My Goals for 2020

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

It is time to talk about my goals for 2020! The start of a new year means new goals and budgets. Analyzing my spending, saving, and debt repayment trends is something that brings me joy! Not only are we starting a new year, but we are starting a new decade. 

I am ready to make it count with new goals for 2020!

Get the goal tracker above in my Etsy shop!

Past Goals

The goals I had set for myself between 2009 and 2019 were:

• Finish my undergrad degree
• Finish my master’s degree
• Rise higher in the field of accounting
• Obtain a professional certification
• Pay off my commercial debt
• Pay off my student loan debt

I completed every goal except paying off my student loan debt. My student loans actually increased from the time I graduated in 2014 with my master’s degree, to early 2019, by $20,000! 

Student Loans Suck

I graduated with $96,000 of student loan debt. I decided to start a family and put my husband through school shortly after graduation. Going down to one income and having a child in daycare was more expensive than I thought! 

Paying down my student loans under an income based repayment plan didn’t touch the monthly interest I was accruing. It was soul crushing watching the interest grow and grow.

My student loans grew to $116,000. I knew that when my husband started his engineering career after graduation in 2017 I had to get extreme with our debt repayment!

Life Happens…

Once my husband finished school in August of 2017 I got pregnant with my second child and realized that I could not work due to pregnancy related illnesses. I became a stay at home mom.

As a stay at home mom, I started doing part time consulting work and passed both parts of the Certified Management Accountant certification!

However, during this time the student loan balance began to grow further.

I Needed a Strategy!

The three things I did to keep my student loans and other debt in check during this time were:

• Go next level with my frugality!
• Use my debt tracker to calculate the minimum payment to make on my student loans to keep the interest from growing
• Tackle the commercial debt from smallest to largest amount

Having to be more frugal than I had ever been in my life changed our spending behavior forever by creating better habits.

These new habits are benefiting us to today. We have financially positioned ourselves to live off of one income!

2019 and Beyond!

When I reentered the workforce in March of 2019 the goals we were able to accomplish were:

• Use all of my paycheck to save a 3 month emergency fund
• Pay down the remainder of our commercial debt
• Pay down $6,000 of my student loans using my goal tracker as a visual aid

We will continue to live on one income and live very frugal. The goal I will enjoy the most this year will be my No-Spend challenge! I will use the tools I have created to keep track of my progress!

What are your 2020 goals? Are you going to start a budget or track your expenses? Put them in the comments below. Let’s reach our goals together!

Click the image above to grab a copy of my 2020 Master Your Cash Challenge!