Welcome to our 2018 year in review!
It was a roller coaster year of exciting highs and life-shaking lows. 2018 was a year of amazing friendships, dance on a grand scale, and enduring the hard times that also come in life with some post-reflection.
With no official goals on the books, there were things we knew we’d be focusing on throughout the year, and then there were a few other things that life thought would be fun to throw our way.
Learn, Endure, Reflect
Itโs fun to look back and check things off our list that we accomplished, but itโs also interesting to see the things we wanted to do and either failed at or just didnโt get to attempt.
Without further adieu, here’s how our year stacked up in terms of what we felt we got accomplished and what we missed the bar on.
Business & Blog Goals
1) Start a side business
Semi-Win-Fail. You would think after being on the list for 3 years in a row this would start to show some improvement, but it’s pretty much the same update as last year. Other things in our lives have become a lot higher of a priority, especially in the last 6 months! We’ve been focusing on so many other things that the thought of forming a business took a backseat.
We do have some exciting things going on in a the background that we’re working on though! A couple of these could relate to a side business in the future. We want to get more use and value out of our house so maybe having a room to write-off as an office could be a possibility. We’ll see!
2) Post more frequently on Seeking Saturdays
Fail. Life happens. Since we focus so much on dance in our normal lives, that leaves only a little time! Even for sleep. Usually less than 8 hours a day. It’s all-encompassing with class, team practice, performances, socials, parties, congresses, and every other get-together imaginable. Also in the past 6 months, Mrs. Saturday’s job situation came to the forefront along with a family emergency. In the end though, I know. Excuses.. excuses. We can do better.
Personal Finance Goals
3) Max out our 401ks & IRAs
Win. Another great year of front-loading our 401k and IRAs! Woot. This next year should be nice to put money in the stock market considering recent big drop in price.
4) Consolidate bank and investment accounts and earn interest from cash
Win. Between both Mrs. Saturday and I, we had a handful of bank accounts from before and after we were married, several 401ks left over from previous jobs, and a small pile of cash built up for emergencies and/or to pay off the house. We finally reduced the clutter down to the minimum number of accounts that we needed, consolidated investment accounts, and finally started earning interest on our cash with an online bank! Currently about 2%. Less to manage and making more money work for us.
5) Pay down some of the mortgage
Win. Since the stock market had such a big run up over the past year and we had maxed out our tax advantaged accounts early in the year, we decided not to put any additional money into the market. Instead, we paid two big chunks of change towards our mortgage to make more dents in it. We’re starting to see the end of the tunnel. Yay!
6) Get Mrs. Saturday out of her (new) terrible company
Win. Mrs. Saturday needed a change and had signed on with a new company that looked promising for career growth and marketed themselves as an amazing, too-good-to-be-true Wonderland of sparkles and rainbows. But sometimes the grass isn’t always greener. As it turns out, marketing can be a powerful smokescreen. It was a bad situation that she needed out of for her sanity.
Looking back now, switching from her previous company to this company was still right decision at the time. It just didnโt work out. To move up the ladder, sometimes you have to take chances and leaps of faith. Since Mrs. Saturday’s job is specialized and high-level, it’s hard to find a company with that type of job readily available. They usually have to create a position which is where networking is crucial. Fortunately, early on in the year we started building up a cash cushion in case anything happened with her job. Having that foresight made transitioning away from a bad situation a whole lot easier and removed a lot of stress. It wasn’t the ideal exit, but it made me so happy seeing her leave to a company with a healthier work environment.
The silver lining in this terrible situation is that she made a special, lifelong friend who we picture having a lot of grand adventures with in the future. ๐
Personal & Self-Improvement Goals
7) Continue improving and becoming skilled in our dancing
Win. One of our ongoing goals in life is being able to skillfully dance to any kind of music. This means being proficient in a wide variety of dance styles from Latin, ballroom, swing, hip hop, and more. Imagine attending any event in the world and being able to move and connect to the music. It’s a skill that can make traveling even more enjoyable to connect to locals. We still have a long way to go, but we now have several styles of music covered! Latin dancing will always be our favorite though. ๐
8) Get back my gymnastics flexibility and continue yoga
Fail. I’ve always felt my best when I’m limber. It gives full range of motion and makes me feel much younger. But this year, I didnโt fit it in. I lost a bit more flexibility since I haven’t been stretching in the morning. Our Latin dancing has taken over for late nights, meaning we have to sleep in later to recover. We occasionally get to throw in some yoga here and there, but might have to leave this for weekends until we can free up more time in the morning. <– Again, probably just excuses. Lol.
9) Simplify stuff in our house and our life (donate, recycle, & sell)
Win. Minimalism is an ongoing process as stuff is constantly trying to come into our lives. While we definitely donโt consider ourselves minimalists, moving a bit in that directly has been very refreshing. We’ve made strides in reducing the amount of stuff we have and, in turn, need to maintain. Mrs. Saturday has gone through a huge purging of items after reading Marie Kondo’s Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. We also got rid of furniture to create more of an open feel to our house. Try it out! It will change your life.
10) Continue learning Spanish
Win! While we havenโt moved onto fluently speaking to our friends in Spanish, Iโve continued my progress in Duolingo (Mrs. Saturday not as much). I missed one day but have been practicing for over 820 days! Whoah! Itโs fun being able to understand our Latin friends and be able to read their Facebook posts and parts of conversations.
If you want to fast-track your intro to learning a new language like we did, to get started we used the tremendously popular free app Duolingo. <— Give it a try! Download it on your phone.
Travel Goals
11) Visit Quebec City in the Fall
Win. Our plan to visit the Eastern side of Canada in the fall was a huge success. We had never seen fall colors so golden and vibrant before. We even got a tiny bit of snow! That trip was a good reminder of what we value in life, what we’re working towards, and to make sure to stop and see the beauty in life.
12) Take a 7-10 day cruise
Fail. Not that we have to consider this a fail, but we had planned to go on a long cruise this year. This year our long vacations have been replaced with Salsa Congresses full of dancing, learning, friendship, and performing.
13) Take a nice, multi-day backpacking trip
Fail. See above. Although weโre planning one this year with a couple new friends! Hopefully it works out.
Learn, Endure, Reflect
2018 from beginning to end felt like several years worth of life crammed into 365 days. Things we did early on in the year felt like ages ago as the year progressed.
The Good
Like in our 2017 Year in Review, we continued making a huge number of rich connections within our Latin dancing community. We’re starting to feel like leaders in the space as people either ask us for help, tell us we need to teach classes, or when we fill in for our instructor. It feels good seeing people progress in their skills, especially knowing you might have played even a small role along their journey!
Our community continues to grow and evolve with people constantly coming into and going out of our life. The mosaic of memories we create in one year alone feels like years or even a lifetime. Every week is a celebration of friendship, learning, and embracing the special moments but knowing more good times are yet to come.
The Bad
On the low side, Mrs. Saturday’s job turned hostile the second half of the year and finally something gave way. Her and the company parted ways and she had a few months off to reflect and refocus while looking for something better. At the end of the year, she was hired on at a much better company.
Coincidentally, on the exact same day Mrs. Saturday cut ties, her grandpa ended up in the hospital with life-altering brain surgery. The precious time she was afforded with her grandpa along with the care she was able to give him was priceless to her and her family. After several long months of day trips, encouragement, and tough visits, her grandpa ended the year making a lot of improvement and was able to join us for one of the happiest and most meaningful Christmas celebrations we’ve had in a long time.
Keeping Positive and Enjoying the Journey
The experiences weโve had this year only reinforce why financial security is so critical. Bad things happen, but on the positive side weโve had a lot of true riches come into our lives that donโt involve money.
Hopefully 2019 will bring more memories of a lifetime, rich friendships, learning, health, and wealth to keep us charging forward on our journey.
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