It’s true, but like… I literally have no excuse. I went nowhere for the holidays. I hosted no one. I have no job. And my list was not even that long or theoretically taxing.
1. Log/File one year’s worth of financial papers (I usually do this in January, but it seemed appropriate for this month’s challenge) - I’ve sorted the papers! Now I just need to put them where they belong. 2. Get that $*&% IRA rollover done! - look at me, being all adult and stuff. Did my part in week 2, week 3 looked like I was too late and it wouldn’t be completed this year, but the transaction happened at the end of week 4. My first rollover is done! 3. Minimum spend ($2500) on new CC, to include 2019 charitable giving Did the donations ($2k). I lost this card for about 10 days and of course that was when I was doing the bulk of my holiday spending. Found the card in a coat pocket, but still need about $200 on this card. Its OK if I don’t finish this month. 4. Spend on cc with an extra bonus this month ($1200). Done!
5. a. Figure out how much capital gains harvesting I can do this year b. and actually do it. Done! I didn’t go right up to the limit - left some wiggle room, but I am happy with that. 6. Cancel cable, which was a condition of me signing up for Hulu during the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday special. No progress here yet. 7. Continue to track spending on holiday meal food and groceries for houseguests. Spent $217 on groceries/pizza for family events and holiday parties, $12 on special foods for my houseguests, and $65 on gifts.
I still have a few days to get the papers off the dining table and call the cable company. One of those things will get done.
But getting some of your list done is so much better than getting nothing on the list done!
ETA: I am finding these challenges helpful to keep me working on some small goals. Even using “low hanging fruit” for goals, and not many goals, I still don’t get them all done (e.g. Roth conversion in November). But better than getting nothing done.
1a) Track items that I eat to look for patterns/problems: I’ve done really well here. Haven’t identified too many issues as I’ve given up trying to manage that while sick. Will look at removing problem foods in January.
1b) Aim for meals, not snacks: I did really well on this for the first two weeks, then I kind of fell apart. I do know that I feel much better when eating meals, so will keep working on this in January.
1c) Walk everyday (anything over a mile counts): Decent progress. I have walked more than half of the days. I’d have done better, but I got bronchitis.
Clean up laptop files, save back-up, transfer files to new laptop: Done, except for transferring files to new laptop. Probably will happen before year’s end.
Set up workout space for winter: Hmmm, need to clean this space and set up old laptop to play music and videos.
Tackle the financial tasks I need to do before I leave work: cancel work parking permit, figure out my new health insurance, make adjustments with payroll if needed: Done! Have health insurance through April using FMLA, then I’ll need to make a decision.
Remember not to panic: Ha, I’m too sick and tired to panic, so a win?
I finally got renter’s insurance! I’ve been putting it off for… years. I still need to sign my policy, but I want to print it out and read and mark it up first, and I have a month to sign it.
I didn’t track my last couple of purchases for holiday gift spending. Overall, I found tracking gift spending helped me be more thoughtful with my purchases, and I wasn’t stressed out.
Posting my last update, though I wasn’t very productive this last week. Muppet got sick early in the week, so most of my week was dealing with that (with a few interrupted sleep nights mixed in). Thankfully, he’s feeling much better now.
No progress on any of my main 4 items.
No progress on getting rid of more large items. I did move things out to the porch, so at least it got out of my house. Things that no one wants on BN and don’t have obvious charities that want them just need another dump run after New Year’s. Figured out where I’m missing 1 piece that is important to an item that otherwise could be sold or donated.
A little bit of progress on going through new to me or maybe broken appliances to figure out what the next steps are.
Started to slip more on my limited streaming plan. It was helpful to cut down viewing, but last week I started to watch a few more things that I pledged.
My mother leaves tomorrow - I feel that I can’t respond to any of the activity on this forum with her here, too much going on! Tomorrow will be a bunch of updates.
Clean off desk at home so it only has things that are supposed to be on it (e.g. laptop, keyboards; not jumbled receipts or paper waiting to be recycled) - in progress – This is not going to get done this month. I have too many things that I don’t know where to put. Mainly, I need some kind of filing system. I’ve set that as one of my 2020 goals. However, I made huge progress and my desk looks a lot better, so I feel like this was a win!
Put children’s books we own, that are not board books, on shelves in the wiggler’s room
Ship back earbuds that stopped working - in progress - planning to ship today; will update this thread by end of day on January 1 either way
Inventory and store baby bottles
Sort, inventory, and attempt to sell maternity/nursing clothes
I applied for Global Entry last night! I came prepared with a list of all the countries I’ve been to in the last five years and the dates I was there. Surprisingly that wasn’t the hard part - they also ask for everywhere you’ve worked in the last five years, which was almost harder. I still have to go through the interview and approval process but I got the application in which was my goal!
I also need to set up my paper files for 2020 but that is looking like a New Year’s Eve project, because apparently I am a procrastinator.
I finished three out of five of my grad school applications this month, which I’m pretty happy with. Apps four and five are close to done, and I have another month to prettify my fiction sample and send it in. Feeling good about what I got done this month.
I have all kinds of good intentions to get the pantry/freezer inventory done today or tomorrow. Overall feeling good about the shit I got together this month!
Read 2 novels this week/ over the holiday —choices TBD
I chose Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin and The Box by Gunter Gass buuuuut forgot to bring them over the holiday. I read some of my kindle version of The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life on the two hour train.
Find a special dessert recipe to make on Christmas eve/Christmas day
So I didn’t make anything at home over the holiday, but I did make a cake to take into the office.
No chores that I can remember besides cooking and cleaning dishes… still have mopping my bedroom wood floor on my to do list since December 1st oops!
Only 11-ish miles biked this week.
No coffee out (the starbucks i got with a gift card doesn’t count) and i’ve been really good about remembering to set up my coffee pot at home — I can’t remember the last time I had the liquefied cigarette butts at the office
Actually got really poor sleep this Saturday, but that’s been very unusual.
Random other things:
visited farmer’s market
visited my sister
attended yoga class
enrolled in work benefits
thank you notes for coworkers
made yogurt in my new instant pot
second thred up bag sent in, ordered a third thred up bag (really)
Still finished with the December items, starting on January.
After an hour and a half on hold, husband is going to have to go to the actual social security office, which is a nightmare. But instead of driving to the nearest little city, he’s going in with me when I go back to work Tuesday and going to the one in College City.
Decide whether it makes sense for us to refinance our mortgage to a lower interest rate, even though we just got it in March. Update resume and LinkedIn
Set up a full list of our financial accounts and how to access them. We don’t have that many but I want them all in one place.
Set up some sort of ledger for tracking what’s in our emergency fund and what’s in various sinking funds. Theoretically we already know the answers more or less but I want to be precise about it. This got done today! It’s almost January now but it still got done in December!
Inventory my yarn stash and knitting/crochet supplies so I don’t accidentally purchase something that I already have.
1. Log/File one year’s worth of financial papers (I usually do this in January, but it seemed appropriate for this month’s challenge) - I’ve sorted the papers! Now I just need to put them where they belong.
2. Get that $*&% IRA rollover done! - look at me, being all adult and stuff. Did my part in week 2, week 3 looked like I was too late and it wouldn’t be completed this year, but the transaction happened at the end of week 4. My first rollover is done!
6. Cancel cable, which was a condition of me signing up for Hulu during the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday special. No progress here yet.