2021 Goals Recap and Some Goals for 2022

Posted on by Laura & Brett

It’s that time of the year again when we assess how we did with the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of this past year, and make some new goals for the coming year.

2021 joint goals for Brett and me:

  1. Continue to stay healthy! Brett and I continued to lose weight this past year and we walked 1056 miles in spite of October’s and November’s weather. We gave up eating meat, eggs, most dairy and limited gluten and feel much, much better for it. We were vaccinated for COVID and got our boosters, Brett got both doses of the shingles vaccine, and I will get my second dose early next year. I got the flu vaccine as well, but Brett didn’t as he risks a possible reaction. We’re in very good shape for our ages, did not add any medications, and we feel great!
  2. Save enough to cover YaYu’s 2021-2022 college expenses. Mission accomplished! We have transferred our last bit of college savings to her account and she will pay her final bill after the first of the year.
  3. Save $8000 for future travels, including an additional $1000 in Delta gift cards from Swagbucks. We saved over $11,000 for travel, enough to cover the first month of three Airbnb rentals (Strasbourg, Oxford, and Edinburgh), our flight from Baltimore to Paris following YaYu’s graduation, a deposit on an eight-day condo rental on the island before we depart, and a few travel-related clothing purchases. I earned $750 in Delta gift cards before I gave up doing Swagbucks, and along with one I purchased from Hawaii Planner covered our flights to Pennsylvania in May for YaYu’s graduation.
  4. Save $600 for Christmas 2021. Done!
  5. Send at least one stored item to each of the girls. The girls took back with them a huge amount of their items; we cleaned out over eight boxes and containers filled with their things. We still have YaYu’s items with us but will begin mailing some to her early next year and carry some along with us when we go to her graduation. We also got a box ready to send to our son, and I sent off some paperwork to my older brother in Australia.
  6. Go to the beach at least 26 times. I’m not sure how many days we made it to the beach, but it sure wasn’t 26! The weather has not been conducive to beach visits this year.

2021 Personal Goals:

  1. Read 52 books. I read 63 books this year!
  2. Add 20 minutes of upper body strength training with weights to my daily exercise. I did strength training until November, when it just sort of petered out. I never really got into it at all, and came to resent having to do these.
  3. Continue to study Japanese, and add French as well. I finally gave up on Japanese, and Memrise French didn’t long, but Brett and I started learning French together in November with Duolingo and are continuing with that. We’re enjoying it enough that even if we don’t get to go to France, we’ll stick with the lessons – they’re good for us.
  4. Start writing a book. This is never going to happen. 

Our Goals for 2022:

  • Attend YaYu’s graduation and get to Europe!
  • Re-establish residency on the mainland (mailing address; voting).
  • Mail our stored possessions to WenYu; sell everything else
  • Continue to follow up with Plan B, just in case
  • Continue with pre-Christmas eating plan and walking regime
  • Continue to save as much as possible before departing Kaua’i
  • Read as many books as possible

All of our goals other than the last one should be completed by the middle of the year. After that we plan to rest and enjoy ourselves wherever we may be!

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Published by Laura & Brett

Slow traveling the world with a sense of adventure!

12 thoughts on “2021 Goals Recap and Some Goals for 2022”

  1. Just catching up on your posts over the holiday. Sounds like a wonderful time, and it’s so nice to see all of your smiling together. Our holidays were quiet and peaceful, since our guest room didn’t fill until a couple days after Christmas. It was nice but very different for us.

    Your goals are inspiring. And I love how honest you are about those you decided to ditch along the way. We still have kids coming and going for another week, but I’ll get my life in order soon and look ahead. Right now, I’m still washing linens and flipping rooms for the next batch of arrivals. 😂

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    1. Sounds like you had a wonderful holiday with family. Like us, busy but still great to be with family once again. YaYu will be with until nearer the end of the month and we’ve had to adjust to having another person living in the house once again. Thankfully she helps with the cooking and clean-up, but she also tends to leave her stuff out everywhere.

      I tried to keep our goals simple this year, and will adjust as necessary as the year moves forward. I definitely have no problem dropping something when I know it’s not working out!

      Things look good though for us getting to France, although we’ll have to jump through several hoops to get there. Plans B and C though are still firmly in place!

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  2. I think it’s great that you studied Japanese for as long as you did, and gave strength training a good long run! I’m sure you won’t write a book if you don’t want to (haha!) but never say never: maybe travel planning, back-up travel planning and residency moves are not very conducive to writing, but you might want to try NANOWRIMO in 2023!

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    1. I would love to continue with Japanese, but got to a point where I need to be in a classroom and an environment where I hear it spoken and have to use it. I am constantly surprised by how much I can remember though – our son frequently posts in Japanese on FB or Twitter and I can pick out parts of what he’s written although I usually don’t get the whole thing.

      I’ve considered NANOWRIMO, but for now the blog is writing enough for me. I write every day, some more than others, but am enjoying the process and freedom it brings.

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    1. We were frankly impressed as well. We tucked away every penny we could, and boosted that with sales from Etsy and things we aren’t keeping going forward. Of course, much of it has already been spent on tickets, rentals, and such but we’re in good shape and have a LOT more to sell this year and now have what we were putting aside for YaYu to put to our own goals.

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  6. Hello Laura, You & Brett may already know the following. I wanted to share an experience people we know just relayed to us. This couple I write about are both US citizens. He was in a rehab facility in CA after a big surgery, but her teaching job at the time was in China. She is a professor who teaches internationally, and they are now in Cairo. Where she continues teaching. Her brother is a CA resident, so they list his address. CA has frozen her CA bank account and threatens them with back taxes, The good news is my husband, a native of California, has a cousin whose office is next door to accountants and they are going to assist. This is merely an FYI—-Please carefully check the ramifications of where you establish residency. And good luck, Sonja

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    1. I am a California girl, born and raised, and would love to retire there but the taxes keep that from happening. We are going to establish residency in Washington – no state income tax. That’s horrible/weird that California is going after the woman’s income at this point.

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