Mommy Musings

Goals Every Family Should Have This 2021

January 13, 2021

Happy New Year everyone! This post might be a bit late for some of you but hopefully still helpful to guide you throughout this year.

So the reason of this late New Year post is because I, myself, am not sure of what our family goals would be. All thanks to this pandemic we all are going through right now. But then, I read this section in one of Dave Ramsey’s posts (he’s a personal money-management expert if you don’t know):

We know you’re probably thinking: Goal setting? Ha! My goals went out the window in 2020. I was just trying to survive, and now you want me to think about goals? Yeah, right.

Whoa there, Negative Nancy. We get it. We really do. But having goals in life is essential—especially when things look chaotic. So this year, take some time to really think about those goals.  And remember, just having good intentions alone changes nothing. Nada. Zilch. You can make resolutions all you want—but a resolution without a plan is just plain old wishful thinking. It’s time to rethink how you see goal setting.

OUCH! Okay so I got hit by his lecture (as usual) so I took time to set our family goals this year (of course, I discussed it with dear husband and he happily agreed). My list, I’m sure, is applicable for all families so enjoy reading!

1. Get a LIFE INSURANCE
We already started our first life insurance last 2015 but our income that time was not enough to get a policy with higher benefit. Still, it wasn’t an excuse not to get one, we all know how important life insurance is for breadwinners. Note that ‘a little is better than nothing‘ so if you still don’t have one, GET IT NOW!

This pandemic has affected greatly the healthcare sector, the amount for every hospitalization has almost doubled! So imagine if we’re talking about critical illnesses (knock on wood)??? So this was me the other night applying for our second life insurance policy.

2. Build EMERGENCY FUND
First thing’s first. Before building an emergency fund, make sure you have a little savings first (starter emergency fund) that you can easily use for small unexpected expenses, and then you paid off all your debts.

For our family, we already achieved the two things above following Dave Ramsey’s baby steps (I will write another post about this); so starting 2021, we’ll be busy (seriously this time) building the emergency fund that’s good for at least 3 months of our total expenses. It’s not easy but as long as we Focus and Work Hard, we’ll get there.

3. Stay FIT and Healthy

As a couple who are already in our mid 30’s, getting fit and healthy is a must! It was 2018 when we started having general health checkups. The results were fine but I can’t tell we’re on the “healthy range’. I found out I have PCOS, our blood pressure readings were above normal every now and then, cholesterol above normal as well. Thankfully, all these are treatable with a healthier lifestyle. 2019 was the year we took healthy eating seriously, we still ate meat but avoided fatty foods. By 2020, we’re still good with our eating habits, thank God we’re healthy but we no longer work out.

So for 2021, I know this is everyone’s new year’s resolution and then forget about it by February; but hopefully for us, we we’ll be able to achieve it for the whole year. One advice I’ve read that can help for this – BE SPECIFIC!

‘Losing weight’, ‘exercising more’, to be sexier, these are all general goals.

Starting small and trusting the process, these I guess are more important. Exercising 15 minutes at least 3x per week is more realistic for us so we’ll try to do this one, better than nothing right?

4. BE MORE PRODUCTIVE HOMESCHOOLERS

I wrote a blogpost about my decision to homeschool and our first quarter homeschooling. I knew from the beginning that this journey is not easy. Surely, 2020 was just a year for us trying to survive homeschooling (it might continue until the end of the school year). We just followed the lesson plans provided to us, we didn’t do much about learning other things. This year, I hope I can be more productive (and more patient). I’ll be taking slow in this goal so we’ll see in the next school year about my adjustments and specific plan.

Anyway, I realized all parents now can be classified as either “FULL-TIME HOMESCHOOLERs” or “PART-TIME HOMESCHOOLERS”. Regardless of whether or not our kids have their own teachers, most of us became teachers when this pandemic started. The only difference is the number of time we allot in teaching. So this goal I think is applicable for all, let’s all teach our kids other important things and not just focus on the academic side.

5. START A NEW HOBBY/LEARN NEW SKILL

Because of the never-ending quarantine here in our country, some families (we’re one of them) choose to postpone family travels. And since we’re staying home most of the time now, might as well be serious in starting a new hobby or learn a new skill. So for us, below are what I am planning involving the kids:

HOBBY – READING
Hubby and I buy books but we’re not really readers, well, maybe for now that we’re busy of other things. So starting this year, we’ll be allotting 20 minutes per day to read, at least 5x per week.

Skill – Play a guitar
I believe just learning about the basics would be enough for us this year. Hubby knows how to play so he could probably teach us. Hopefully we can do an hour session per week.

6. Home Improvement

Again, since we’re staying home majority of our time, all families I think desire of having a more comfortable home. Starting a reading hobby as mentioned above will require us to need a reading nook along the way. Supposedly, it’s a bedroom makeover for the kids but we’ve already done it last December so this year, we’ll just focus on our reading nook and maybe continue with our wall painting every now and then.

Start small – this is what I always tell myself when it comes to things that involve another money matter. As much as possible, do not do massive unimportant home improvement this year if in the end you’ll be getting more debts. For those who just decided to buy a new house or those who recently transferred to their new home during pandemic, Congratulations!!! That’s a very SMART DECISION. Families deserve a place where they can be at home and safe without worrying about too many people around them. You’re doing great!

That’s just it for us this year. Sounds boring but I’m really praying that we can still make 2021 a memorable year despite having this pandemic.

Thanks for reading, ’til the next blogpost!

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