New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year (though a few weeks late)!

Between family illnesses, deaths in the family, a house robbery, the economy, and near social work burnout/disenchantment as a result of aforementioned family illnesses, 2014 was not the best year for me.  Of course, there were a few bright points, such as the love of my friends/family/coworkers, several fun vacations (which I will write about later), and the SF Giants winning yet another World Series.  With a new year comes a clean slate and the hope that this year will be even better than the last!

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions because I never keep them.  However, looking at my finances, I really did not do well when it came to making/saving money last year.  While part of that was due to unforeseen circumstances (such as an emergency trip out of the country and unexpected medical expenses), I also made the conscious decision to not cancel my pre-planned trips and dip into my savings account.  Additionally, I cut back on my work hours in the latter half of 2014 due to job/life burnout.  With the new year, I've upped my work hours again and plan to keep working as much as I can to pay for a family trip this spring and travel in the summer.  My main goal for this year is to make more than I made last year and save significantly more.

Late last year, I found out (to my chagrin) that despite being told otherwise, I do qualify for my one of my job's 403b program as a per diem employee.  I immediately signed up for an account and am putting in 80% of my earnings to make up for several years of missed contributions.  Currently, my savings goals for this year are as follows:
-Max out my 403b contribution
-Max out my IRA contribution
-Max out my HSA contribution
-Recoup the money I took out of my savings account last year

It's not going to be an easy task, but I certainly think it's doable.  Working to my advantage are the fact that I'm still stuck at home (as per cultural expectations) and probably won't be buying/renting anytime soon as a result of ridiculously inflated prices in the Bay Area.  I realize that despite where I live, I'm probably in a better financial position to meet my goals compared to social workers in other parts of the country, and hence consider myself really lucky.

As always, I have every intention to travel, though I'll probably have to budget my money a little better than last year.  More on that later!

I really hope to do more writing this year as I'm out of practice!  Thank you again for your continued support of my blog, and please come back soon!