2017 Goals – Final Review

Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away there was a girl who dreamed a lot. She knew that in order to make reality out of her dreams, she needed to set clear goals, break them down into action points and hit the road ticking some To Do boxes.

She even insisted that everyone should do it! You just had to follow the 13 Simple Steps To Get Mighty Real on Your 2017 Goals and things will work out.

4 months later, she made a 1st Quarter Review in which she urged anyone who’d listen:

It’s still not too late, get on your 2017 goals defined and let’s kick some ass, peeps!

And oh mine! Were these some pretty ambitious goals! “Doubling your net income” – anyone?

There was also the Goal of Goals – reaching financial freedom in 5 years.

It’s now more than a year since she committed to these 2017 goals. Let’s see what happened:

2017 Goals Final Review

1. ACCOMPLISHED Learn to drive – check it out here! Probably one of my biggest accomplishments which makes me proud and brings me joy and adrenaline as I think of it.
2. ACCOMPLISHED Find a think-BIG mentor – back in April, I put this goal on hold. I still wanted to meet a great mentor, but I realized this is not a goal I want to pursue at the moment. I knew these things sometimes develop by themselves, without forcing it too much.
   That’s exactly what happened. Jake Desyllas, an entrepreneur, book author, and the producer of my favorite podcast –  The Voluntary Life started a Patreon campaign. I signed up as a “Financial Freedom Builder”. This gives me access to an awesome community, bonus episodes, monthly Q&A calls, and private coaching sessions with Jake.
3. ACCOMPLISHED  Write a personal finance blog (52 blog posts by the end of 2017) – As of today, I have written 61 blog posts!
4. DIDN’T ACHIEVE Reach the next level on a stock photography platform – I am still far away from it.
5. DIDN’T ACHIEVE Fly on a hot air balloon on my birthday in April – there was not a good opportunity for it to happen. Who knows, maybe 2018 would be the year?!
6. CANCELED Invest in 2 small real estate properties in Bulgaria – I decided to focus on building my stock market investments instead of looking into real estate.
7. CANCELED Double my net worth by the end of 2017 – this was waaaaay to unrealistic! Miracles crash time, but this time a miracle didn’t happen 😉

2022 Financial Independence Goal Update

The goal as I defined it a year ago:

Early retirement for me means to have my basic monthly expenses of €1000 covered for the rest of my life.
I need to have €300K in investments which will yield €12K (or 4%) yearly.

After 6 months unpaid sabbatical, I concluded that I needed to revisit initial projection of €300k for financial independence. If I want to live a good life beyond the basics, I would need at least twice as much before I can announce financial independence.

The €1000 monthly budget covers well the accommodation, utilities, groceries, sports, cosmetics and personal care items.

Unfortunately, that is not all. As I crunched the numbers, the truth stared me in the eyes: I needed additional €1K a month for items beyond the basics. These include but are not limited to visiting my family, trips, side hustles, electronics, weddings, birthdays, charity, clothes, courses, books, certifications, additional leisure activities, etc.

In terms of numbers, my net worth stayed stable – it even went slightly up (less than 1%). Which is quite miraculous, given the fact that I didn’t receive my main income for half of 2017! It’s mostly because of my stock investments raising in value due to the overall bull market, which we are currently at.

Conclusion

All in all, I am pretty happy with my 2017 goals. I had very good insight on what works for me and what not. I get very excited at the beginning, but as the time passes by, I get distracted and the intensity goes down.

How did the year go for you? Did you set any goals? What worked and what didn’t?