Sometimes I wonder if my Hubby regrets uttering the phrase #yearofno. He came up with the hashtag, and I grabbed it like a baton and ran with it! But honestly, I know he’s as relieved by the change in our finances as I am. (Maybe more?)
#Yearofno has been a serious game changer in our lives. It’s less about a spending freeze and more about a change in thinking. I’ve learned so much in these past 10 months!
Every January, we set goals for our family and our finances. I also try to throw in some personal goals. And now I even have blogging goals.
You’ll find it all broken down into sections here. The hope is that you’ll find tips to use yourself, and maybe some inspiration for your own hopes and dreams.
Family & Personal Goals
Home & Barn
We had set these goals for updating and repairing our home and barn this year. As the year wore on, we decided to put most of them on hold in favor of using those bits of money to pay off debt instead. No change.
- Get a water plan in place. Our weird water set up certainly needs some changes made. But not this year.
- Barn driveway. Tabled.
Improve goat pens and fencing.Finish the bathroom project.- Paint baseboards and staircase. Tabled.
Family
Swimming. Three of the kids are pretty decent swimmers now.Vacation. You can read how I saved on camping here.- One on One Time with Each Child Once+ per Month. This has been trickier since school started. Need to be more intentional.
Marriage
- Date nights. We took a date! We kept costs down by going out for drinks and dessert rather than a full meal.
Personal
- Faith. I’m reading The American Catholic Almanac and daily Bible readings.
- Read. I started When We Meet Again. It’s set in the World War II era. It’s been a while since I read fiction, but I’m really enjoying it!
- Exercise. Baby steps! Some yoga, some extra movements here and there (squats, planks, etc.)
Blogging Goals
- Improve social media. My goal is
5,000Twitter followers, 600 Facebook likes, and want to have3,500 pins to my Pinterestpage by year end.- In October, had 6,161 Twitter followers (goal!), 559 Facebook likes, 5402 pins (goal!) (and 2177 Pinterest followers). I’m thinking I should have dreamed up bigger goals for the year! I’ve got time to hit my Facebook goal, and I’m pretty optimistic. (Give me a like and push me towards that goal!)
- Learn. Take 12 classes on ways to improve my blogging.
- I bought The Genius Bloggers Toolkit. I really struggled with this decision, but in the end, I couldn’t pass it up. I was able to pay for it from blog money. I’ve already dug into it!
- Views. In January, I had about 6,000 pageviews per month. I’d like to increase that to
18,000 pageviewsper month by the end of the year. Goal!- 9974 in February
- 8990 in March
- 10,236 in April
- 11,102 in May
- 14,063 in June
- 13,434 in July
- 16,899 in August
- 22,820 in September
- Something is up with Google Analytics and I’m still working on correcting it. They claim my numbers for October are 37,224. Jetpack says 19,637. It’s discouraging not to know!
- Guest post. I’d like to start writing at least 1 guest post per month.
- Done in February! Read it here.
- May post done. You can read it here!
- I had two go live in June. Read my Dollar Stretcher article here and my Money Saving Mom article here.
- I shared a guest post with The Peaceful Mom.
- I am contributing to The Peaceful Mom on a monthly basis now. I also had another post on Money Saving Mom in September.
- I shared our #YearofNo story at The Peaceful Mom. I also had another Money Saving Mom article posted called 7 Habits of People Winning the Fight Against Debt.
- Monetize. I need this blog to earn some money to help with our BHAG, so I’m always exploring ways to monetize. Since I’ll only share things that I truly find beneficial, I pass on a lot of opportunities.
- Learn more about the ways I’m making money in this post.
- I’ve been getting more Linqia campaigns and other opportunities to bring great value to my audience.
- I had a few campaigns in September.
- In October, I had another Linqia campaign. They asked me to create a video, which you’ll find here. (Yikes! Comfort zone, what?) I also dug into freelance writing. This is definitely something I’d like to expand, so if you’re looking for freelance writing or blogging, let’s talk.
The BHAG
Our family has a BHAG this year. A big, hairy, audacious goal. That goal is to pay off some debt that amounts to 19% of our take home pay. Our plan for this goal is…
- #yearofno This has become our mantra, and the whole family is behind it now. They know that if they are asking for an extra (Can we have fast food? Can I have this toy? etc) that the answer is going to be #yearofno. It’s kind of turned into a running joke, and it needs no explanation.
- Be prepared. Not eating fast food is a running theme on this blog, because it’s always been a problem for us! Pizza, stopping for drinks, these things are our family’s worst habits. (Check out this free challenge to help you identify and destroy your own budget busters!)
- In October, we grabbed some fast food on an extra busy night, but overall I’d say we did well on resetting our #yearofno mindset.
- Bigger pie. I brought in extra money through freelance writing. But it went into the Christmas fund we’re building to keep ourselves out of debt this year.
- Get creative. The kids used costumes based on things we had around the house. I did make a run to Goodwill for a sheet. I also found a beard. (Our oldest had to be Odysseus for school, so we put it together frugally.)
So how did we do on our BHAG?
To bring down 100% of our goal this year, we need to be paying 8.3% on this debt every month. Here’s how it’s going.
In January we were able to bring down our debt by 8.2%.
In February we took it down a by 12.9%.
In March we brought the balance down a running total of 22.2%.
In April we were able to get our balance down 29.1%.
In May we were able to get the balance down 41%.
In June we got down 46%.
In July we pulled the number down 51%!
In August the stars aligned and we brought it down to 62% paid off!
In September Due to maintenance costs, we only got to 63%. But we didn’t add to debt!
In October our debt came to 68% paid off. I’m projecting us to hit 85% of our goal at the end of the year. The extra money I’m making is being shoveled into a Christmas fund to keep us out of debt. If I can hit the gift goal and make some extra money on top of that, I might be able to get closer. Stay tuned!
The plan for November
- Keep Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping simple. Continue adding to our Christmas fund so we get through the holiday without relying on debt.
- Continue working on freelance blogging and freelance writing.
If you’d like to help us meet our goal, it’s easy. Share this (and other Medium Sized Family posts) on your favorite social media accounts!
Are you still chomping on your goals for 2016?
Great to see how you’re sticking to your goals in the long run. Inspirational, really. Thanks for sharing!
I’m glad that it helps. I feel more accountable by doing this check in, too!
I realize the debt balance doesn’t fall with the addition to a Christmas fund, but it is SUCH a huge win to pay cash for things! Love it!
We need to start working on getting out debt down, it’s very helpful being able to see your goals, and I love the #yearofno!
It’s made a huge difference for us. Yuge! haha
I look forward to reading these updates so much!! 85% by the end of the year will be so amazing!! I’m so proud of you for all of your guest posting success (I’m just starting to dip my toes in the water there) and for doing a little yoga! 😉
Yes! I need to get back to the yoga. Especially this week…I could use the stress relief! 😉
Goals are so important! I skipped writing them down this month. You’ve inspired me that the 9th isn’t to late! Congratulations on taking a huge chunk out of that debt!
You have done great to have 68% gone already! I took a break from my goals last month but I am now back at it.
Your blogging goals are so impressive. Just curious…How long have you been blogging? I think I need to do a better job at SMART goals for blogging. Congrats on all of your hard work!!
I have been blogging since August 2015, so a bit over a year. It’s been so much work, but I feel like I’ve really grown a lot. It’s fun to learn all the new things that go with being a blogger!
I’ve managed to hit all of my financial goals for 2016, but not really any of the other ones. :o/ It’s strange how it used to be the opposite and I had a ton of time to hit other goals but struggled a lot to make the financial ones. Things could certainly be worse though.
Great Job on your progression! I have reached all my financial and personal goals but really need to focus on my blogging goals. I haven’t really been taken them serious. I am always neglecting my blog.
You’re doing great! (Of course your blogging goals were the most interesting to me lol. And if you’re still looking for guest post opportunities, I’m taking submissions for Dec – my blog has about 200k pagviews/month and I totally don’t mind if you want to add content upgrades to capture emails or whatever. Just in case you’re interested!!) Thanks for linking up at Share the Wealth Sunday 🙂
Wow, that sounds great! I’ll be getting in touch with you soon. 🙂
I have to say, Jamie, that I always really love these goal posts of yours – I get so excited to see how much debt you’re paying off or how your blog is growing! So just remember that I’m over here with my pom-poms, being a cheerleader for you! #FridayFrivolity
Aww, thank you so much! It means a lot to me. 🙂
I’m loving your blog! This article was so inspiring, and I’m glad you shared so much! I told my husband about #Yearofno, and he loves it! I have a feeling we are adopting it! Thanks!
Wonderful! Our #yearofno has been such a blessing, so I’m anxious to see how it works for other families, too. 🙂
I love seeing how much you’ve grown both personally and through your blog. This holds especially true since I’ve been a fan of yours almost from the beginning. Congrats on all of your accomplishments! May they only continue to grow.
Thank you so much! I’ve learned so much from bloggers like you. 🙂