I failed, horribly, at the 52 Week Family Challenge this year.
Wowsers. It was hard to write that, but I try to be as authentic and transparent with my community as possible.
First, my monthly updates just didn’t happen. As many times as they were on my to-do list – life happened and I just kept putting it off. That accountability piece truly makes a difference when working on a specific goal.
But, most importantly, LIFE happened in our family this year.
- June 19th was officially my last day of working my full-time job. I became a full-time DIVAPRENEUR and my first official act as my own boss was to give myself the summer off. I spent the time with my youngest two children and chose to not focus on business, but to make do on many of those things I said I’d do if I had more time. No focus on business meant no regular income coming in which meant was dipped into our savings.
- I’d been feeling sluggish for months and just kept ignoring it. I attributed it to the lack of sleep, hours put in before leaving my full-time job, too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Well, in July my body gave me a wake-up call and I found myself hospitalized and having to go through an emergency procedure. That knocked me out the running pretty much until the fall. Again, thank goodness for our savings account because it helped to pick up some of the slack from not being able to focus on work.
- Just when I was almost feeling back to normal, getting into a routine with my business and preparing for the end of the year in November – I had to have oral surgery. What should have been a few days recovery turned into I’m still not at a 100% and need to have follow-up work. You know all those things that could happen, but usually don’t – yep, almost all of them.
I shared all of this to say – thank goodness I had been focused on saving the past few years because our family was able to use those funds to help offset my lack of consistent income while I dealt with my health issues.
I failed my 2015 goal, but overall I won because financially we were not in turmoil. It’s been tight, but our necessities have been met.
As we prepare for 2016 and beyond, our focus is re-building our savings and paying down these medical bills.
My children have stayed consistent with saving their spare change which goes to show that they are watching and learning. So, while there will not be a trip to Disney World for us this year, we are setting our sites on a family cruise in December 2016. This year, we’ll be enjoying a staycation and counting our blessings that we are all healthy, well and together.
Our Family’s 2016 Family Savings Challenge is to save $10 per week per family member. That’s $520 for each of us which equates to $2600 for a family of five. The children will continue to save their spare change and this year we will create budgets to go with their monthly allowances.
The lessons I have learned from failing last year are definitely helping to set me up for success in 2016 and beyond. Most importantly, life happens and we must learn to adjust and move forward.
