{"id":599,"date":"2021-12-23T02:00:54","date_gmt":"2021-12-23T02:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.msfiremama.com\/?p=599"},"modified":"2021-12-23T02:00:54","modified_gmt":"2021-12-23T02:00:54","slug":"msfire33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/msfire33\/","title":{"rendered":"2021: Year in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This year was another rollercoaster but for different reasons than the 2020 dumpster fire year. For us, it was a year of big changes. We were expecting our second child, we moved across the country and added two more houses to our real estate portfolio. With a bigger family, a new home, a new state and more properties, where we expected to be and where we wound up were very different. Here\u2019s the year in review:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Good Stuff (In No Particular Order)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>We sold our house in Colorado and made around 36 percent profit.&nbsp;<\/li><li>We were excited to welcome our son this past July.&nbsp;<\/li><li>We bought a house in Florida and decided to make it our home.<\/li><li>We purchased two single family homes in Oklahoma City, increasing our portfolio to six homes. The last is still under construction.<\/li><li>MsFire Mama hit its one-year anniversary on Nov. 22<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Bad Stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>COVID is still a thing<\/li><li>We made a lot of big moves at the same time<\/li><li>I did not plan ahead to keep things regular on my blog<\/li><li>We did not celebrate our wins, achievements or milestones as we worked on settling in our new home\/life\/family dynamic.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2021 Goal Results<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first glance, we didn\u2019t really achieve many of our goals. However, we did make some big changes and adjusted our plans based on new situations. We had items to strive for and it helped create momentum.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Real Estate Investing<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>We set our sights on adding four properties to our portfolio, but were only able to get two.&nbsp;<\/li><li>We wanted to start looking into other markets and narrow it down to three potential areas. We did not realize this goal.<\/li><li>We wanted to meet our Oklahoma City team in person. This did not happen with my pregnancy and COVID situation.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Our team in Oklahoma City changed and we tried a cost-plus model for construction that will be reviewed in another post as it did have an impact on our investing activity. For 2022, we will reinstate the goal to expand to other markets to increase our cash flow and our investment portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Networking<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>Find and attend real estate groups in FL. With our move and new baby, this goal fell to the wayside.<\/li><li>Maintain current real estate contacts. This list included five people and we were successful in continuing those relationships. We are due for a check-in early next year.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Personal<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>Complete Hunter Safety Course &#8211; DONE!<\/li><li>Find FL mom groups &#8211; DONE!<\/li><li>Monetize blog &#8211; still working on this<\/li><li>1st draft of REI Book &#8211; short of the blog entries I\u2019ve completed throughout the year, I probably have part of a draft, but not all&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Setting goals helps me understand myself better. For one, the reason I didn\u2019t achieve some of my personal goals is because I made my family the priority and did not set boundaries or space for me to work on other things. It&#8217;s up to me to define what space and time I need. And then ask for it. This will be at the top of my list for 2022 goals. This should help me keep up with my blog, improve my relationship with my daughter and make some room for self-care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.msfiremama.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/sandy-millar-KhStXRVhfog-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-606\" srcset=\"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/sandy-millar-KhStXRVhfog-unsplash.jpg 640w, https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/sandy-millar-KhStXRVhfog-unsplash-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption>Life is a balancing act<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that we are settled in our new home and the changes are becoming our new normal, I have more bandwidth to seek out local real estate groups to continue to grow our network. Many of our new neighbors invest in real estate so we plan to learn more about what their strategies and portfolios look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Career<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>Determine if I want to be a stay-at-home mom or continue working<ol><li>Currently working on transition within my current company to a FL-based role<\/li><\/ol><\/li><li>Put together educational resources for our kids (aka take over daycare responsibilities) &#8211; null because of item 1.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of my career, I need to determine if my new role fits my family and our goals. This is still being determined but my current (Colorado-based) position supports my desire to work remotely and gives me both the mental and physical bandwidth to prioritize my family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Budget<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>Decrease grocery budget to $1000\/ month from $1175&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>For our budget, we are learning more about what things cost here and adjusting for the impacts of inflation (milk is up from less than $2 a half gallon to $3 a half gallon; beef prices have also jumped significantly). We\u2019ll be monitoring our budget and looking at ways to reduce expenses that don\u2019t add value to our lives (and spend more where it does).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Goals are a living thing and not achieving them does not always indicate a failure. They are benchmarks to keep momentum, create a plan and strive for something better. Each year brings different challenges, life situations and priorities. This exercise allows you to reflect on what you\u2019ve done, what you\u2019d like to do and where you want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color\" style=\"color:#a2084d\"><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\"><em>What are your goals for 2022? Lea<\/em>ve <em>a comment below or e-mail<\/em><\/span><em> <a href=\"mailto:mama@msfiremama.com\">mama@msfiremama.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The good, bad and ugly of 2021 and how we plan to tackle 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[197,106,19,196,56,17,37,193,18,16,73],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msfiremama.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}