Hello 2022! I am so ready for a new year. Being totally honest, I have found the past twelve months difficult and have lost a bit of direction in the process. I’m hoping that having the new year reset will help me get this back! I will set myself a word of the year too – I will post about this separately.
Each year I like to set myself goals that I hope to achieve by the end of the year; to keep me on track and to challenge myself throughout the year. I also feel like it makes me more accountable over the year; 12 months is a long time and focus can drift at times, so knowing I have yearly goals to reach as well as monthly ones make me more focused. Again, like with the monthly ones, I do a financial section and a personal section. I also have some business goals, as I want to grow this little space of mine 
My Financial Goals for 2022 are:
– Put £10,000 into savings
– Overpay our mortgage by £1,800
– Have 250 NSDs throughout the year
– Earn £5,000 in side income
– Receive £2,000 in dividend payments.
The savings goal is self-explanatory; to continue our journey towards early retirement, I need to save as much as possible. Ideally it would be more than this, but I would be very pleased if I manage this by the end of the year. This is set as an aim of either £800 or £900 each month to hit. My work circumstances are about to change and therefore I will be earning more but that means that other costs – such as childcare and travel – are also going up by quite a bi t so it’ll be interesting to see if this works out.
Although being mortgage free ties in with our early retirement goals, it has taken a backseat until now. Our focus has been more on saving and investing, and getting the ball rolling on that aspect of our long term plans a lot more. So, this goal equals an overpayment of £150 per month. I am hoping I am not stretching myself too thin with these but that combined with my 2022 challenge should see us right.
I love tracking No Spend Days and truly believe they’re one of the things that have transformed my spending habits. I have upped my target for 2022.
Side income is something that has been hit and miss but something I definitely want to build on. The only slight sticking point here is I have no idea how I’m going to manage to organise my time so that this becomes a reality. The first few months will be definitely hit and miss, I think. My Etsy shop needs to be more of a focus – it ticks along nicely but I would love it to be more of an income. I love selling my budget planners and getting feedback from people. Who knows where this might go in the next year.
Finally, something that I am so excited about, is building my dividend income. 2022 will be my seventh full year of investing and I’m looking forward to seeing how much I receive throughout the year. If I achieve this, I will be amazed 
it does show that slow and steady over time works. Although this seems like a lot, to be on track with our early retirement dream this is the target number for 2022. I have my final dividend income post for 2021 up next week – it’s a good one. Watch out for that!
My Personal goals for 2022 are:
– Establish a better night time routine
– Spend some time just for myself, to relax.
– Be more organised in general
– Hit 10,000 steps every day
– Drink more water
– Be more kind to myself
– Stop worrying about things I can’t change and focus on the ones I can.
These are actually the same goals as I set myself in both 2020 and 2021. For the simple reason – I didn’t really achieve them in the way I wanted. So, I have set the same goals for 2022. I am really bad at getting to bed at a reasonable time. I have two children who don’t often sleep through the night, so I am tired all of the time. Yet, I am often awake way past 10PM which isn’t helpful. I need to get into a better routine of going upstairs earlier, getting ready for bed and then reading before going to sleep. I need to make this a priority this year, as lack of sleep has such an impact on every area of my life.
Again, something I am really bad at prioritising is time for myself. I have so many things I feel I need to get done each day that I am waaay down the list of priorities. Maybe that needs to change slightly. Even if I take 5 minutes to do a face mask and sit doing nothing, would be better than the current situation.
With going back to work full time, alongside running this blog, YouTube, a busy family life and everything else, I will need to be more organised if I am to succeed if I want to. Again, this should be simple but it isn’t necessarily always the case. I need to remember that organised doesn’t mean more complicated!
Hitting 10,000 steps a day and drinking more water is something I want to do, to keep my physical health more in check. It is so easy to let these two things slide but they make a difference overall. Also, it shouldn’t be that difficult to do.
The last two are the same as last year, as I am still working on not being so self critical and more accepting of myself. This was working well last year, and I want to continue.
My business goals for 2022 are:
– Get back to posting blogs twice a week
– Grow my Twitter followers to 4,000
– Grow my Facebook likes to 4,000
– Grow my Instagram followers to 14,000
– Grow my Pinterest followers to 3,000
– Grow my Youtube subscribers to 10,000
– Grow my TikTok followers to 5,000
– grow my Etsy store and add new products
I have totally lost my consistency for posting this year; something had to give at one point and this blog was it. I am hoping to get back to posting content much more regularly. I love writing on here and talking to other people about their financial journeys.
I want to continue to build my social media accounts; the more followers I can get then the more people I can potentially help. Instagram and YouTube are the main priorities this year but I need to grow the others as well.
I want to continue to grow my Etsy store and the products offered – both printable and physical. I have some designs in the pipeline but I need to sit and think about just what I want to have on there and what I can afford to focus on.
Anyway, here’s to 2022 – I have a feeling it’s going to be great. Thank you for sticking around, reading my posts, commenting and generally making me feel like I’m doing the right thing. I am so grateful for each and every one of my lovely readers. I’m excited to see what the following twelve month brings!
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Your YouTube channel came up on my feed. I am so sorry you are going through this terrible time. I know, because I have been through that….twice! At the time, I just wanted someone to tell me that I would not feel the way you are feeling for the rest of my life…..I became that person. I have a personal interest in what happens to children through divorce – have a series of email letters to encourage both children and the custodial parent. (For a whole year)
Please let me know if you are interested – it will cost you nothing.
I have walked through the steps, my children are all grown up, both have qualifications better than mine and have turned into great humans! It was hard, but not impossible! (I have to give God the credit – I could so easily gone over the edge.)