2012 Goals Tracking - April End

These are my goals for 2012.
Health:
1H) Aim to get back to my pre-preg day’s weight.

 Financial:
Goals to work on once I join back my job
1F) I want to bring our mortgage to such an extent where my house can service itself.
2F) Maintain my EF as 3 months of expenses.
3F) If I can save for retirement as much as I did in 2010, that will be a good punch to future expenses.

 Newly Added(missed in setting goals but was always there in my mind)
Goals to work on till I am on leave (unpaid and would be bonus if can be continued even when I join back)
4F) Manage our all monthly expenses within my DH's salary.


Personal :
1P) To start the habit of getting up at 6:00 in the morning.
2P) I think one of the most vague yet most important goals is to maintain a WORK-LIFE balance once I join back my job.

It's April end and let's see how am I fairing in these goals.

Over to tracking now:

Goal 1H - Bringing my weight and stamina to pre-preg days - FAIL. I went to GYM for only 4 days. I am still maintaining (very) active lifestyle but I know to get back in shape I need to exercise more. :(

Goal 1F - Bringing down mortgage - NA Yet. No more applicable actually as must have been clear from my last month's update.
Goal 2F - Having EF as 3 months of living Expenses - FAIL. For now this is almost depleted. Have to bring it back.
Goal 3F - Save for Retirement - PASS.
Goal 4F - Survive on DH's salary alone- PASS. Finally.

Goal 1P- Getting up early - PASS. I got up between 7:00 AM to 7:30 AM almost all weekdays.
Goal 2P- Having a balanced life - PASS.

This was about me. How was your April?

Recap
January

February

March

2012 Goals Tracking - March End

These are my goals for 2012.

Health:
1H) Aim to get back to my pre-preg day’s weight.

Financial:
Goals to work on once I join back my job
1F) I want to bring our mortgage to such an extent where my house can service itself.
2F) Maintain my EF as 3 months of expenses.
3F) If I can save for retirement as much as I did in 2010, that will be a good punch to future expenses.

Newly Added(missed in setting goals but was always there in my mind)
Goals to work on till I am on leave (unpaid and would be bonus if can be continued even when I join back)
4F) Manage our all monthly expenses within my DH's salary.

Personal :
1P) To start the habit of getting up at 6:00 in the morning.
2P) I think one of the most vague yet most important goals is to maintain a WORK-LIFE balance once I join back my job.

It's March end and let's see how am I fairing in these goals, but before that lets have a little update from my end.

1) Well March was an expensive month. I have bought a new house in Hyderabad. I know it will keep me occupied in my already busy life but I want to also tell that it was purely my decision. I have done lots of calculations and am sure this will be beneficial in long term but it will make coming 10-12 months very exciting. My net worth has taken a dip for the first time since I have started tracking it. But I know this all good in long term and falls inline with my long term financial goals.

So this will lead to modification of my financial goals.

I will do a separate post detailing modified goals. For this month, lets track original goals.

2) I finally joined back my office. Yesterday was my first day after a long long break. Real challenge now starts.

Over to tracking now:

Goal 1H - Bringing my weight and stamina to pre-preg days - PASS. Though I'll be officially joining GYM only once I join back my office, I am trying to maintain an active lifestyle. Doing some household chores, taking stairs, taking care of my baby is improving my stamina slowly. And now since I have joined back office, I am going to slowly start exercising. :)

Goal 1F - Bringing down mortgage - NA Yet. No more applicable actually as must have been clear from my update.
Goal 2F - Having EF as 3 months of living Expenses - FAIL. For now this is almost depleted. Have to bring it back.
Goal 3F - Save for Retirement - PASS.
Goal 4F - Survive on DH's salary alone- FAIL. We had to dip in our savings by 18K. There are so many misc. expenses when you are buying a house. This scene is going to be same for some of the next coming months :(

Goal 1P- Getting up early - PASS. I got up between 7:00 AM to 7:30 AM almost all weekdays.
Goal 2P- Having a balanced life - PASS.

This was about me. How was your March?

Recap
January

February

2012 Goals Tracking - February End

These are my goals for 2012.

Health:
1H) Aim to get back to my pre-preg day’s weight.

Financial:
Goals to work on once I join back my job
1F) I want to bring our mortgage to such an extent where my house can service itself.
2F) Maintain my EF as 3 months of expenses.
3F) If I can save for retirement as much as I did in 2010, that will be a good punch to future expenses.

Newly Added(missed in setting goals but was always there in my mind)
Goals to work on till I am on leave (unpaid and would be bonus if can be continued even when I join back)
4F) Manage our all monthly expenses within my DH's salary.

Personal :
1P) To start the habit of getting up at 6:00 in the morning.
2P) I think one of the most vague yet most important goals is to maintain a WORK-LIFE balance once I join back my job.

It's February end and let's see how am I fairing in these goals.

Goal 1H - Bringing my weight and stamina to pre-preg days - PASS. Though I'll be officially joining GYM only once I join back my office, I am trying to maintain an active lifestyle. Doing some household chores, taking stairs, taking care of my baby is improving my stamina slowly. But March didn't start on good note. I was down with viral that's what delayed this update :(

Goal 1F- Bringing down mortgage - NA Yet. There is major change in this goal. Will soon write a post about it.
Goal 2F- Having EF as 3 months of living Expenses - NA Yet.
Goal 3F- Save for Retirement - PASS.
Goal 4F- Survive on DH's salary alone- FAIL. We had to dip in our savings by 5K

Goal 1P- Getting up early - FAIL. I blame and completely blame DH and DB for this. DB was unwell for last 2 weeks. :(
Goal 2P- Having a balanced life - PASS. Managed an ill baby, managed house. Balanced as much as I could.

This was about me. How was your February?

Recap
January

2012 Goals Tracking - January End

These are my goals for 2012.

Health:
1H) Aim to get back to my pre-preg day’s weight.

Financial:
Goals to work on once I join back my job
1F) I want to bring our mortgage to such an extent where my house can service itself.
2F) Maintain my EF as 3 months of expenses.
3F) If I can save for retirement as much as I did in 2010, that will be a good punch to future expenses.

Newly Added(missed in setting goals but was always there in my mind)
Goals to work on till I am on leave (unpaid and would be bonus if can be continued even when I join back)
4F) Manage our all monthly expenses within my DH's salary.

Personal :
1P) To start the habit of getting up at 6:00 in the morning.
2P) I think one of the most vague yet most important goals is to maintain a WORK-LIFE balance once I join back my job.

It's January end and let's see how am I fairing in these goals.

Goal 1H - Bringing my weight and stamina to pre-preg days - PASS. Though I'll be officially joining GYM only once I join back my office, I am trying to maintain an active lifestyle. Doing some household chores, taking stairs, taking care of my baby is improving my stamina slowly.

Goal 1F- Bringing down mortgage - NA Yet.
Goal 2F- Having EF as 3 months of living Expenses - NA Yet.
Goal 3F- Save for Retirement - NA Yet.
Goal 4F- Survive on DH's salary alone- PASS. Including an unplanned trip to Delhi. Wow. Touchwood !

Goal 1P- Getting up early - PASS. I am starting this with small steps because I desperately want to achieve this. I aimed that for this month I will get up between 7:30 to 8:00 and I consistently achieved it while in Hyderabad. For next month I am aiming to getting up between 7:00 to 7:30.
Goal 2P- Having a balanced life - PASS. Very difficult to quantify but when I look at my sheet for my baby's daily chores its almost filled with done. Also my house is generally in order so it seems I was able to strike a basic balance last month.

This was about me. How was your January?

My money is mine so are decisions associated with it.. period

Sometimes you come across a post that exactly describes your state of mind at that time. From last few days I am frustrated. In general I am way more irritable then normal me. I am trying to introspect and understand what's bothering beneath the surface but it is not an easy task.

Well I know for sure last year has a big role in that. As I have mentioned several times here already it was a year of murphy. I read an article by J.Money about stuff new home owners should think and it struck an immediate chord. There was probably not a single month where I didn't need to replace or buy something new for home.

I know, that's why we save emergency fund (my EF also includes my contingency fund). But I am a saver. I always like to save first and then spend. So, it was tough for me. Very very tough to part with so much of our saved money month after month. It's very hard to see your 18 months of EF depleting to 11 months EF.

On top of that what else can frustrate you. Don't waste brain guessing, its when people comment that when you have so much money (in bank) why you crib about expenses and why you do price comparing, why to delay some purchase, why not to keep full time maid? Why why why? That's something similar to what FB wrote recently in her article that how people think others get rich.

Let me just dribble my answers here, for my peace of mind sake:

1) I have money in bank because I am thoughtful about expenses which you are not.

2) I understand that 100 Rs. wasted each day costs me Rs 3000 in a month and in a year, Rs 3000 * 12 (Go do the math), that’s a very respectable sum FOR ME.

3) I have money because I work my a$$ for it. Even in pregnancy when sitting for long hours was next to impossible I worked as much as I could, because I understand that money needs to be earned.

4) I simply didn't inherit anything in this world. From my house to my car to everything I own, I have earned by working HARD.

5) I do price comparison because I understand that every penny saved is equal to 2 pennies earned.

6) Because I want to retire one day without being dependent on my children.

Frugality is tough especially when you come across such people. This blog and my Google Reader provide me with much needed motivation and peace of mind at such times. Thanks to you all PF blogger out there. You all rock.

Goals for 2012

After taking unplanned break from forming goals for 2011, I am back. I am again trying to work on lots of issues at one time. It will be a big daunting failure if I will not decide on some (???) goals for 2012. I did OK in 2010 thanks to this blog. Hope to ATLEAST achieve that much and I will be one happy gal.

So here go my goals for 2012:

Health:
1) I have a new responsibility in my life. So it’s high time for me to be responsible for my health. I gained quite a lot of weight while pregnant (:)) and lost most of it but not all. I would like to go back to my pre-preg day’s weight. Ideally I would like to achieve this by the time my baby is 1 year. But, even if I achieve it by EOY (end of year), it will work. This will do lot of good to me financially, that might enable me to fit in my pre-preg days clothes.

Financial
My financial life is at lowest point ever. In 2011 I was not able to save even 5% of our in hand salary where this household is used to save close to 30% of its in hand. :( Plus me not working for first quarter in this year is also going to be a big strain on my finances. So my financial goals are going to be more challenging than first one.

1) I want to bring our mortgage to such an extent where my house can service itself. To achieve this by EOY, I need to bring in close to 8L money. This is going to be tough.

2) Maintain my EF as 3 months of expenses once I join back my job.

3) If I can save for retirement as much as I did in 2010, that will be a good punch to future expenses.

Personal
I wish I could become a SUPERMOM. :)
But Santa (on Christmas) and Lakshmiji (on Diwali), both of them told me that no wishes for you for this year. :( So, let’s formulate some goals in that case:

1) I am a late sleeper. What I mean by that is I sleep by 2:00 at night and love to get up at 10:00 in morning (I wish I could tell you the truth that 10:00 is actually 12 :)) But once you have a baby and you plan to join your job and you also decide that you will cook morning meal plus lunch yourself, this won't work right? So have to start the habit of getting up at 6:00 in the morning. Only if I would have thought of this while in school, I would have been favourite of all my teachers. :(. But it’s never too late, is it?

2) I think one of the most vague yet most important goals is to maintain a WORK-LIFE balance once I join back my job. This is going to be tough as there will be lots of unknown (to me) hurdles all along the way, but I will need your blessings and I sure can do it. If I can't, then I can always quit my job again (of course first I have to join again) and live this ideal life of being at home all day with my baby. :)

So 6 goals in all, what do you think will I be able to surprise myself by achieving at least few of them?

Are you also crazy enough to form goals in New Year?