{"id":187,"date":"2021-01-04T02:09:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T02:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-655153-2137993.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=187"},"modified":"2021-01-04T02:09:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T02:09:16","slug":"msfire6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/msfire6\/","title":{"rendered":"Set Your Goals for the New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
We made it to 2021! The vaccine for COVID is making its way to the masses and the year will start anew with the promise of being less eventful and hopefully more social than this past one. If 2020 has taught me anything, it\u2019s that you have to focus on the things you can control and that\u2019s the best way to ride through the things that you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband Chad and I started a new tradition last year where we sat down and I wrote our goals down in a little notebook. Then of course, I snapped some photos of it and saved it to our shared folder in Google drive because you have to back everything up–even your goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We broke the different goals into categories — Real Estate, REI Networking, Personal, Career, Budget and Books to Read. We\u2019ll be modifying these headers for 2021 as we refine the list and improve the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Real Estate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2020, we wanted to purchase two more properties in Oklahoma City. We had two single family homes that we bought toward the end of summer in 2019 and both were rented at the beginning of this year. This goal was completed by the fall and we almost squeezed in a third property. Unfortunately, the purchase was delayed due to clearing up some issues with the title on the seller\u2019s side. For 2021, we\u2019ve upped our goal to four properties so if it all works out, we\u2019ll have one done by the first quarter of this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second goal was to plan a visit to meet our team in OKC in the flesh. This one will likely be transferred into the new year given COVID. We met our real estate agent in person during our first visit, but were unable to meet his team, our contractor and our property manager. I did FaceTime our property manager, but I\u2019d like to try to meet her in person in 2021, along with the rest of the amazing group that helps up find and renovate properties in the Sooner State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, we wanted to get together with the long-distance investor who helped us kick off our real estate adventures in Oklahoma. Again, COVID derailed this plan as we observed social distancing and unfortunately, our colleague\u2019s family was impacted by the virus so she could not meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n REI Networking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was able to meet some great investment-minded people in 2019 so it was important to us to continue to grow and foster these relationships. I love hosting and we had a list of about four key contacts that we wanted to meet with, share resources and check in on. We were able to achieve this goal through Zoom and outdoor meetings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Personal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our personal goals were less exciting. I wanted to figure out a babysitter for our toddler so Chad and I could get some quality adult time together. COVID kiboshed this one pretty early on. Chad wanted to get his hunter safety course certification. He was able to take care of this over the summer. For whatever reason, I didn\u2019t include one important person goal on our list — starting this blog. It took me until November, but I\u2019m grateful I was able to get this started. For 2021, I\u2019d like to take this more into the business realm of goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Career<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As you may already know, I am a construction manager for a commercial company. My husband Chad is an executive at an educational technology firm. We would ultimately like to retire and live off our investments, but we are not quite there yet. Our jobs are currently the vehicle to fund our real estate and financial goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For my work, I planned to figure out a different role for me to take on at my current company. Last year, I did some soul searching and realized I didn\u2019t love the position I currently had, but I liked working for the organization. I had some conversations with mentors and supervisors about this and the ball was in my court to figure out where I wanted to be. Before COVID, I had met up with coworkers in different departments to pick their brains. I was able to land on a type of role and then serendipity led me to the right position and support from senior leadership. I should be joining a new team by the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Chad, his company was bought by some venture capitalists so in addition to having great relationships with his supervisors and being good at his job, he was able to establish and grow contacts at the parent organization. His goal was to continue to just be awesome and maintain those ties with upper management as he climbs the corporate ladder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Budget<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our target was to lower our grocery\/restaurant bills down to $1,000 a month. Thanks to COVID, we were able to reduce our costs from about $1,341 to $1,175. We were just shy of our goal and we\u2019ll revisit our new target for this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Books to Read<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Firstly, I want to change this category to Continuous Learning for 2021. We both wanted to read David Greene\u2019s BRRRR book, which I made a good chunk of the way through. I don\u2019t think Chad was able to crack it open. I did complete Greene\u2019s Long Distance Real Estate Investing book. Our \u201cfun\u201d book was Samin Nosrat\u2019s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, <\/em>as we both like to cook. I think we cheated by watching the Netflix series, but Chad has been reading it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your Goals for 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our goals weren\u2019t particularly lofty or exciting. We identified areas of our life that we wanted to improve and grow and got to it. A lot of things in 2020 didn\u2019t go as planned and quite frankly, most years are like that. Here\u2019s some quick tips to putting together your own goals for the new year: <\/p>\n\n\n\n