Phew! That was a whirl-wind. I took two weeks off around the holidays and finally went back to work today and I’m still in zombie-land mentally.
Looking back on December’s numbers, I’m proud of my holiday spending. I stayed within my budget of $650 for holiday things. I’m thinking that for 2023 I’m not going to do itemized breakdowns anymore on this blog, and instead, I’m going to list “snapshots” of my finances — things I want to highlight month to month that I’m tracking, need to focus on, or am proud of. This way, I don’t feel like I need to share everything, and it keeps things a bit fresh. Besides, no one needs to know how much money I spend on takeout each month! (The answer is always ‘too much.’)
In 2023, I’m taking Ramit Sethi’s approach and trying not to hyper-fixate on my money, and instead build money systems that can work for me. And part of that is not feeling the need to share everything in an itemized way all the time.
Here’s my snapshot for December, 2022:
I’m so proud that I hit $55,000 as my net worth in December — that’s $5,000 more than I had anticipated. It’s so impressive how money can just grow like that when you focus on it, develop a plan, and learn how to make it work for you.
Money goals for 2023
- increase income to $100K+ (via salary or added income from freelance projects)
- increase net worth to $75K
- ask for cost-of-living raise if I don’t automatically get one
- read 6 personal finance books
- invest $20K in the stock market
- buy art printer
- go on trip to Ottawa/Montreal
- get an agent for my novel
- release 4 art prints
Other goals for 2023
- take creative writing course to develop my novel
- finish my novel
- move my body more and go for daily walks
- paint my bedroom and bathroom
- hang art in my apartment
- declutter my space
- develop tidying and cleaning systems that make cleaning less stressful
- better understand ADHD (which I’m pretty sure I have) and learn to be more skillful in my executive functioning
That’s all for now.
Happy investing!
Squirrel
