2020 Goals

Can getting your financial shit together help you reach your nutrition and fitness goals? I'm going to find out.

Happy New Year! My priority in 2020 is financial health. One of my favorite Instagram accounts @thechubbycrossfitter introduced me to The Budget Mom in December. Miko, aka The Budget Mom, offers free and for sale resources that I have found really helpful and I was fortunate to receive her Budget by Paycheck planner for Christmas.

Right now I am in school and fortunate to have financial support from my family to make that possible. (Let's take a moment to thank my sister for getting her doctorate straight out of undergrad and my dad for deciding that I should also have the opportunity to spend several extra years on the family payroll.) I haven't always been responsible with money and I do have some debt. Using the knowledge I have learned from The Budget Mom, I can pay off that debt before I graduate and start my new career as a registered dietitian in 2022. Most likely I will be able to pay it off and set aside emergency savings well before.

I am interested in seeing how achieving financial health can help improve my health in other areas of my life. The most obvious is lowering my stress if I'm no longer stressing about money. Less stress should hopefully transfer to better sleep. I also think creating and sticking to a budget will help with my nutrition, physical, and mental health. For example, I am going to need to prepare the majority of my meals at home in order to keep my grocery spending under budget. This should result in less fast food and bar food (I am a sucker for chicken wings!), and I am less likely to open a bottle of wine to have with dinner but I almost always order wine if I eat out. 

I have allocated $0 to clothing purchases this month. I just moved to a new apartment and I am disgusted by the amount of clothing I have because I don't have enough closet racks to hold all of it. Instead of ordering my millionth pair of Fleo shorts, I need to ask myself why I feel compelled to order new clothes even though I don't wear what I already own. Am I unhappy? Am I trying to fill some void with instant gratification? I used to order 3 pairs of Fleos a week when I was miserable at work and traveling all of the time. I made decent money so I didn't really think about it but I've since realized that I've got about 3 months rent worth of shorts.

Sinking funds are a new-to-me concept that I am excited to utilize. Basically you choose something you want or need (semi-annual car insurance payment, a vacation, a massage, really anything) and you figure out how much money you need to fund it. Then you allocate a certain amount of money each month or pay period to fund it. One glass of wine with tip cost me $14.20 at Lingering Shade last night. I enjoyed it, but normally I would have at least two. Realizing that I would be able to take leftover money in my "fun budget" and put it towards my sinking fund for a body work session with Brian Fox was the incentive I needed to limit myself to one glass.

I never considered myself to be bad with money, but I was definitely not good with it either. I look forward to prioritizing my health and happiness goals by getting my finances in order.

What are your 2020 goals? Are they health and fitness related? Financial? As cheesy as it sounds, it's a new decade and I want to make the 20s my best decade yet.