The last few years I’ve started to record my accomplishments throughout the year. Time seems to pass fairly quickly and without documenting it I have a hard time remembering what was different from one year to the next, what progress was made and how I’m advancing as a person. So let’s dive into some of the things that made 2017 unique!
LEARNING FRENCH
This year there were times when my workload was fairly light. I started making morning routines for myself to learn something instead of just waiting for someone to respond to my email asking to help them. So I decided to re-learn French with Duolingo, which I’ve written a post about. I’ve been practicing 5 days a week for almost the whole year. It’s been a lot easier to learn the second time and with this platform. I’m really enjoying it. I’ve also started texting in French to one of my college friends, which is also a great exercise.
WORKING OUT
Starting in September my partner and I started doing body weight exercises on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. We do push ups (on knees for me originally) and squats. I increase the number of each by 1 each time and I can now DO A REAL PUSH UP!!! I also find it a lot easier to walk up our hills in Seattle. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m walking up a hill, which is a big change.
BLOGGING
I made a pact with my sister-in-law to write a blog post once each week. So far I’m keeping up my end 🙂 . This goal has led to my highest number of posts in any year – by far – and I’m planning to keep it up. It’s really helpful for me to see how my thoughts and mindset changes throughout this journey.
FINANCE
As part of my morning routine I now read through the financial independence subreddit every day. I also go through my FI twitter feed and read all the interesting articles there. I feel a lot more connected to this FIRE community now. I also stopped being a lurker and started interacting on twitter with some of my favorite bloggers to the point where a few recognized my my name when it’s mentioned in other places besides twitter *fangirl scream*! I’ve also started commenting on blogs.
In addition to this I’ve helped people make actual changes to their financial lives. My biggest win was moving my parents to Vanguard and saving them tens of thousands a year! Vanguard even responded to my tweet about it 🙂 . So far my parents love Vanguard and feel more secure with their money, which is great. I’ve continued to update the Money Document my partner and I created for his family and friends. I’ve also given investment advice to several friends who asked for it as well as helped a few people set up and use YNAB.
My interest in learning about finances has also spread to other media, specifically podcasts. I’ve listened to finance podcasts from Choose FI, Afford Anything, FIREDrill, Fairer Cents and Journey to Launch among others. I usually listen to these while walking to work, which is a combination that I love. Lastly, I also watched an animated lecture series called Crash Course Economics which helped me understand that subject matter better.
DOWNSIZING
I’ve started to have the mindset that I shouldn’t accumulate any more stuff. I don’t need it anyway and I’ll just have to get rid of it when I retire in a (short?) 3 years. Since my friend also moved to Seattle and has a car she suggested that we take some clothes to Goodwill. I jumped into this wholeheartedly and was vicious. If I hadn’t worn something in 6 months or it doesn’t fit anymore (too baggy) it was going in the bag. I donated about half of my clothes and feel all the better for it. Now to expand this to other aspects of my life…
KETO
I’ve already documented a lot about keto and my weight loss journey on here, but it wasn’t just the weight loss that changed me this year. I also became understandably obsessed with information gathering. I always do this before doing any experiment, but even after I saw the logic of it and began eating keto, learning the history of how the nutritional recommendations in our country got so fucked up was fascinating to me. I’ve been learning everything I can on the subject – even reading clinical trials and listening to endocrinology lectures. Overall I read and watched the below as well as countless YouTube lectures. I also have become a member of the reddit keto community and now go there daily for inspiration and support. I’ve also been dabbling with 16:8 intermittent fasting and have inspired about 10 people to try eating this way. The other big change involved the food on keto…
Books
Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes
Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes
The Primal Blueprint, by Mark Sisson
The Ketogenic Diet, by Lyle McDonald
The Grain Brain Whole Life Plan: Boost Brain Performance, Lose Weight, and Achieve Optimal Health by David Perlmutter MD
Pure, White, and Deadly: How Sugar Is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It by John Yudkin
Fat Chance
Your Personal Paleo Code
Addictocarb
That Sugar Book
The Calorie Myth
Movies
Fat Head
That Sugar Film
Sugar Coated
Fat Chance: Fructose 2.0
The Perfect Human Diet
Low Carb: Fat or Fiction?
My Big Fat Diet
The Truth About Fat
Love Paleo
Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat
Fit to fat and back
Skinny on Obesity
COOKING
As a result of eating keto I learned to cook this year! It started small: just following recipes, but by the end of the year I was improvising, not really following recipes and just adding what felt right. It’s like what people always told me about! I’ve even become a pro at making my own keto pizza dough! This year I also had the desire to record my new keto creations so I joined a new social media platform: Instagram! It had a wonderful community for foodies and keto eaters that I had no idea about! So now not only am I recording my creations and giving other people recipe ideas, but they are doing the same for me and giving me inspiration along the way. I had no idea I could find such wonderful communities on the internet! We have also gotten even more into sous vide this year. Steak, salmon, chicken, pork, shrimp: you name it and we’ve cooked it. Sous vide has been extremely helpful for me to hit my protein requirements and our love of it has spread. Our friend also got one and loves it so much that we’ve started doing weekly sous vide dinners together to try different meats. Delicious and frugal fun!
CAMPING
We have a new hobby! This year we camped more than ever before. So much so that it made more financial sense to buy our own gear than continue to rent it so we did! During the year I camped in Olympic National Park while staying on the edge of a gorgeous lake, went Sailboat Camping on Blake Island, and camped in Bowman Bay within Deception Pass as well as in Gifford Pinot National Forest. It’s been a fun and fairly frugal hobby that let us see this gorgeous state that we live in.
FIRSTS
There were several firsts this year including:
- Aurora Borealis ‘Chasing’ and the learnings that come with it (kp indices, new moon, cloud cover, light pollution etc.)
- San Juan exploring
- Kayaking on lake(s): South Lake + Lake Washington
- Sous vide on a boat
- Finding a new tiny theater with a bar (Big Picture)
- Snowshoeing
- Visited Mt. Rainier
- Hiked Rattlesnake Ledge
- Spending the night on a sailboat at Blake Island
- Being able to do a real push up!
- Trying to learn meditation with Headspace
- Having my hair cut professionally for the first time in maybe 10 years and have short hair for the first time since freshman year in high school. Also discovered healthy hair is insanely awesome!
TRAVELING
This year I traveled to the below places. Thailand was a first for me, but it definitely won’t be my last visit.
- Thailand
- Weddings
- CA Disney
- PHX
- ME
- Vancouver
- Atlanta
- Upstate New York
READING
Outside of finance books I also read the below!
- Barking Up The Wrong Tree
- Tamora Pierce Books: First Test, Page
WATCHING
What I watched this year:
In Theaters
Moana
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Wonder Woman
Atomic Blonde
Thor Ragnarok
Classic Films
Top Gun
Goonies
Face: Off
Heathers
Bad Movies
Harbinger Down
Dante’s Peak
Volcano
Deep Blue Sea
Cowboys vs Dinosaurs
Infini
New Shows
Steven Universe
The Wire (Seasons 1- 2)
Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Legend of Korra
Santa Clarita Diet
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Outlander
House Hunters Renovations
Flip or Flop
Love it or List it
Stand Up Comedys: Tom Segura Mostly Stories, Patten Oswald Annihilation
An overall theme for the year seems to be finding my tribe: in keto and finance. I’ve also built more skills this year than I have in recent memory. Let’s see what next year brings!