2020 Goals & Accomplishments

January 13, 2021

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It’s a brand new year, which means it’s time to set yearly goals. But before I list my goals for 2021, let’s take a look at how I did for my 2020 goals.

Improve Our Finances

Max out our Roth IRAs
Max our 401k match
Max out our HSA
Put $25 a month per kid (so $50 total per month) into their 529 accounts
Lower our debt by at least $20k
Eat out at most once a week
Publish more “low content” books such as my Soduku Puzzle Book

We did most of these. Putting the max in our Roth IRAs and HSA was simple since it was done via payroll deductions and direct deposit. Same for maxing our 401k match. Although I did have to transfer a little over $100 into my HSA since, for whatever reason, my final paycheck for 2020 didn’t have any HSA money deducted (I suspect it was because my normal amount would have put me over the HSA limit).

Putting $25 a month per kid into their 529 accounts was automatic, too, but not via payroll deductions but rather auto-debits from my wife’s checking account.

We had also paid off around $20,000 in debt by halfway through the year.

We did okay eating out at most once a week. There have been a couple of caveats. Since we’ve both been working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve been going to get takeout once a week for lunch. We’ve also been ordering takeout typically once a weekend. Plus, we also didn’t do too well towards the end of the year.

Finally, I didn’t even start on another low-content book, let alone publish one.

Improve Our Home

I installed a french drain last year (and never wrote about it! how dare I!). I also planted a lot of grass.

I really wish I took pictures of the process.

The goal we didn’t make was planning on what to do about the driveway. We did put some mulch down in one of the ruts - which, surprisingly, made it look much better.

A couple of problems with our driveway.

Improve Our Health

Weigh less than 225 lbs
Track my cholesterol and blood pressure
Keep my habit of taking the stairs at work

I did get awfully close to my weight fitness goal for 2020 - less than a pound over my goal.

Chart of my weight in pounds over the past year.

However, I wasn’t able to track my cholesterol because any of the free cholesterol checking clinics were closed due to the pandemic. And I can’t take the stairs at work when I’m working from home.

I checked my blood pressure a grand total of one time - on November 11th. It was 120/75. The normal range for blood pressure is 120/80 (or less), so I’m good. (This is in mmHg units.)

Develop Personally & Professionally

Attend Conferences & Other Networking Events
Publish an Android app

Despite it being a pandemic, I was able to attend a couple of conferences. I attended the online portion of the 2020 Libertarian Convention, as well as the in-person, social-distanced Libertarian Party of Ohio 2020 State Convention.

The 2020 District 40 “D40” Toastmaster Conference was canceled and Kroger’s annual shareholder meeting was not held in-person.

Data Connectors 2020 Cincinnati Cybersecurity Conference was held virtually, and I did attend that.

The Data Connectors logo.

Finally, I published not one, but three Android apps: Moonshot, Tagger, and Tic Tac Toe.

Icons of the three apps I made in 2020: Moonshot, Tagger, and Tic Tac Toe

Moonshot was my GitHub Game Off 2020 entry. Tic Tac Toe is, well, tic tac toe. And Tagger allows users to share and tag Amazon products directly from the Amazon App, web browser, or any other app that allows you to share Amazon products.