Can you believe how quickly 2015 is passing by?
We’re nearing the end of June, which means we are almost at the halfway point of 2015.
Since we are almost halfway through the year, it’s a great time to check in on your annual goals and see how you can improve on them. A year is a long time, so you definitely want to do a major checkup on your goals at least once.
Plus, there’s still plenty of time for you to reach your goal. Just because the first half of the year may not have gone as planned for you does not mean that the rest of 2015 has to be thrown away.
You should try to take advantage of the next six months and try as hard as you can to reach your goal.
Varying financial goals (don’t forget about personal goals either though) that you may want to checkup on may include goals such as:
- Saving more money;
- Cutting your budget;
- Earning more money;
- Paying off your debt; and so on.
Below are different reasons for why it’s important to check on your goal progress. I’ve also included my mid-year checkup.
You can become motivated all over again.
By checking in on your goal progress, you will most likely feel reenergized and pumped about your goals all over again. I know that usually happens to me!
This motivation and energy may be exactly what you need to power you through the end of the year so that you can reach your goal in time.
Also, if you are doing well with your goal but you are feeling a little tired about it, checking in may help you feel positive about your goal again and remind you about why you should push forward.
You can track your progress.
By checking in on your annual goals, you can track your progress and see how you’re doing. This can help you determine if you need to speed things up or if something may be holding you back.
Tracking your goals is extremely important for the reasons above. If you don’t know how you are doing, it would be very hard to know if your plan needs to be changed, if you are doing something wrong, if you are even on track, and so on.
Things can change in a year.
A year is a long time. A lot can change in one year so setting goals and just forgetting about them may not always work.
You could possibly lose your job, experience a medical issue, come across a large unexpected expense, and most of all, you might not even need/want to reach that goal anymore. You might be trying to reach a goal that needs to be completely changed and without reevaluating, you might not even realize that.
You can create a new plan.
If things are not going as planned, then you may decide to create a new plan to reach your goal. Sticking to your old plan that isn’t working for you would just be a waste of time so you might as well change it to what you want to change it to.
By checking in on your goal progress, you can decide on a plan that will help you to reach your goal more effectively and efficiently.
Here is my mid-year check in. Below are my annual goals along with my progress.
1. Increase the business’ income. PASS. Yes, I know I make a good income, but ever since I left my day job it just seemed to remain flat. This was even though I was able to add around 50-60 hours a week by cutting my day job out of my life, so you can probably see now why it’s frustrating to have flat income when you have so much more time. However, my income is finally increasing due to improving my blog, promoting it more, and so on. If you take a look at my recent income report, you can see that my income is starting to go upwards. I believe this will continue into the future.
2. Challenge our budget. PASS. After a few years of increased spending, we made it our mission this year to be more minimalist, spend less money, and stop focusing on material things. We have done very well with challenging our budget. We are living a super fun life full of travel and adventure (we’ve been to many places this year already including California, Nevada, Utah, Gulf Shores, Memphis, and more) yet we are spending less money than ever. We also went down to one car, got rid of a lot of our belongings, canceled cable, and more.
3. Get life insurance. FAIL. I know, I know, I have been saying this for what seems like ages! I know that getting life insurance soon would be a wise decision for me and Wes due to the fact that life insurance provides financial security for your loved ones in the event of your death and that you shouldn’t simply rely on savings for this. A life insurance death benefit can cover your income, monthly expenses, debt and more. So, it needs to be done soon since our income relies on our business and my blog. It’s also smart for us to get it now because we do plan on having children eventually and we are young, so life insurance is pretty much as cheap as it will ever be right now for us. According to Haven Life’s calculator, our recommended coverage for life insurance is a $950,000 policy with an approximate cost of $47 a month. That doesn’t seem bad at all! I always thought life insurance was much more expensive than that. Haven Life is the only place where you can buy term life insurance online. They only offer policies to MA residents right now, but you should at least try out their calculator to see how much coverage you need.
4. Spend less money on clothing. PASS. This is a big goal of mine and I am doing very well. I have bought some new hiking clothing but that has been it. I believe I have spent around $200 on clothing in 2015 so far, and I don’t expect to buy any clothing anytime soon either.
How is 2015 going for you? What goals are you trying to reach this year?
Disclosure: The team at Haven Life reads my blog (and saw that I don’t have life insurance) and reached out to see if I’d like to try out their life insurance calculator. They compensated me to mention them on my blog when discussing my goals for the next six months. As always, however, everything in this post is 100% my opinion.
diane @smartmoneysimplelife says
It’s scary how quickly this year is flying by!
I’ll be checking in on a few goals over the next week or so. Some don’t require too close an examination because I know they are great big fat fails but I do feel like I’m generally heading in the right direction so I think I’ll be able to chalk up a few ticks, too!
It’s always worth periodically getting the map out to make sure you’re on the right path.
Push that life insurance to the top of the list Michelle! 🙂
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Yes, it’s going by so quickly. It’s crazy!
Thomas @ i need cash ASAP! says
It’s awesome to see you still growing your online income Michelle! One of my goals is to earn $3,000/mth from home. I’m getting to $1,500/mth pretty consistently but have flatlined for a bit (Althought my last income update was over $1,700!) It’s encouraging to see you had a similar problem and were able to push through it 🙂
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Yes, you’ll have no problem! 🙂
Saving Sanely says
It is always a great idea to keep on top of your goals! I try to break my yearly goals into monthly ones that add up to the big one so that it doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming! We had a yearly goal of paying off all of our smaller student loans (about 25k worth combined) and we have already almost met it! Two months to go and we’ll have done it! So being able to adjust for circumstances monthly, whether increasing or decreasing your stride, has been great!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Wow great job!
Holly@ClubThrifty says
This year has been amazing. We aren’t meeting all of our goals though due to a general lack of time. I have some work stuff that has been sitting on the back burner for a while now.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Great job Holly!
Sarah says
This year has been slow but good for us! I think my word for 2015 was “maintain” or something like that lol. Since 2011, we’ve had at least one huge change and this year we wanted to just sit still! My husband and I are still both self-employed and while we’re growing, neither of us are quite sure what’s in store for us next. I think it’s time for me to re-evaluate some of my goals.
Great job with hitting almost all your goals so far!! 🙂
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Slow but good is always great 🙂
Cindy says
I’ll admit to being somewhat obsessive about checking my goals; I probably check my net worth and goals at least once a week! I’m sure that’s not the best idea. But, so far, 2015 has been a really good year for me (financially speaking), and seeing how far I’ve come on my goals has definitely kept me motivated. I’ve had to create several new goals already this year, since I was able to cross off a few much earlier than expected! I try to only post about my goals once a quarter; I don’t want to bore everyone else!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
I’m really bad about checking goals. I usually only remember them when I read my blog posts about them. I’m happy I have a blog for that reason!
Amy @ DebtGal says
I’m doing pretty well with my annual goals, although there are a couple that haven’t gotten much love, yet. 🙂 I also set smaller summer goals, since my life is less structured over the summer and it helps to have some additional focus. The “biggest” ones are keeping my side hustle income going, since I don’t work at my “real” job over the summer, and selling off $1,000 worth of the remaining inventory from my small business. (One of my annual goals is to sell it all off.)
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Good luck with your summer goals!
Fervent Finance says
Great job so far in 2015. My goals so far are mainly financial. I am going to do a mid year update as well once 6/30 passes. But I think I’m tracking pretty well against them!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Thanks!
Portia says
Thank you for this post! It’s such a good reminder. Do you have any recommendations for increasing our income if we are not self-employed? I work at school and feel frustrated with the very limited income. I also work two other part-time jobs to compensate for the low pay, but I have been doing it for a year now, and I am feeling weary and tired.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
This is a great idea for a post. I will do some research and hopefully will have a blog post on this soon 🙂
Kimsea @Blog Marketing says
First, I’d love to admit that the of 2015 is real fast.
Again, admitting is that I didn’t have any plan since last 3 years. I got a problem thus I spend my life for happy time.
However, I couldn’t but I wasted my time for almost 3 years. You know..? your remain me about the time and I found that I shouldn’t continue wasting my time anymore.
I didn’t have any goal for 2015 yet, but I’ll create one for it..
thanks for sharing..
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Thanks!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Good luck with your goals Sylvia!
Jason B says
So far so good for 2015. I’ve reached about 50% of the goals that I’ve set out to complete. I will do my best to make the 2nd half of the year as good as this 1st half.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Great to hear Jason!
Rhitter says
How ironic… I am in process of re-vamping my goals for the rest of the year.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Great timing 🙂
Kim says
I haven’t checked goals in a while, but I think the main one was to stay the course and get tenants in all of our rentals. Boring but still forward progress! If you think you want life insurance now or in the future, get it while you’re young. It will never be any cheaper than it is right now. I learned that the hard way!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Yeah, we definitely want to get it soon. It’s something that we’ve been talking about a TON lately.
Shan Walker says
This is great advice. Something I think about but haven’t gotten it in writing. Good job on the goals you have already accomplished and thanks for motivating the rest of us.
blessings,
Shan Walker
The How-to Guru
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Thanks Shan!
Jesse Gernigin says
I love that you are taking time to reassess your goals. I’ve found that getting a little off course in the past used to derail my energy for goals and products. . I do a review every three months and it has given me a ton of positive direction.
Today I am going to start a month long process of packing, labeling and stamping my direct mail advertising for my other business. I came to this point slowly over the last three months and the next three will deal with the application and reaction to it!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Thanks Jesse!
AJ says
You should check out Zander Insurance for your life insurance quote. My husband and I each went through them to secure $500,000 policies for each of us. Super easy and affordable! The only complaint I have is that it *seems* like a long time goes by from the time you are approved, until the time you actually have the policy in place. Either way, my term policy is $267 a year and my hubby’s is $344, but only because I got mine 5 years before he did, so I was that much younger.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Wow that seems very affordable!
Mark@BareBudgetGuy says
Setting my 2015 goals is still on my to do list…I definitely need a new plan.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Ha yeah!
Natalie @ Financegirl says
I have been checking in on my goals since January and it’s been so rewarding. I have been able to stay on track with some and intentionally change others (hard to do but necessary when life changes). I think it’s so important to do this regularly!
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Great job Natalie!
Brittney @ Life On A Discount says
One of our major goals is building our emergency savings after depleting our general savings last year for a house down payment. We just hit 4 months expenses and will probably leave it at that for now until our student loans are paid off. Our other big goal is to increase our overall monthly debt payments by at least $200. We both applied for promotions and them, so we are going to increase our debt repayments by $300 a month and increase our 401k contributions by $100 each a month.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says
Good luck with your goals!
DNN says
I have to admit I struggled too when I started side hustling one line. I was inconsistent with content marketing. Now that I have a better understanding, a side hustle is a beautiful labor of love.