2022 Goals/Plans/Aspirations

I don’t know what to call this post or these things. Calling them plans seems like asking for failure as we head into the third calendar year of the pandemic, when nearly all plans have been dashed, destroyed, and ruined. Including the majority of my Christmas break plans, so I guess having plans ruined is really fresh in my brain. But I also still want to live my life (within public health guidelines lol), and have goals I want to meet and things I want to do.

Travel Goals:

See my grandparents (and the rest of my extended family). All of my extended family lives in the UK, most in Northern Ireland and it has been so long since I have seen any of them, and have missed weddings, births, and so much. And I noticed last time we video-chatted that my grandparents are starting to look quite old, and that scared me. So I don’t know how or when this will happen, but I really want to see my family this year.
Quarterly city weekends. My new years plans completely crumbled at the last minute this year and I spent it alone in a hotel room with take out, cava, chocolate, and bad movies. And I loved every second of it. Being in Guelph and Toronto on the 31st and the 1st also really made me realize that I need a city, I thrive in a city, I love a city. So I want to start taking a weekend every quarter to go to either Thunder Bay or Winnipeg and stay in a hotel, and if I have to get take out because indoor dining is closed or I can eat in restaurants, cool. But eat food that I didn’t cook, go to a museum, people watch. Do shopping if I need to and not save it up for 10 months and then spend a ton of money. I just think it will be good for my mental health.
Calgary Stampede. I have always wanted to go to the Calgary Stampede. I started horseback riding western, dabbled in barrels, and used to dream about living in Texas. And Calgary is only a 14 hour drive away, it is faster to get to Calgary, three provinces away, than it is for me to get home. So I want to take advantage of how comparatively close I am to go out west and see the Stampede.

Financial Goals

I am planning to loosely follow the Dave Ramsey plan for paying off my debt, and creating a budget and really sticking to a budget. So Dave Ramsey’s baby steps basically include:

Save up an emergency fund of $1000
Pay off all debt, you can do either the debt snowball method (paying off smallest balance to largest balance) or debt avalanche method (paying off largest interest rate to smallest interest rate, regardless of balance). And then you make your minimum payments on all your other debts and then once you pay off one, you add that payment on to the next debt payment. However, this is where I’m straying a bit, I want to pay off my credit card and then pay off the balance every month.
Next, I want to save up a $5000 moving fund. It is expensive to move to and from this remote town and I will need to have a rental deposit (which in Ontario is first and last month’s rent, they are not allowed by law to charge a damage deposit) and I feel like I might need to hire movers to help me this time.
The next two items, aren’t really in any particular order, but I want to get CAA (AAA, a service and towing plan so that if I ever break down on the side of the highway again it won’t destroy me financially). And get renter’s insurance (aka content insurance). For years this has been something that I have preached, but haven’t actually had it. So I need to get it. And it’s just a good practice to protect all your belongings.
And then lastly is something I learned about from Annie at the LAMinimalist on Instagram, is to have a sinking fund. It’s a separate savings account that you put a designated amount of money in each month for planned expenses, it could include annual payments like annual insurance payments, membership fees, birthday presents, oil changes, tire changes (if you live somewhere where you car has a seasonal wardrobe) whatever it is that you have that you know you will spend money on. Then you total up how much those things are, divide that total by 12 and put that amount of money aside each month so that you will always have that money available for the thing you need and hopefully it will never ding your budget.

Food/exercise

These are more loosy-goosy and woo-woo than my other goals. But I just want to continue to work on my body image and focusing on intuitive eating and exercising in a way that continues to be good for my brain and better for my body. So this is the furthest from a SMART goal, but that’s where we’re at.

Dry January. I’m going to do Dry January, I’m not worried about my drinking at all. I am a very moderate drinker, but given that we will be in a modified lockdown from Wednesday basically until the end of the month, it seems like a good idea to not drink when I’ll be mostly alone for the whole month.

Apartment

I am feeling really good about my apartment, it looks really good. But there are a few things I still want:

kitchen island, just one of those Ikea ones with a spot for eating and extra counter space
folding table in office for crafting and able to pull out to have people over for dinner
daybed for second bedroom so I can have people overnight and give them somewhere comfy to stay
matching curtains in living room
replacement for lace curtains over kitchen sink.

I think that is mostly it for my apartment and that it will be, not perfect, but really good and good for another year.

Fun/Weird

I am a terrible user of dating apps. So I want to set a goal of messaging every match. That makes me want to barf lol.

Learn to finish needlepoint ornaments, patches, bookmarks, and headbands. I think that might be enough for needlepoint goals. That and stitching my stash and no buying canvases until we’re done that.

I’m a little worried that this is maybe too much for one year. But I also remember reading my journals of previous goals and being surprised and proud by how much I had accomplished in the previous year, and if it doesn’t happen, then it wasn’t meant to happen or wasn’t really for me at that time and there was a reason it didn’t happen yet. Now that’s really woo-woo.

Laura