop me an email and let me know if there is something specific you would like me to write about. I’m always happy to help, especially when it comes to new years resolutions.

Happy new year to everyone and bring on 2014.

– This post is from our resident senior financial planner, Cara Brett. Check out her details in our about us page.

Posted in: Financial Planning, Uncategorised and Cara Brett