Yearly Review Series Archives

27Feb 2024 by The Roamer No Comments

2023 Traveling wallet yearly review: Full time job and some travel

Reviewing yearly has been a habit of mine since my college days. It is eye opening to look back and see how much can change and happen in the span of a year. My kids are a constant reminder of the passing of time. 2023 was my first year of full time engineering work in over 7 years. It was an adjustment. It felt like work swallowed up the whole day. Looking back, we did make time for adventures in 2023. Reviewing the year and pictures really are the best. It really does help you appreciate and remember the year's adventures, accomplishments and just the lovely day to day things like tending a garden. How did that all matched up to my 2023 yearly goals? Here is what I set…

30Mar 2021 by The Roamer 3 Comments

2020 slogan: Results may vary, 2020 goals & year review

Continuous improvement, Yearly Review Series

Did you accomplishing anything last year? Did your 2020 Goals see any change? People lost jobs, became default teachers, had the opportunity to spend more time with kids. Canceled travel. Finally had time to dedicate to a hobby or new interest. Pretty much, results may vary, should be the slogan of 2020. Making Goals for next year is an act of courage. While we all lived through the rollercoaster of 2020 . We all had a different ride, didn't we? Results may vary. We traveled to California in the end of 2019 and into 2020 January, so happy for that. We got to see family right before everything fell apart. 2020 YEAR REVIEW My 2020 goals. I set them before I knew what would happen. We had just moved to…

30Dec 2020 by The Roamer No Comments

2019 Goals Review

Continuous improvement, Finance, Yearly Review Series

Its almost time to do a 2020 year review but I never finished 2019. Here is what I wrote back in March but am just publishing now. So much is going on right now. Life is wild. Seriously only 3 months into 2020 and the world shuts down. Our family is finally getting into a flow so here I am wrapping up 2019 by reviewing our goals. This is more for me. I need to revisit last year since this years goals are getting derailed with all the craziness. 2019 Goals Review 2019 (17 Goals) Career, Relationship, Financial, & Lifestyle Find Job work 3-4 hrs /day from 12-4pm ( pays more than $10/hr.)Find 10 Speaking gigsAppear on 12 podcastsRecord my own podcast/ YouTube Re-launch blog with email list ( new…

30Aug 2019 by The Roamer No Comments

Welcome New readers

Travel, Yearly Review Series

I come to the FIRE movement from a different starting point and that's what makes my story different. It's been a wild ride since we left California for our Mini-Retirement. Different doors have opened since then and I am chasing down other opportunities. New struggles have also surfaced. I want to share my story and what I've learned. Currently, I am trying to do it through a different medium. Primarily speaking & podcasts. If you visit my goals you can see what I am working on this year. Here are the biggies Buying our first home, with a goal to house hack. I am looking to buy a multifamily home and I am taking Paula Pants course Your First Rental Property so that I make a smart purchasing decision.Helping more…

16Jan 2017 by The Roamer No Comments

2016 Goals: Year End Review

Finance, Reading, Saving, Travel, Yearly Review Series

It's January, and you know what that means. Goals for 2016 This past year I decided to try something new. I had read that I could be more focused if I just chose one goal and really bore down on it for a whole month. It sounded interesting and logical. It sounded like I would get more, deeper work done. It was also a way to avoid my natural tendency to overload myself with goals. The year before I had jot down 24. Instead this year I could only choose 12 goals for the year. (more…)

12Jul 2016 by The Roamer 6 Comments

2016 mid year goal review

Continuous improvement, Yearly Review Series

Goals you either hate them or you love them. For me goal setting is what kept me on track once I got to university and had to be responsible for myself. With no parents around to make sure I did my homework and drank my milk I had to figure out a system. Back in university I would set goals every semester but now I simply set them at the beginning of the year. Goals are kind of like resolutions except they are less wishy-washy... Ever since then the habit has stuck because I have seen results. This year I decided to try something new for my yearly goals. (more…)

12May 2016 by The Roamer 3 Comments

Net worth update

Finance, Maximizing money, Yearly Review Series

Hi, So it's about time for another net worth update. When I first posted my net worth out for the world to see, I wasn't so sure how I felt about it. Being transparent about you financials is a bit Taboo. It's probably not a surprise that as the sharer I feel like I am leaving myself a bit exposed. While I am not sharing my net worth here monthly it is something I keep and eye on. I decided that I felt that giving a yearly snap shot was probably not so bad. But I am running behind as these snap shots should be coming out during January. While I didn't get the post out I did make sure to record my stats. So in this post I will…

12Feb 2016 by The Roamer 3 Comments

Yearly Spend Revealed

Finance, Savvy Spending, Yearly Review Series

Money comes in , Money goes out Every year at Traveling Wallet we spend, spend, spend, Spend! But its not all bad. If you try, every year can be better. For us last year was an interesting year and the first full year we had in which we didn't need to spend a single dime on loan or debt repayment. Not one dime. Still... We did spend a lot of money and this post is all about analyzing where it all went. (more…)

17Jan 2016 by The Roamer 4 Comments

2015 goals: year end review

Continuous improvement, Finance, Yearly Review Series

I started off the year taking a big bite with my goals. But that's me, I always think I can move mountains and 2015 was no different. The year started with me taking on 20 goals . To which I promptly added 4 more once I had printed them out on paper. (I always seem to forget something before I press print.) But more then halfway through the year I had to admit that I just wasn't feeling some of the items I had written down. (more…)

04Sep 2015 by The Roamer 6 Comments

Goals: 2nd Trimester Review 2015

401K, Family, Finance, Saving, Yearly Review Series

At some point this trimester I realized I needed to focus my efforts. It's not that it's impossible to work on multiple things at once. It was more the fact that I needed to do a lot of learning. See sometimes you have all the foundational knowledge to accomplish something you just need to take up the challenge to push yourself farther, harder. But that wasn't the case for a lot of what I was trying to do. I didn't have the background. So one task would split into several other smaller things that I needed to learn first. In essence my one goal might actually require me to jump 5 hurdles before even being able to address my goal. I knew that on some level. That was part of…

05May 2015 by The Roamer 2 Comments

Blog Birthday

Finance, Yearly Review Series

Can you believe its been a whole year since The Roamer emerged on the blogger scene and started talking about the journey through parenthood, early retirement and travel here at travelingwallet? No!? Neither can I. But it has indeed been a year. I know because I got the renewal charge on my credit card. Realizing its been a whole year calls for some introspection which I want to share with you. I want to talk about a few things. My favorite posts What I learned My birthday wish request Blogs I'm hooked on What is coming up this year My advice to new bloggers Its a nice round set of topics from a year in this new world. The personal finance world. So let's get started. My Favorite Posts I…

28Jan 2015 by The Roamer 14 Comments

2014 Financial Goals Reviewed and Net Worth Revealed

401K, Finance, Saving, Yearly Review Series

Time to review our Financials. We were on track to reach our 3 financial goals. Pay off all Student loans by July Open MMA Celebrate with a splurge activity for the family As you can tell these are some measly goals. Is one of them really open up a new account ,in other word break up with my bank and take my funds earning less then .01% to a better place(Hey breaking up is hard, right?). So at the start of 2014 we had over 35K of Debt. Some of that was student loan debt. Student debt Mr. Had finished paying off his the year before and so we had a talk to discuss what we would do with the newly available funds. We deferred them to my student loans.…

23Jan 2015 by The Roamer 5 Comments

2014 travel wrap up

Savvy Spending, Travel, Yearly Review Series

Guess what? For calling myself the Roamer and this site Traveling Wallet, In 2014 I had made no written goals that we were going to travel. It wasn't that we weren't planning to. We have a standing trip to the In-laws at least once a year. It just wasn't something I was going to focus my attention on. My baby hadn't even turned a year old so travel was not even on my mind. I mean how do you travel when you have what I would consider a newborn. (Less then a year is a newborn baby to me). So other then the trip home to Michigan which was required, specially because we had said baby, we had no other travel plans. Yet even like that, in 2014 we all…

08Jan 2015 by The Roamer 8 Comments

2014 Family Relationships Reviewed

Finance, Parenthood, Yearly Review Series

2014 Relationship Goals [caption id="attachment_784" align="aligncenter" width="340"] 2014 goals[/caption] Focus on the Marriage [caption id="attachment_785" align="aligncenter" width="196"] Alone time with the husband. Big Goal for 2014! Picture in Frugalwood's headless style.[/caption] In 2013 I ran across a great idea on Pinterest. A great little present where I had pre planned and partially paid for dates. I don't want to get into to much detail about the gift but it was a fun and effective way to ensure Mr. Roamer and I were going to be spending some alone time. In my household growing up I don't have any memories about my parents dating. Yet so much of what I read now about healthy relationships highlights the importance of cultivating the spousal relationship. WHY?! because the kids will leave in 18…

02Jan 2015 by The Roamer 6 Comments

2014 Goals Reviewed

Finance, Parenthood, Reading, Yearly Review Series

How did I do with my 2014 goals? [caption id="attachment_740" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Goals Before 2014 Started[/caption] [caption id="attachment_741" align="aligncenter" width="225"] paper reminder barely surviving a year of annotations[/caption] I am going to break them down. But the 3 major ones I am going to post on individually. Which ones are the 3 major ones? Well the ones that pertain to this site more specifically. Relationships (Parenthood and family time), Travel, and Finances. I want to go into more detail for these 3 areas so I will post on them individually. My Finances will reveal our net worth for the first time(WHAT?) So stay tuned. Now lets cover all my other goals. Spiritual FAIL! yes I did not really make an effort to get these done. That is why you see…

Category: Yearly Review Series