A small 2011 reflection on our old man Moses, who we said goodbye to this year. He came to us via Old Dog Haven. We miss him dearly.

On this, the last day of 2011, I reflect. And I write my 100th post. Weird. Not-planned, but kind of cool. Particularly since its my goals for the coming year.

My goal for Dogs or Dollars is to just keep swimming. I’ve been at this in a bone fide kind of way for a few months now. I continue to be amazed with the response I’m garnering both in traffic and in the comments I so enjoy. Really, I do. Keep them coming! I’ll keep documenting our day to day and overall journey, and the negotiation between saving money and Conscientious Consumerism, among other things, if you keep reading. Deal?

With that aside, what are our plans for 2012?

Increase savings by 15K.
With some events on the horizon, and our regular savings habit this should be totally do-able.

Find a better interest rate.
For the bulk of said savings. I’ve been loyal to ING Direct for a long time. But .85% sucks. While it makes me nervous, I’d like to move the bulk of the Emergency Fund to a longer term CD, where I can at least get over 1%. Researching Ally bank.

Big Fat Mortgage Balance of $X40,000.
This is slightly more ambitious than last year’s goal. Given our track record though, should be do-able. The only extenuating circumstance would be a potential refinance. We are still debating that.

Donate $50 a month.
This is a paltry sum, particularly when take as a percentage of our income. Still, I want to create a habit of giving and work it into our monthly spending. If I give more, wonderful. Otherwise, this is the minimum.

For our Targeted Savings Accounts…

Garden: Put away additional 1k, before its needed for coop build and garden expansion.
Vet: The dogs aren’t getting any younger. Add 2k to balance and *knock on wood*.
Car: Save 5k towards purchase of new car for The Husband.

Non-Financial Goals

Run 1/2 Marathon.
I mean it this time, dag-burnit! I’m setting myself a deadline of registration by the end of January.

Cancel Costco Membership, Continue No Big Box Challenge
More on this later, but I’m removing Costco from the Big Box Exception list. There will be some coordination required to cancel my membership before they charge me the yearly fee. I’m guessing this will be done by March.

Increase Food Production and Preservation.
I’ve been brainstorming on a way to quantify this. Increase X% over last year. Since, I really did not document last year that proves problematic. In any case, we are adding both Chicken Coop and tripling the square footage of Ugly Garden. That alone will be an increase. I will strive to further document what we are putting away, so we can measure it in the future.

And that’s it! That and the 1,000 other things that will happen in 2012. I look forward to every New Year with a sense of a clean slate and excitement. How about you?

Long ago, before I was such a good blogger (peh!), I had a little blogspot page, I intermittently fooled around with. ‘Intermittent’ might be generous. Fits and starts may be more appropriate.

Somehow I managed to post my 2011 goals for all the world to see, and for us to refer back to now. To put these in context, this time last year, I was right in the midst of my 2 job nightmare, with no end in sight. Our income was still recovering from The Husband’s prolonged unemployment, and I’d had almost no time for a very long time. When I look back at these now, I can feel all that still. At that point, it wasn’t about making much forward progress. It was mostly about survival and eeking out whatever I could.

In any case, here’s the goals and here’s how we did.

Savings
Boost long term Savings to 55k.
This is not very ambitious. It means savings 5k, and increasing our savings by 10%. Not too shabby.

I was apparently a little more free and loose with the hard numbers, when I thought no one was reading this. Done. And then some. 5K was a good goal given my job situation then. The return to Corporate Servitude helped. That’s all I have to say about that.

Maintain slush fund at a $1500 low water mark.
That is actually where its at right now. I am not comfortable with it being any lower. $2500 is much better in my opinion.

For questions about my elaborate slush fund set-up, see The Emergency Fund(s). Again, this was much more important when we had less money coming in and I felt that doom was imminent. Done.

Open a Car Savings account.
Eventually one of us is going to need a new car. At the moment, we would have to tap our long term savings for that, which I do not like. I have no bigger plans than just to stash a little money away for this. I’d be happy if we get a few 1000 for the year.

This goal was much more prophetic than I realized. A few thousand saved? Yes, Done. Was it enough for me not to acquire car debt? No. ‘Eventually’ turned out to be sooner, rather than later.

Career.
Number One Goal is for me to be down to 1 job by 5/1/11.
Not sure yet how this is going to be accomplished or what it will look like. But 1 job and having my life back is my absolute goal.

For the love of all that is holy, Done. Not by 5/1, more like 7/1. Still, 1 job, life back. Mission freaking accomplished.

Mortgage
Get balance down to $X55k. Pay $8388 on principle. Since our principle payments should total somewhere in the $6000 range, this should totally be doable.

Done. Big Fat Mortgage balance currently sits at about X51K, so better than anticipated.

Giving.
Do it. As much as possible this year.

How’s that for a specific attainable goal? And still, I think we only did meh here. I am currently in the midst of year end donations, which will keep it from being an abject failure. Let’s be a little more detailed next year, shall we?

Travel.
Nothing terribly exciting. Again, this is the year of staying put. Also, getting a pet sitter has proven increasingly difficult and expensive in recent history. Our humble travel plans include…

Make a trip to Portland sometime before June.

CDA for friends wedding, with possible a side trip to Montana included.

Return to Eastern Oregon in Spring/Summer

We actually did all those. Not in that particular order, but done.

Other Random Goals.
Cancel Cable. This is another DO IT! And a repeat from last year.
We are back on the Netflix and I have been weaning myself off the cable teat for sometime now.
I must do it! I have a date for cancellation in mind. Now I must prepare myself for the psychological hurdle of making the call.

DONE! I’ve yet to revert to my Comcast loving ways. There is no shortage of TV in my life. Complete win. Cable deemed obsolete.

Fitness/Weight.
Maintain weight within 10lbs of current.
I would also like to run at least a 5k, if not a half marathon too. Entry fees and time are hard to come by for such activities, but I am putting it out there all the same.

Done and fail. Weight maintained. No problem. No race run, however. Even when entry fees were not a concern, lack of running buddy was.

Overall: Success. I will say this is the best we have ever done on our yearly goals. I will also say that is largely due to the change in our circumstances mid-year. I think we still would have made several of the above benchmarks, but probably not overshot quite as much. This tells me, goals for 2012 should set a higher bar. Speaking of next 2012, The Husband and I are currently deep in debate on the specifics. Look for those later this week.

I love the week between Christmas and New Years. Much of the festivities are done, although not all of them. The world is in limbo, between two Holidays where most everything shuts down. It’s hardly worth going to work, only to turn around and take yet another long weekend. Which is why I don’t. If at all possible, I take this week off.

A fringe benefit of not working at the Pet Store is being able to do such things without an act of Congress. That’s right, I’m home all week.

Where I will be spending a whole lot of time here:

This picture serves multiple purposes. It should sufficiently murder any rumor of me being a minimalist. Yes, there is a bunch of crap on and surrounding my desk. I love this crap. All of it. Very occasionally I purge some small percentage of it, but not usually. My desk, and to some degree my office as a whole, are my space for crap. Random, often inappropriate odds and ends, this is where they go to live. Its Gargamel to Sendak to bachelorette party “keepsakes” to handmade Valentines from The Husband. Throw in Domokun and old MTA passes, and welcome to my base of operations.

Bringing us to point two, if The Financial Empire has a Mother Ship, this is it. From this monstrosity of a desk ($15, Craigslist), all things are accomplished. Receipts, pictures, bills, this blog, even mushroom growing, all of it spends a high percentage of it’s time in process here. So, if I’m home for a week, throw in a few cups of coffee, and this is where you are likely to find me. Especially, when there is so much to be done, like now.

Because, while this week may be a wierd uncertainty for the working world, its prime time for my Empire, financial and otherwise. Assessing previous goals, making new golas, cleaning closets, writing Grandmas, making phone calls and appointments. Here’s what I plan to do with my bounty of free time.

Run Outside. We are hip deep in the portion of the year, where it is dark when I leave for work, and dark when I get home. I don’t generally run outside in the dark. Consequently this leaves me feeling like I haven’t run in fresh air in months. Rain, drizzle and wet be damned. I’m running outside, probably in the company of a dog. Obviously, this won’t be happening at the desk.

Finalize Chicken and Seed Orders. After the first of the year, my urban homestead dreams must start in earnest. Those dreams require both chickens and seeds. I need to go over garden diagrams and spend some time with catalogs, figure out the when of orders, and make a list of necessary equipment.

Clean Closets. I have two in mind. The gift closet in my office has gotten a little out of hand this season, and as Christmas retreats back from wist it came, that closet could also use a little love. Thats where my cold storage apples are living. I think it might be time to give them a look see.

Goodwill Purge. This will go along nicely with the clean closets, and post-Christmas clean up. Stuff Purgatory is a little full, and with an influx of new Stuff, there are definitely some candidates for the exodus.

Yearly Goal Review/Renewal. Expect a whole post (or two) on this. Amazingly, last years goals are documented, so I can hold my feet to the fire, so to speak.

Pinboard Re-do. You may notice in the above picture a large pinboard to the left of my desk. It’s over flowing, even by my standards. There needs to be a culling of the herd of pictures and stickers and ticket stubs. There’s also a waiting list of new items that would like to join the masses. That can’t happen unless we free up some real estate. This is one of those occasional removals of Crap surrounding my desk.

For all this, and a million things in between, I have 1 week. When I think about it, this seems like both a ton of time, and not enough. There will also be plenty of reading, crocheting, (hopefully) napping and general enjoyment of the last few days of the year. The key will be finding the fine balance between hell-bent productivity and delectable laziness.