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Every year, we try to set new goals for our family.

Sometime in the first week of January, my Hubby and I sit down and agree to what we hope to accomplish for the year.

In 2019, this just did not happen.

Our theme for the year was basically “hold on tight and try to get through it.”

I gave birth to our sixth child in late February.  And in the midst of all of that, we had to plan a spine surgery for our 5 year old.

We also had a lot of other unusual situations calling our attention.  And all of it was just too much.

I can’t say I honestly missed setting goals last year…to be honest, it was the last thing on my mind.

But still…

I am so excited to get back to setting them for 2020!

Our Money, Life, and Family Goals for 2020

I don’t know about you, but for me, there’s something I love about reading other people’s goals for the year.

I love cheering them on, and getting awesome ideas about what I can do, too.

Not to just adopt someone else’s goal…but to see what they can actually accomplish. And what things come to my mind about my own life when I read how they are treating their life.

Without intentionally setting goals for ourselves, we never would have paid off all those credit cards a couple of years ago.

I wouldn’t have read 20 books last year.  (What do you know…I guess I did set one goal for myself!)

So without further ado, here are our 2020 goals.

As usual, I’ll break them down into Home, Family, Personal, and Money goals.

Home Goals 2020

We plan to pay for these things with a combination of bonus money and saving or earning whatever extra we can.

This one is a tall order for us, but we’re going to fasten our seatbelts and hit the gas…

Water

For the past couple of years, our biggest home goal has been to get a water supply at our place.

You can read about our strange water situation here.  

I won’t take 20 minutes to tell you how frustrating this situation has become.  But suffice it to say that I’m so done with it that we’ve already taken a couple of steps towards solving this problem in 2020.

One way or another, we will find a way this year to catch or capture water on our property!

More on how we’ll pay for this below.

Wood Stove

Heat is another bill that is drowning us.  Propane costs a fortune, especially when you’re heating an old 1950s style home.

In the past, we fixed up the chimney so we could use our fireplace insert.  But it just doesn’t heat our home very well.

This year we will invest in a more efficient wood stove.  We should make our money back on that investment in no time (considering how impossibly high the propane bill has become).

This is slated to happen in the spring.  

Painting

I have slowly begun the work of painting our home.  We’ve lived here for over 11 years now…but I am no interior designer.  😉

Still, a fresh coat of paint does wonders for a room.  This year I will paint the dining room and computer area.  (I already bought the paint on a Memorial Day paint sale last year. Yeah, I was optimistic.  haha)

Basement

We’ve been able to use our basement for things that keep our kids moving in the wintertime.  But we’d like to make it more useful, so we’ll begin the job of cleaning it up this year.

Right now the giant water tanks we live off of are down there, too.  If we can remove those, we’ll claim a ton of space for something much more fun.

We’re thinking this goal will be more about time than money.

House Project

We have toyed with the idea of adding on to our small home for years.  Nothing huge…but a second bathroom for our family of 8 sure would be nice!

Hubby started a new job a few months ago, and we still aren’t quite sure what his paychecks and bonuses will amount to.  So we’ve decided to give it a full year, and make a decision about this project late this year.

I’m anxious to see how this one pans out!

Family

Vacation

We didn’t take any sort of vacation last year.  

But even as a frugal family, we do try to make vacations a priority when we can.

That’s because we believe that taking time away together is so important…especially when life is always busy.  Our oldest just turned 16, and we really want to make some more memories before he’s out on his own.  

We are leaning towards hitting one of our favorite places…the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

We will pay cash for this trip.  (Obviously we’ll have to use a credit card to book things, but will immediately pay them off.  The good news is that we should be able to earn some Amazon points for this spending.)

Personal

After reading 20 books last year, I’d like to read 15 this year.  The baby will be sleeping less once she turns a year old (sadly most of my kids give up their naps around the time they turn 2).  So I don’t want to overdo it.

I’m also going to work on keeping our home less cluttered this year.

Clutter is so stressful!

I’m going to shape what this looks like this month so it’s more of a SMART goal (that way I’ll know if I accomplished it or not).  I’m thinking this decluttering challenge will help a ton.

Money Goals

Speaking of challenges, I know you’re gonna want to join this 30 Day Money Saving Challenge:

After having that BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal) a couple of years ago to pay off our credit card debt, it feels like it’s time for us to go for another big goal this year.

Setting big goals for yourself helps you dream bigger… and when you reach for the stars you’ll be amazed at what you can do.

Earlier I said that getting a water system installed for our home was our biggest priority.

Well, that’s going to be an expensive adventure.

So we’re going to do our best to save or earn $10,000 to make as a down payment (or to pay towards the loan if we can move more quickly that way).

We won’t be doing our hardcore #yearofno like we did in the past.  (Read all about how our #yearofno helped us pay off a ton of credit card debt here.)

We WILL be doing a smaller version of that.  (To be honest, with the year we just had, we fell back into some wasteful spending habits like ordering more pizza than we should…and my Dr. Pepper habit is back in a bad way.)

But we’re also going to get creative about finding other ways to bring in more money, too.

I’ll be giving all the details in monthly updates.  So if you like money saving and making ideas, stay tuned!

Those are our family and money goals for 2020!

Whatever you hope to accomplish in 2020, I’m cheering you on. 

If you have any goals for saving money or paying off debt, I really encourage you to join the 30 Day Money Saving Challenge.  It has been incredibly helpful for so many people already, and I know it can help you, too. 

Just drop in your email below to join!

 

What are your goals for the new year?