2018 in Review Part II

This is the second of a two-part piece about my 2018 goals. Click here for the first part.

Family

This was another area where SMART goal principles were nowhere in sight when I wrote these goals. I wrote nebulous phrases like: “be a good husband” and “be a good dad”. With regard to the kids, I did note a couple of specific things I wanted to do. I started working with them on financial matters. We talked about budgeting and created envelopes for them for saving, giving, and spending money. We talked through our household budget a little, and did some goal setting. I think that they both are still using their envelopes. My follow-through with this one was lacking. Fortunately, 2019 is a new year!

Finances

I had a few financial SMART goals for 2018. The first was reduce our debt levels. We totaled what we owed and worked out a plan to pay it off. We set a both a dollar figure and number of loans to be cleared up at the end of the year. We beat our targets for this goal.

A second financial goal was with regard to investing. I have retirement investments that are in good hands. After reading several blogs and books, I wanted to do some index investing on my own outside my retirement accounts. Although I missed the dollar target that I set, I’ve consistently invested here each month. Here again, finance goal #1 conflicted with finance goal #2.

My third financial goal was to increase our household net worth by $20,000. We’ve made some good advances with this one. I think that we’ll beat this goal, although the drop in the stock market at the end of 2018 might temporarily reduce the value of the retirement accounts such that it’ll be close. Final determination will come when I do our end of year personal financial statement.

Travel

I set a goal to travel to Europe, as that was what we had planned. I included Florence and Flanders/Ypres as part of the trip. The reason for the latter was that we were planning a trip in the fall and I wanted to visit WWI battlefields around the 100th anniversary of the armistice. We decided early in 2018 that buying the laundromat and car wash would be more important than going to Europe. We also found out that one of Kara’s cousins who we hope to visit in Europe was not coming home in 2018 as planned, but in 2019. So that goal was just pushed back a year.

Business

At the outset of 2018 we owned one business, a real estate investment company with one rental property. I had two goals for this area. The first was to maintain our current property with no vacancy months. The second was to acquire a new property. We ended up with one vacancy month at our current property when our tenant moved out early. We acquired a new property for goal #2. Instead of another rental property like I assumed, we bought the laundromat and car wash. Not exactly what I expected, but it’s definitely more profitable.

So, as the year wraps up, I’m pretty happy with how the year went. There were many additional times and events that have made it a great year. My kids each bought me experiences with them for my birthday. The boy took me to our local minor league baseball game and bought me a ballpark hotdog. The girl bought me tickets to take her to see Fall Out Boy. Both were fantastic experiences. Work has been going very well. I’ve been able to travel all over the US and meet many people. I have heard many times that my clients are happy with what I’ve shown them about our product and that their lives and work will be better. My wife and I have been able to share some great date nights now that we’re in town where we can walk to different places. We both enjoy working our laundromat business and have each carved out our own areas of responsibility that complement each other.

I hope that 2018 was a good year for you too. If so, let’s continue the momentum and make 2019 even better. If 2018 was not a great year, I hope that you’re able to turn things around and make 2019 the best year ever!

SMART goals is a system of creating better goals. It is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. You can read more about SMART goals here.