2015 Goals Revisted and 2016 Goals Set

I'm slightly delayed on looking back at 2015 to see how I did on my resolutions, but overall I'm thrilled with the resolution we accomplished! Here is the post from December of 2014 on what our goals would be for 2015, along with what we accomplished this year! (in red) And we set a few fun goals for 2016!

2015 Goals 

1. Become debt free...and stay that way. CHECK! We became debt free on February 28, 2015 (our 2 year anniversary)
2. Catch up on my 401(k)/IRA. It has been very neglected lately, and it's time to catch up! I've put maybe $1,000 in it the last year. We have 10% of Kevin's income going to Kevin's 401(k), but mine is sorely lacking. Keeping up with a retirement account in you 20's is so important, and I know we need to get with the program! CHECK! I've finally caught up on my retirement goals! We put off some retirement saving for a short time to become debt free.
3. Start a savings account. I'm doing my research on a good savings account right now and will be opening one in a few months hopefully! CHECK! We opened a savings account in March 2015
4. Put away 6 months of expenses in an emergency fund. We have no real emergency fund at the moment. If we had more expenses (like a mortgage, car payment etc.) I'd worry more about it. We have very few real expenses each month, hence why we could put so much towards loans. CHECK! We finally had our emergency fund fully funded by the summer of 2015
5. Travel out of the country, at least once. Kevin and I have 10 or so international destinations on our short list. Our top include: Egypt, Easter Island, Machu Picchu, and Ireland. CHECK- We went to Ireland, Egypt and Brazil in 2015!  
6. Start a new long-term financial goal. This may be saving for a new car (not by choice...but necessity since ours are now 15-16 years old) Saving for a down payment on a house, starting a college savings for kids that we don't have, or maybe even saving to pay cash for our house some day. Having a goal to become debt free made it so much easier to save, rather than willy-nilly paying off debt. We want to set a new goal, but haven't been very on top of it yet since we're still in the midst of our first goal! We set out to save for a new car in 2015, and paid cash for our car in December of 2015. We've also been working on our down payment for a house! 
7. Read at least 10 new books on finances and investing. I've been neglecting this for a while now, but need to get back to learning more about finances!  The books I read in 2015 relating to this goal are (1) It's not about the Money, (2) Zillow Talk, (3) Keep Calm..It's just Real Estate, (4) Smart money Smart Kids (5) Money Can Buy Happiness... and the others I'm counting in this category relate really to business and entrepreneurship are (6) Start Something That Matters (7) The Startup of you (8) Netflixed (9) Onward (10) Lean In (11) I shouldn't be telling you this (12) Story- Based Selling   (note I did shorten a few of the titles here for brevity's sake, so please click the title to see an amazon link on which one I was referring to) 
8. Continue to work on our credit score. This includes further research on how to raise a credit score and making sure we have our ducks in a row. We read more on helping our credit score (for when we buy a house) and learned a ton online, and especially from Suze Orman! We made sure to run our credit reports this year, and keep them clean. We also worked on decreasing our debt:credit ratio which will help our credit score!
9. Meet with a Financial Planner. I'd be curious what advice a financial planner would have for us. I'd like to talk to more sophisticated investors and planners.  Umm....nope. We've renewed this one for 2016! 
10. Learn about my investments. I want to be more knowledgeable about my investments and take an active role in learning about stocks. I've never been one to care much about the stock market, but it is time I start paying attention! I'm learning...but not there yet! I'm renewing this goal for 2016
11. Cook one meal a week. The hardest goal yet :) I have ribs in the crockpot today...so far so good! You may be laughing that I'm trying for just 1 meal...but laugh all you want...I need to baby steps on this one!  Oh man...I got pretty close on this one. I would say out of the 52 weeks...I hit about 42 of them...which is pretty fantastic! I won't bother disappointing myself and renew this one for 2016 :)

2016 Goals 

So 2016 eh? Well I'm renewing a few of the goals

1. Meet with a Financial Planner.

2.Continue to Learn about my Investments. More specifically make better informed decisions about retirement accounts and what we are investing in. 

After those two, our next 2016 goals will be:

3. Buy A House. This one is somewhat terrifying for me, but we are accepting that it is time we start looking at houses. It is a tough one for me, since home ownership has not been high on my list...but we are ready to settle down and make an investment.

4. Travel to either Canada or Mexico. For all the places we've traveled we have not yet made it to Canada or Mexico together. We thought this would be a great year to hit those up!

5. Volunteer Once Per Month. This is something we let slide this past year, as we were doing so well in 2014. I'd like to set a goal to volunteer at least once a month. 

6. Visit Out of Town Family Once Per Month. We have a lot of family that lives about an hour away (Lincoln) and because of photography it has been hard for us to get there in the past 2 years. I want to make more time for family in 2016. 

7. Complete at least 5 MBA classes. You may have seen that I started my MBA, and I want to be well on my way to completing it by the end of 2016. It is going to become more difficult as the year goes on and photography picks up, but I want to make it a point to make time to educate myself! I have a total of 11 MBA classes to take (because many of my law classes count for credit) so 5 will get me almost halfway there! 

8. Read 50 Books. This time, I'm not making a goal to read financial books, but rather read a variety of books...even rereading some old ones. You can follow me on Goodreads to see what I'm reading! 

9. Learn Stress Management. I tend to be a bit high strung at times and now is the time in my life that I need to learn to how to manage stress, or else I'll likely die at the young age of 40. Whether it is yoga, meditation, reading books or talking to a physician...I'd like to get a better handle on my stress levels! 

10. Attend 3 classes together. Whether it is a marriage seminar, a class on making sushi, spanish 101, or a lecture on Photoshop...learning together is something I want to make a priority for this year!