Happy Holidays.
Thanks for coming back and checking in on the blog.
You’ve probably been wondering why the regular posts have come to a pause. Well, I’ve been focused on a few other things for these past several weeks. I have been reviewing much of the blog content this time of year for a couple of reasons. Mainly to check myself to make sure that I am walking the talk. Nearly forty-four posts contain nuggets of hindsight, resources, and my version of a “bottom line”. 2018 is right around the corner and I’ve been formulating my goals, punch list, and to-do items for the upcoming year. Before I write them down, I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past few weeks reviewing our spending history for 2017, category by category. The real purpose at this point is to make sure the spending is in alignment with my values and my version of the happiness factor. There were a couple of surprises, such as spending $3,696 on eating at restaurants. These kinds of numbers get my attention and provide me an opportunity to dive deeper into the reason. It also begs the question of whether or not I enjoyed the entire eating out experience with family, friends, and by ourselves. Well of course we did! We enjoy checking out many of the places on Restaurant Row on Randolph Street and now, Fulton Street in Chicago. Is there a way of cutting back just a tiny bit on the experience to reduce the spending category? You bet! In the future, we’ll cut back on the wine with dinner. I calculated that if we have one less drink during dinner, we will reduce the category by about 25% which is about $1000.00. We’re not depriving ourselves of the experience other than cutting back on a couple of extra glasses of wine each time. A simple adjustment like this provides a big impact over the year.
2017 was a year of relaxing the reins on the spending plan as an experiment to see how we live in a ‘relaxed’ state without scrutinizing the heck out of every financial transaction or purchase. What I learned is that a few things will be adjusted in 2018 like dropping a Sonoma Wine Club or two and of course the restaurant category. The vacation category will remain roughly the same. I’ll post the vacation experiment in a future post. My 2018 “spending plan” goal is to reduce it by between 15-20% by removing some of the low-value items.
If you’ve been reading along the blog, I’d like to know if any of my observations and “hindsight” have helped you this year or at the very least were entertained by it. Please feel free to comment below. I am aware that there are many loyal readers of the blog, and a few leave comments along the way, which I appreciate. The comments help provide me the opportunity to bring one of my drafts to life and follow the thread of an idea. For 2018, I’m going to continue developing my “RE” of FIRE.
For me, the Bottom Line is a series of reminders of things that we already know, but are too busy reacting to other things to work on them.
This week’s Bottom Line:
1. Be grateful to be surrounded by family and friends during the holidays.
2. Want what you have.
3. It is tax season coming up. If you’ve been tracking your expenses all year and working on the sheets that are in the tools, you’ll have an easier time.
4. Update the “legacy Binder” in Q1 2018. As long as you are organizing your tax stuff, work on documenting your financial documents and tell your partner or your parents where to find it.
5. Build your 2018 plans and goals now. If you don’t have a plan, then you’ll be part of someone else’s.
Happy Holidays and thank you for following along this year.
