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Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

2019: The Year of Focus

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To con­tin­ue with my tra­di­tion of assign­ing a theme to each year, 2019 will be the Year of Focus.

I real­ly want­ed to have my theme be con­sis­ten­cy, but I real­ized I can’t be con­sis­tent with­out focus. I feel like a lack of both focus and con­sis­ten­cy is why my 2018 did­n’t work out the way I planned. Maybe my 2020 theme will be con­sis­ten­cy but I real­ly need to work on my focus­ing skills first.

Getting Help

I hon­est­ly don’t have any idea how I’m going to be doing that, so I’ll be look­ing for help with that from resources like books and web­sites and from a ther­a­pist. Now that I have real health insur­ance again, I can afford to start ther­a­py. I need help with focus­ing, but I also have a few per­son­al issues to work through as well.

I have more than a few friends that have gone for help and I see no shame in admit­ting I have no idea how to help myself. I got real­ly inspired from read­ing Andrew’s post on Shift Upwards as the most recent exam­ple. I think now is a good time to slow down and spend some time chal­leng­ing assump­tions and chang­ing how I react to situations.

Increased focus­ing skills will also help me set­tle in at work. I’ve been at my job for 3 weeks now and have a lot to learn about how this place oper­ates. (Today is my first pay­day woot woot!! I’m so excit­ed to be earn­ing mon­ey again!) I don’t see myself stay­ing here for very long, but it’s a good first step back into the work world and will help me hone my tech­ni­cal skills for the next posi­tion, wher­ev­er and when­ev­er that may be.

Housing

Focus­ing won’t real­ly help me find a place to live in the DC area, but it’s a goal of mine for 2019 nev­er­the­less. I am real­ly enjoy­ing my cur­rent liv­ing arrange­ment but I can’t stay there for­ev­er.  Hous­ing in this area is RIDICULOUS, both in price and avail­abil­i­ty. I’m part of a group on Face­book where peo­ple can post rooms for rent or apart­ments for sub­leas­ing. I found a room that looked suit­able, so I made plans to look at it the next day. Before the end of the work­day, the per­son had some­one else come over to look at it and put a hold on it and I lost out.

I thought it might be eas­i­er to find an apart­ment and then look for a room­mate, so I went to a com­plex to look at an avail­able unit. It was $2300 for a 2 bed­room, 2 bath apart­ment in Crys­tal City (soon to be home of Ama­zon). That’s not a bad price for the area, but there’s more to liv­ing in a place than just the rent. All of the add-ons they charge would make it very cost­ly to move there. They charge so many fees!

(* means non-refundable)
$50 appli­ca­tion fee*
$200 hold­ing deposit (rolled into first months’ rent)
$500 move-in fee*
$100 ameni­ty fee per person
$200 secu­ri­ty deposit
$500 pet fee*
$100/mo/person util­i­ties fee (inter­net is extra)
$100/mo park­ing fee
$50/mo cat fee

After going through that expe­ri­ence, I think it will be eas­i­er if I con­tin­ue with my first idea of tak­ing over some­one’s lease so I don’t have to pay for a lot of those absolute­ly ridicu­lous fees. I’m in no par­tic­u­lar hur­ry, though, so I’ll con­tin­ue to save up mon­ey and wait for the per­fect place to pop up.

I am lucky I will be able to afford this kind of place. If I had stu­dent loans and/or a car loan, I would be hard pressed each month. Thank­ful­ly I have no debt so I don’t need to wor­ry about it. Oth­ers in the area aren’t so lucky though.

Dating

Anoth­er goal for 2019 will be to get back into the dat­ing pool. I’m not sure when I’ll jump back in but I know I won’t be delib­er­ate­ly look­ing while I’m liv­ing at my cur­rent place. I also want to get some of the afore­men­tioned ther­a­py under my belt as well. You know what the def­i­n­i­tion of insan­i­ty is, right? Well if you don’t, the def­i­n­i­tion of insan­i­ty is repeat­ing the same actions and expect­ing a dif­fer­ent result. I’m not insane, just a lit­tle crazy, so I’m going to stop doing the same things I’ve been doing. With regards to dat­ing, that looks like mov­ing to a new place, try­ing to find a part­ner, and then giv­ing up until I move to a new loca­tion. I’m shak­ing things up this time!

Exploring

One thing I dis­liked about the Mid­west was every­thing being so far away. If I want­ed to explore a new city, I was look­ing at 2–3 hours in the car and those were the near­by cities. Dri­ves of 6 hours weren’t uncom­mon (this is why I long-dis­tance dat­ed some­one in Minneapolis).

That’s not the case on the East Coast! Every­thing is super close and I mean to take full advan­tage of that fact. This goal for 2019 is 2 part: I want to spend 1 week­end a month explor­ing a new place near DC. That could be Bal­ti­more, Rich­mond, Vir­ginia Beach… a short flight up to NYC or even Boston is with­in the realm of possibilities.

The sec­ond part of this goal is des­ig­nat­ing one oth­er week­end a month to some sort of out­door phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. It could be a long bike ride on a path along the Potomac. It could be a hike on one of the many hik­ing trails in the area. I could even dri­ve into Mary­land and hike in hon­est to God moun­tains! In the win­ter I could ski. In the sum­mer I could hit up the ocean. There are so many options! I need to take advan­tage of them. If any­one has sug­ges­tions, leave them in the com­ments or send me an email! gwen [at] fierymil­len­ni­als dot com

Screen Shot 2019 01 14 at 9.44.11 AM

Hustling

Just because I’m no longer try­ing to hus­tle full-time does­n’t mean I’ve giv­en up my hus­tles com­plete­ly. I still have this blog, obvi­ous­ly, and the pod­cast. For the blog, my goal is to con­tin­ue to write and share my sto­ry. For FIRE Drill, my goal for 2019 is to land one sol­id spon­sor for at least a quar­ter. We’re steadi­ly grow­ing and becom­ing more and more attrac­tive to spon­sors with each week that pass­es. Thanks to every­one that tunes in! We could­n’t do it with­out you. If you’d like more of me but in an audio for­mat check out our pod­cast if you haven’t already!

I would also like to explore poten­tial­ly sell­ing my graph­ic art designs. I cre­ate pun-ny doo­dles for peo­ple if an occa­sion neces­si­tat­ing a card aris­es. I had a great con­ver­sa­tion with Dave from Acci­den­tal FIRE over din­ner meet­up about it and he encour­aged me to do more. I think I need a few more con­ver­sa­tions on the process before I jump in, but it’s some­thing worth exploring.

Hobbies

I have a num­ber of plans for my time in 2019. I’d like to get back into some activ­i­ties and start some oth­ers. It’s been a while since I have used my quilt­ing stuff, but I want to get back into it. I have a friend near­by with a base­ment turned quilt­ing stu­dio. She offered the use of her space to me any time! That solves my space prob­lem with quilt­ing, so I’ll be tak­ing my fan­cy $4,000 machine to the shop for a tune up and then I’ll be ready to cre­ate fab­ric mas­ter­pieces! I owe a few friends baby quilts.…… and their babies are now almost preschool­ers. Whoops.

I’d also like to explore the world of stand-up com­e­dy. I think I’m pret­ty fun­ny already but there is a lot of room for improve­ment. I want to learn from oth­er fun­ny peo­ple how to hone my nat­ur­al sense of humor. For­tu­nate­ly, because I live in a large met­ro­pol­i­tan area, there are a lot of com­e­dy clubs around and some of them offer class­es. Stay tuned for me to ramp up the fun­ny busi­ness around here in 2019!

catharina

Finances

With the mar­ket off to a tumul­tuous start in 2019, I think it’s best if I don’t set any goals that revolve around hard num­bers. Also, I hon­est­ly have no idea what I want with my mon­e­tary goals any­more. If I save noth­ing more than what I already have, I’ll end up with about $750k at age 60. If I save 5%, I’ll end up with about $1 mil­lion. If I save $1500 a month (max­ing out my 401k) I could end up with a cool $2 million.

But real­ly though.…. how much do I need to be hap­py? What’s the right bal­ance of sav­ing and spend­ing today? I think $1500 a month is prob­a­bly a bit much to man­age right now but $350 is def­i­nite­ly doable. I feel blessed I’m in a posi­tion where I can play with the num­bers like this and I don’t have to save as much since I’ve already done so much. I want to enjoy the jour­ney just as much as I want to be able to enjoy ear­ly retire­ment. I don’t know what the exact num­bers look like yet, so stay tuned as I try and fig­ure that out in 2019.

I have a lit­tle bit of debt to pay off from the 9 months I took off cor­po­rate work. It’s not much, about $2,000 on a 0% card, but I don’t like debt of any kind and want it gone. With my cur­rent low liv­ing expens­es, those will be knocked out in a jiffy.

I would also like to start sav­ing mon­ey for a new­er car. I don’t dri­ve much now that I live in DC, but I want to ensure the car will work when I want to dri­ve it. At 14 years old and almost 200,000 miles, my cur­rent car has been around a while and makes me ner­vous. I’m going to start sav­ing $200 a month towards a new car which will enable me to either have a hefty down pay­ment or pay for the next car out­right. I’m incred­i­bly tempt­ed to buy a brand new car, but it does­n’t make sense for me. I don’t dri­ve much and I would be park­ing out­side, prob­a­bly on the street. With those fac­tors, a new car would be rather sil­ly for me to buy.

vanguard fees

I’ve also made it a goal to put some mon­ey away in my 401(k) each month. My new employ­er runs their plan through Van­guard, so I have access to total mar­ket index funds with expense ratios of .0013%. No, I did­n’t fat fin­ger an extra zero in there, it real­ly is that low. I was con­tem­plat­ing mov­ing all my accounts over to Van­guard from Fideli­ty, but they did­n’t want to give me a mug so I’ll keep my oth­er invest­ments with Fideli­ty for now. Them not giv­ing me a mug is a very con­ve­nient excuse to hide behind. In real­i­ty, I just can’t be both­ered to go through all the hoops of fill­ing out the paper­work and mov­ing my invest­ments. It’s good enough!

For now, I’m start­ing off my 401(k) with 5% to take full advan­tage of the com­pa­ny match. I’m not entire­ly sure how long I’ll be with this com­pa­ny, so I don’t even know if I’ll get any of the com­pa­ny match mon­ey. They’re on a 3‑year vest­ing sched­ule so chances are slim I get it all. I also like the reduc­tion in my tax­able income so that’s anoth­er rea­son to con­tribute to my 401(k). I don’t think I’ll max it again, but I could def­i­nite­ly be con­vinced to max it out again after I’m done recov­er­ing from my finan­cial deci­sions in 2018.

Looking ahead

I am very excit­ed at all the things 2019 is going to hold. Fun times with the peo­ple in the DC area, explor­ing the East Coast, going to Camp FI South­west in Joshua Tree, Fin­Con (here in DC!).…. It’s going to be a good time as long as I can keep up that focus and do what I need to!

Thanks for read­ing! Do you have a theme for the year? Any­thing fun planned for 2019? Sound off below!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sounds like you’re going to make 2019 your year! Some­times we need new moun­tains to climb; I’m sure you’ll scale these in your own time, with lots of focus. 😉 

    Most of my 2019 goals are for my writ­ing biz. Jan­u­ary is shap­ing up to be my most prof­itable month yet, so I’m enjoy­ing that! Per­son­al­ly, I’m try­ing to stick to a more ful­fill­ing dai­ly reg­i­men. When you’re self-employed, it’s real­ly easy to fall into a rut where you just work all the time.

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    • You’re crush­ing the free­lancer writ­ing life! I’m so hap­py you could make it work. It was not the life for me 🙂

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  3. FWIW, if/when you do decide to shift your assets over to Van­guard, they’ll make it easy. Remem­ber they want your busi­ness. Just call in and they’ll pre-pop­u­late all forms, con­fer­ence in Fideli­ty as need­ed (par­ty line!), etc. to make it super easy. Vice-ver­sa is also true as well if you were going to Fidelity. 🙂

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    • Yeah I don’t think I’ll be switch­ing over. I’ve got every­thing all set up already in Fidelity.

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  4. A great book that could dove­tail with your goal of Focus is “Deep Work” – might be worth check­ing out. Good luck for 2019!!

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    • Cal New­port! He does some great stuff although I have yet to check out his book. Thanks for the recommendation!

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  5. Awe­some theme and great goals for the year! In ther­a­py myself and can say its one of the best invest­ments I’ve made in myself! If you’re look­ing for advice on how to find a ther­a­pist, here’s what my friend told me that worked out well for me:

    1. Go to https://www.psychologytoday.com/ and look for ther­a­pists in your zip code.
    2. Find ther­a­pists who’s pic­tures show they’re around your age demo­graph­ic or a lit­tle old­er. I found this makes it more easy to relate to the per­son on the oth­er side.
    3. Start going! If you find one you picked isn’t a right fit, that’s per­fect­ly okay! You and your insur­ance are pay­ing for this, so make sure you get what you’re get­ting out if it.

    4. this is one I’ve added. I start­ed keep­ing a ther­a­py check­list for if I expe­ri­ence some­thing or have a thought I’d like to bring up in my next ses­sion. This has helped be get so much more out of my time and I no longer have a “deer in the head­lights” look for when I’m asked what’s hap­pened this week. 

    I hope this helps you and oth­ers, feel free to reach out any­time if I can help!
    Kevin recent­ly post­ed…Forc­ing Opti­mize Stor­age in Pho­tos – How I bent Pho­tos to My Will!My Profile

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    • Kevin, you rock! I know I’m going to get use out of these tips and I hope oth­er read­ers do as well. See you soon, hopefully!

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  7. Con­sis­ten­cy is my fail­ing too.
    This year I’m chart­ing 6 things I want to get done each day. They range from walk­ing the dogs, writ­ing, clean­ing, gar­den­ing etc. The areas are pret­ty broad, but I want to get into the habit of being pro­duc­tive in these things.
    So far, it’s work­ing. It was blis­ter­ing­ly hot here yes­ter­day, but I did­n’t go to bed until I walked the dogs… at 10PM when it was cool­er. Had to tick that box!
    Frog­dancer Jones recent­ly post­ed…What has my sec­ond-gen FIRE child learned about frugality?My Profile

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  8. Find­ing a ther­a­pist is the actu­al worst but it’s so worth the time. I’m always around if you need advice in that area (plus Kev­in’s advice is super solid). 

    I can def­i­nite­ly help in the out­doors adven­tures depart­ment! And on some explor­ing! Actu­al­ly that reminds me about a week­end trip in the works that I’ll tell you about tonight. And of course you know how I feel about one of your poten­tial hous­ing options 😉

    I had no idea about the pun­ny doo­dles but omg you’re such a great per­son to make them because your jokes are so bad/good 😉
    Erin | Reach­ing for FI recent­ly post­ed…Decem­ber 2018: hol­i­day spending/travel editionMy Profile

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  9. I like how can­did you are about men­tal health and your strug­gles. Ther­a­py isn’t talked about enough in terms of finances. A lot of peo­ple lis­ten to you and could learn a lot from you in this area. I hope you con­tin­ue to post about the men­tal health side of things (whether you relate it back to mon­ey or not). I think the idea of focus­ing more will boost your con­fi­dence and help your well-being. From the detail and humor in your post, I think you are on the right path. Best wish­es in 2019 and 2020!

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    • I have friends that see ther­a­pists and even their sec­ond hand infor­ma­tion is use­ful, so I will def­i­nite­ly share what lessons learned I can! Thank you for the comment!

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    • Why do you think I moved here? The peo­ple are AWESOME! I can’t hang out with this many cool FIRE peo­ple on a Mon­day night back at home, that’s for sure.

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  11. Your theme for 2020 should be Vision! Haha, that was fun­ny right there. A real knee slap­per. Last com­ment, my com­pa­ny is with Van­guard too!

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  12. Hi Gwen,

    I know I’m not the kind of ther­a­pist you’re look­ing for, but I’m always avail­able to chat either way. I went to a ther­a­pist a few years ago since it was cov­ered under my employ­er. You are right not to feel shame in seek­ing help. I would just cau­tion hav­ing them stick you with a diag­no­sis and try to med­icate you. I went in telling them I had a dif­fi­cult time focus­ing at work and they pinned ADHD on me so quick­ly. They also tried to relate the prob­lems I was expe­ri­enc­ing at work to my child­hood upbring­ing. In the end, I didn’t quite believe them. It was only after doing an annu­al child abuse recog­ni­tion course that I real­ized I was a vic­tim of abuse – by the work­place bul­ly. The rev­e­la­tion got me to quick­ly find work else­where. Every­thing resolved includ­ing my “ADHD symp­toms”. Point being, health care pro­fes­sion­als are human, there are good ones and bad ones. Make sure the one hear­ing your sto­ry is actu­al­ly lis­ten­ing and try­ing to get their diag­no­sis to fit you.

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    • It’s fun­ny you bring up ADHD.… one of my main moti­va­tors to going is see­ing if I do have it or if I’m just a space cadet. I have many of the sig­ni­fiers for adult ADHD in women and hon­est­ly explains a lot about my behav­ior. I have oth­er things to dis­cuss too so that’s why I’m mak­ing it such a pri­or­i­ty for the year.

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  13. Thanks for the link Gwen and glad I could pro­vide some inspi­ra­tion, that’s why any of us write after all. Lots of fun times ahead in the FIRE mec­ca that DC has become! 

    As much as I com­plain about the heat and humid­i­ty here, the geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion makes up for it in a big way. Tons of things with­in a 3 hour dri­ve, includ­ing oth­er major met­ro­pol­i­tan areas and tons of nature, water, and moun­tains. I’d high­ly rec­om­mend some hikes in the Shenan­doahs (such as this one: https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/hikewhiteoakcanyon.htm).

    There’s an entire uni­verse to be explored in Shenan­doah nation­al park and it’s real­ly not a bad dri­ve at all from DC>
    Andrew recent­ly post­ed…2018 into 2019: Reflec­tions After a 13-Month Mini-RetirementMy Profile

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    • You’re more than wel­come! Thank you for writ­ing such a thought­ful review! I did­n’t even think about the Shenan­doahs.…. I will def­i­nite­ly check them out. Maybe you and your wife can come with sometime!

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  14. Stand up com­e­dy?! wow I admire any­one who is will­ing to take on that! Can’t wait to hear how it goes. It will be nice to be right in DC dur­ing Fin­con. That’s a great way to save mon­ey! I feel your pain about apart­ments. Although LA does­n’t do too many weird add-ons (Boise did though), as you know it’s expen­sive. It’s great you found temp hous­ing while you looked. How did you do that? Espe­cial­ly hav­ing a cat??
    Tonya@Budget and the Beach recent­ly post­ed…Why Are We so Quick to Judge?My Profile

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    • I want to learn how to be delib­er­ate­ly fun­ny. My humor right now is very reac­tion­al, in the moment based. Quick wit and puns are good, but there’s so much more to learn about com­e­dy. As for the hous­ing, a lis­ten­er of the pod­cast reached out and offered a room in their base­ment for me to stay in. I’m very grate­ful for the nice place to stay!

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  15. Hi Gwen!

    Thanks for shar­ing your goals with us! I’m a reader/podcast lis­ten­er (most­ly a lurk­er tho, hah!) and I just want­ed to let you know that if you ever want­ed to host a FI/RE meet up in NYC, I have a com­mer­cial stu­dio space in Brook­lyn that can house around 15 peo­ple. You and/or J are wel­come to use the space. 

    One of my 2019 goals is to be more proac­tive about meet­ing oth­ers who are also on the FI jour­ney. And catch up with with exist­ing FI friends, both of which are def­i­nite­ly very doable.

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  16. Chim­ing in late, on an ambi­tious plan for the new year and city. Well inten­tioned cau­tion­ary word from some­one who fre­quent­ly over-sched­ules myself: I think we often for­get that in order to add things into our lives (quilt­ing, trav­el­ling, and some of these sound like they can be time inten­sive) we need to make time for these things. As good as it sounds to add good things to our lives, it is often for­got­ten to sub­tract oth­er things. There is a rea­son you weren’t doing them before although I think the change of loca­tion and cir­cum­stances will seri­ous­ly help with this. I wish you the best on all the endeav­ors and look for­ward to read­ing about your suc­cess­es and learn­ing this year. It is moti­vat­ing and infor­ma­tive as I too am learn­ing. (Full dis­clo­sure I lis­tened to Afford Any­thing talk­ing about habit build­ing and read a cou­ple posts about the pow­er of sub­trac­tion this week so I have that lens to look through at the moment.)

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    • You are absolute­ly right. Now that I’m in a new area, things have fall­en off my radar. I spend a lot less time out of the house for var­i­ous rea­sons now, so I’m com­fort­able adding things in right now. Oth­ers will have to wait — trav­el­ing, sports, and stand up com­e­dy come to mind for now. I know what hap­pens when I over­load my sched­ule and I end up real­ly unhappy!

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  17. Hi Gwen,
    I’m an active lis­ten­er on the FIREDRILL pod­cast and I love your con­tent! I hon­est­ly have been think­ing about sim­i­lar things I want to do in 2019, I had a few set­backs too and some things I want to do for myself lat­er on but fresh start fresh year! I hope 2019 is your best year yet, I’ll be root­ing for you!

    Reply

  18. Hi Gwen,

    It is great to see you stay­ing pos­i­tive and over­com­ing the obsta­cles in your life. Finances are impor­tant, but your atten­tion to your over­all health and hap­pi­ness is just as cru­cial. Take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get out and explore. I’ve had a ton of fun when vis­it­ing fam­i­ly in the DC area. 

    Thank you for being so hon­est in shar­ing your expe­ri­ences. We all go through tough times, but it’s dif­fi­cult to face them head-on and share it with peo­ple. And you sure are brave for want­i­ng to do stand-up. That takes real courage haha.

    Any­way, keep it up. We are all look­ing for­ward to your future suc­cess. I’m con­fi­dent 2019 is going to be your year.

    Reply

  19. Focus sounds like a great goal for the year. Odd­ly enough, mine is con­sis­ten­cy, but most­ly in regard to healthy habits as I’m final­ly ready to believe that at this point in my life I can no longer out­run a bad (week­end) diet. 

    Did you hap­pen to read David Cain’s pieces about the Depth Year? I think it might be an inter­est­ing read that could assist with the theme of Focus. Obvi­ous­ly there is a lot to unpack­age with exter­nal vs. inter­nal dis­trac­tions, but if you want to fight the bat­tle it prob­a­bly makes sense to be aware of it on all fronts. 

    I think it is admirable that you are will­ing to look with­in and adjust things in terms of ther­a­py and rela­tion­ships. It took me a while of repeat­ing the same mis­takes, but I feel like I took at least one les­son away from each failed rela­tion­ship and in the end when the right per­son came along at the right time I was ready to apply every­thing that I had learned over the years (success/luck is where work meets oppor­tu­ni­ty, right?). 

    There should be no shame in ther­a­py. The great­est ath­letes in the world all have coach­es to help them reach their poten­tial. Think about that for a minute…the great­est baseball/basketball/football/golf/tennis whatever…the per­son on this plan­et who is wide­ly con­sid­ered to be the best at their thing, still has some­one to coach them, help with blindspots etc. I just love the psy­chol­o­gy of the get bet­ter mindset.

    Reply

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