2024 New Year's Resolutions

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

[Artemis Windsong]

No resolutions, just plans.

My NY start is exercise and a healthy breakfast.  I like beginning on a good note.  I have done this for years.  There is zero nursing a hangover from alcohol or lack of sleep on NYD.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Thank you Chloe!

I will give it whirl.

save 50k
pay 10k more than min monthly on debts
plan and execute a vacation...somewhere...not only a staycation
daily walks and yoga
no screens after midnight on school nights
daily reading, at least a few pages
1 fresh salad daily, more than 1 is good too!
fresh fruit daily
Better hydration overall, daily efforts

Big and early veggie garden
house plans finalized.

Ok, gonna kick my butt out the door to get a walk in before sun goes down!

[raeoflyte]

I know plenty will say they don't do them and that's fine, but for those that do... what's on your list?

I'm super behind, but so far I have

Gym 3x a week
Train 3x a week
Stretching/yoga 2x a week

I just remembered one I wanted to include- learn to play golf. I don't actually have an interest in golf, but the only way I have right now to hang out with my dad is to ask him for help with a project. This would give me something to do with him just for fun, and I like walking so that's a win. My mom already said I can use her clubs so I just need some lessons.

[msventoux]

Just in general be kinder to myself and take better care of myself. I started last year by losing my mind and getting rid of a stressful job. Continue this year by incorporating sustainable healthy eating and movement goals.  My part time job provides for the basics without dipping into savings, but not much else. I don’t want to work more hours, so focus on finding a passive income opportunity. Continue to declutter and organize the house so it isn’t a source of stress or discontent. 

[pulmonarymd]

Ride at least 50 miles on my peloton monthly
Track all exercise, and hopefully get to 10000 minutes for the year

I was against getting a peloton. Boy was I wrong. It has been life changing

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

raeoflyte

[giramomma]

DH and I were just talking about this over dinner.

This is the first year I don't really have any goals or plans, at least right now.

I should get some together.

[moon/Laura]

@rayoflyte, is it ok if I combine this with the thread Chloe started?

[chiver78]

my biggest goal for 2024 is to continue to remove toxins from my life. virtual, actual, philosophical, etc. I just put a block on a poster tonight for my own sanity, and notified the other mods as such. I spent my last week off purging a lot of stuff from my house, shredding paperwork I didn't need anymore, among other things. 

I don't have much more than this going on, for how little of the end of 2023 was within my control. I'm hoping that those things I can't control turn out okay. 

[raeoflyte]

Jan 1, 2024 20:22:04 GMT -5 moon/Laura said:

@rayoflyte, is it ok if I combine this with the thread Chloe started?

Of course! I must have missed that one.

[Opti]

Ignore people and do not engage when they try to solve problems I do not want to solve. I have to stop wasting my time and energy on people's desire to fix others instead of tending to their own issues.

And to push off the marketing blitz I might get at work in the near future. To keep faith in my forward momentum and ignore the naysayers. 

To keep moving forward in getting rid of the clutter from the pandemic both in my home and on my body. To return to being thinner and healthier with a better organized place.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Improve mental health through journaling and intentional tasks of self-interest

six of seven days journaling

Read 30 books
Create list of self-care/self-interest and then do those things at least sometimes!

Improve physical health by consistently exercising and intentional eating
average 45,000 steps per week

average 4 workouts per week

reduce dress size by 2
track macro-calories and total daily calories, find desirable daily macro goal, meet daily and macro goals 6 days per week

Improve financial status

live on DH's retirement check not salary paycheck

pay down mortgage by $60,000 ($625,000 on December 31)

spend only 75% of last year's frivolous spending

[lurkyloo]

Continue progress on getting finances arranged the way I want them-good progress made in 2023 
Offer support to my mother but not to the point it interferes with my own mental health
Continue looking for appropriate med solutions to migraines etc
Find a GP
Keep juggling and don’t let any of the really important balls drop    Pick them up again if they do.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

On Jan 1, 2023 ... I broke my toe by walking into a door.
On Jan 1, 2024 ... I broke my computer mouse when I dropped it into a large glass of root beer.

Resolution: stop breaking things in early January.

Other resolutions:

~ try to remember to write 2024 on anything that needs a date.
~ try to remember to check pockets for Chapsticks so I don't keep ruining them in the washer/dryer
~ try to stop forgetting that I've purchased broccoli with the intention of ~ you know ~ eating said broccoli.

Plans:

~ start screaming when anyone brings up the presidential election
~ clear weeds out of backyard flower beds
~ plant flower seeds in backyard flower beds
~ stop buying ridiculously expensive cheese at Whole Foods.

[giramomma]

Just keep swimming. 

A lot of what needs to happen isn't in my locus of control. 

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Jan 2, 2024 0:14:26 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Continue progress on getting finances arranged the way I want them-good progress made in 2023 
Offer support to my mother but not to the point it interferes with my own mental health
Continue looking for appropriate med solutions to migraines etc
Find a GP
Keep juggling and don’t let any of the really important balls drop    Pick them up again if they do.

Hey lurkyloo!

Can I ask about what you mean on arranging finances? Is it financial or administrative? If administrative, is it consolidating accounts type stuff or papperwork type stuff? I ask because I am a mess with paperwork, and if you've got any tips or resources, would love to hear it!

Feverfew is an herb that is migraine preventive. It has been wonderfully effective for myself and son, who started getting severe migraines in adolescence.


www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/tanacetum-parthenium#:~:text=The%20mechanism%20of%20action%20remains,of%20granule%20secretion%20from%20platelets.&text=Feverfew%20does%20not%2C%20however%2C%20appear,interfere%20with%20normal%20clotting%20meachanisms.

[Tennesseer]

I make zero resolutions as I would most likely break them during the first few days of the new year.  But the below article is interesting.

New York Times opinion article.

This Year, Make a Resolution About Something Bigger Than Yourself

New Year’s resolutions are penny-ante prayers. You are this way, but you hope to be that way. You used to want this, but now you want that.

The assumption behind resolutions is that something must be corrected and improved. One vows to be better than one was the year before.

Part of the nature of resolutions, particularly for those of us north of 60, has to do not only with the new year before us, but also with time already spent, or misspent.

We reflect on the years we’ve lived, on the past resolutions made and broken. Another New Year’s Eve come and gone. Every time the ball drops, the heart sinks. You are running out of time, and time is what we value most.

The historian-philosopher Lewis Mumford believed that the clock, not the steam engine, was the principal machine of the industrial age because time has a commanding relationship to the expenditure of human energy, and thus to any product itself. From the start, the essence of industry has been that things run on time. Time touches everything in life, even love. The fundamental things apply.

Thus there is always a melancholic desperation and urgency when we shout, “Happy New Year!” Will this new year, in fact, be any better than the last? We resolve that it will. We resolve to be fitter, healthier, cleverer, richer, more successful, more popular, more productive, better dressed, happier. And so restarts the whole vain, foolish, inevitably disappointing cycle.

The trouble with all such self-oriented promises is that they deal in chicken feed. What does the great wide world care if you lose weight, or work out, or work harder, or quit drinking or smoking?

Quit smoking or smoke three packs a day. Work out daily or let yourself go. It’s your choice, your life. Your little life. Meanwhile, the world — the whole tortured, self-destructive, polarized, endangered, extraordinary world — spins on.

What if, instead of planning our exercise regimens, we focused our intentions on all that is undesirable in human activity — wars, bigotry, brutality, the despoiling of the earth — and sought to address it? What if instead of making a milquetoast resolution, we made airtight commitments?

Rest of article here:  This Year, Make a Resolution About Something Bigger Than Yourself

[pulmonarymd]

The, we need to do something profound school of thought. Most of us aren't going to make a big impression on the world. Our goal should be to make things better; be that the world at large, or our smaller "world", the one we spend our lives in. If we can improve our environment-make a difference in one person's life, we have made a difference. The problem with this grand thinking is it is a great excuse for inertia, because we cannot affect things on the scale they are talking about. 

As to individual goals-again, the idea is to improve ourselves. Presumably, we all have people in our lives who love us. Improving ourselves so that we are around in better health for longer. So what if most people do not stop smoking, lose weight, start exercising, etc. Some do, and those who do are better off for it. The problem is that the resolutions are too ambitious or overly vague. Smaller, concrete goals work. If trying to improve yourself is not worthwhile, what is?

[minnesotapaintlady]

My only goal for this year is to get my siding done, my broken window replaced, and finish out the year owing less than 25K on that project.  I'm not sure yet exactly what I'll need to do to accomplish that, maybe reduce retirement contributions, maybe sell a kidney...but if I can ring in 2025 owing less than 25K on the completed work I'm calling  the year a win. 

[lurkyloo]

Jan 2, 2024 12:46:30 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

Jan 2, 2024 0:14:26 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Continue progress on getting finances arranged the way I want them-good progress made in 2023 
Offer support to my mother but not to the point it interferes with my own mental health
Continue looking for appropriate med solutions to migraines etc
Find a GP
Keep juggling and don’t let any of the really important balls drop    Pick them up again if they do.

Hey @lurkeyloo!

Can I ask about what you mean on arranging finances? Is it financial or administrative? If administrative, is it consolidating accounts type stuff or papperwork type stuff? I ask because I am a mess with paperwork, and if you've got any tips or resources, would love to hear it!

Feverfew is an herb that is migraine preventive. It has been wonderfully effective for myself and son, who started getting severe migraines in adolescence.


www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/tanacetum-parthenium#:~:text=The%20mechanism%20of%20action%20remains,of%20granule%20secretion%20from%20platelets.&text=Feverfew%20does%20not%2C%20however%2C%20appear,interfere%20with%20normal%20clotting%20meachanisms.

No broadly applicable or deep thought lessons I’m afraid…mostly administrative tweaks that are largely detailed in my inheritance thread.  Today I called and got the info to link my savings account to fidelity brokerage, since tiaa deposited 55K of capital gains there…don’t want to move it via checking account first bc that winds up commingling gifts and inheritance with marital assets.  Now I have to DCA that into the market, and also take RMDs and DCA those too.  Need to follow up with inherited condo HOA to auto-pay the monthly fees, work on evenly dividing another specific bequest and kick YB in the behind to complete the distributions from all the trusts.  I did roll over a couple of old 401k accounts to the current one, and just did my 2024 IRA contribution for backdoor Roth, trying to decide the best way to handle healthcare spending.  DH’s HRA should be drawn down first but they inactivate the card Jan-April right when I spend the deductible  

Kinda threw up a little in my mouth at how over the top privileged that sounds…but really just looking for good money hygiene. and minimizing taxes.  I’m in the process of moving everything to Fidelity and have been fairly happy with that decision so far.  They’re not quite as low cost as vanguard but their customer service and app are pretty good.

Thanks for the tip on feverfew.  I seem to react poorly to a lot of migraine preventives (and am frankly skeptical of herbal remedies since suppliers are not FDA regulated and active ingredient strength can vary a lot) but will read up   The new CGRP inhibitors are working well with minimal side effects so far- the later generation triptans are effective in addressing pain but do not have a positive effect on my ability to concentrate.

[lurkyloo]

Adding to the list: find and hire someone to fix the rotting woodwork on the house 

[resolution]

I retired in late December, so my resolution for this year is to establish a new daily routine that incorporates fitness, chores around the house, and some form of personal development.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Jan 2, 2024 12:58:23 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

I make zero resolutions as I would most likely break them during the first few days of the new year.  But the below article is interesting.

New York Times opinion article.

This Year, Make a Resolution About Something Bigger Than Yourself

New Year’s resolutions are penny-ante prayers. You are this way, but you hope to be that way. You used to want this, but now you want that.

The assumption behind resolutions is that something must be corrected and improved. One vows to be better than one was the year before.

Part of the nature of resolutions, particularly for those of us north of 60, has to do not only with the new year before us, but also with time already spent, or misspent.

We reflect on the years we’ve lived, on the past resolutions made and broken. Another New Year’s Eve come and gone. Every time the ball drops, the heart sinks. You are running out of time, and time is what we value most.

The historian-philosopher Lewis Mumford believed that the clock, not the steam engine, was the principal machine of the industrial age because time has a commanding relationship to the expenditure of human energy, and thus to any product itself. From the start, the essence of industry has been that things run on time. Time touches everything in life, even love. The fundamental things apply.

Thus there is always a melancholic desperation and urgency when we shout, “Happy New Year!” Will this new year, in fact, be any better than the last? We resolve that it will. We resolve to be fitter, healthier, cleverer, richer, more successful, more popular, more productive, better dressed, happier. And so restarts the whole vain, foolish, inevitably disappointing cycle.

The trouble with all such self-oriented promises is that they deal in chicken feed. What does the great wide world care if you lose weight, or work out, or work harder, or quit drinking or smoking?

Quit smoking or smoke three packs a day. Work out daily or let yourself go. It’s your choice, your life. Your little life. Meanwhile, the world — the whole tortured, self-destructive, polarized, endangered, extraordinary world — spins on.

What if, instead of planning our exercise regimens, we focused our intentions on all that is undesirable in human activity — wars, bigotry, brutality, the despoiling of the earth — and sought to address it? What if instead of making a milquetoast resolution, we made airtight commitments?

Rest of article here:  This Year, Make a Resolution About Something Bigger Than Yourself

This is so condescending. what the hell is so threatening about having people reflect on themselves and how they'd like to tweak their life in the new year? I can't spend 10 minutes jotting down a few things I'd like to accomplish in 2024 without someone saying "wait! stop! take that 10 minutes and save the world!"

Right back atchya! why didn't this author do that instead of writing this drivelly piece? Why didn't YOU Tennesseer save the world from bigotry instead of posting on this thread - yet again! - to drag down a few random people spending perhaps mere seconds to type out - oh gee, I'd like to take walk every day this year.

Why didn't YOU do something more useful than once again clogging up our resolutions thread with your anti-resolution sentiments?

Most of us here are women and mothers. Meaning we are putting other people first all the fucking damn time. Go do something about bigotry right now! Tell us how much you accomplished towards that lofty goal in the 5 minutes it would have took to type up some resolution.

Unless you are suggesting that we also give up the time we are trying to devote to our health and wellbeing? If that is the case, I'll have more choice words for you.

[Tennesseer]

Jan 2, 2024 17:59:02 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

Jan 2, 2024 12:58:23 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

I make zero resolutions as I would most likely break them during the first few days of the new year.  But the below article is interesting.

New York Times opinion article.

This Year, Make a Resolution About Something Bigger Than Yourself

New Year’s resolutions are penny-ante prayers. You are this way, but you hope to be that way. You used to want this, but now you want that.

The assumption behind resolutions is that something must be corrected and improved. One vows to be better than one was the year before.

Part of the nature of resolutions, particularly for those of us north of 60, has to do not only with the new year before us, but also with time already spent, or misspent.

We reflect on the years we’ve lived, on the past resolutions made and broken. Another New Year’s Eve come and gone. Every time the ball drops, the heart sinks. You are running out of time, and time is what we value most.

The historian-philosopher Lewis Mumford believed that the clock, not the steam engine, was the principal machine of the industrial age because time has a commanding relationship to the expenditure of human energy, and thus to any product itself. From the start, the essence of industry has been that things run on time. Time touches everything in life, even love. The fundamental things apply.

Thus there is always a melancholic desperation and urgency when we shout, “Happy New Year!” Will this new year, in fact, be any better than the last? We resolve that it will. We resolve to be fitter, healthier, cleverer, richer, more successful, more popular, more productive, better dressed, happier. And so restarts the whole vain, foolish, inevitably disappointing cycle.

The trouble with all such self-oriented promises is that they deal in chicken feed. What does the great wide world care if you lose weight, or work out, or work harder, or quit drinking or smoking?

Quit smoking or smoke three packs a day. Work out daily or let yourself go. It’s your choice, your life. Your little life. Meanwhile, the world — the whole tortured, self-destructive, polarized, endangered, extraordinary world — spins on.

What if, instead of planning our exercise regimens, we focused our intentions on all that is undesirable in human activity — wars, bigotry, brutality, the despoiling of the earth — and sought to address it? What if instead of making a milquetoast resolution, we made airtight commitments?

Rest of article here:  This Year, Make a Resolution About Something Bigger Than Yourself

This is so condescending. what the hell is so threatening about having people reflect on themselves and how they'd like to tweak their life in the new year? I can't spend 10 minutes jotting down a few things I'd like to accomplish in 2024 without someone saying "wait! stop! take that 10 minutes and save the world!"

Right back atchya! why didn't this author do that instead of writing this drivelly piece? Why didn't YOU Tennesseer save the world from bigotry instead of posting on this thread - yet again! - to drag down a few random people spending perhaps mere seconds to type out - oh gee, I'd like to take walk every day this year.

Why didn't YOU do something more useful than once again clogging up our resolutions thread with your anti-resolution sentiments?

Most of us here are women and mothers. Meaning we are putting other people first all the fucking damn time. Go do something about bigotry right now! Tell us how much you accomplished towards that lofty goal in the 5 minutes it would have took to type up some resolution.

Unless you are suggesting that we also give up the time we are trying to devote to our health and wellbeing? If that is the case, I'll have more choice words for you.

Toning down your temper is not one of your resolutions this year I see.

[TheOtherMe]

What the article states is the reason I don't make resolutions.  When I did try, I failed by the end of January and felt like a failure.  

It's better to leave well enough alone and go with the flow.  

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Jan 2, 2024 18:02:22 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Jan 2, 2024 17:59:02 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

This is so condescending. what the hell is so threatening about having people reflect on themselves and how they'd like to tweak their life in the new year? I can't spend 10 minutes jotting down a few things I'd like to accomplish in 2024 without someone saying "wait! stop! take that 10 minutes and save the world!"

Right back atchya! why didn't this author do that instead of writing this drivelly piece? Why didn't YOU Tennesseer save the world from bigotry instead of posting on this thread - yet again! - to drag down a few random people spending perhaps mere seconds to type out - oh gee, I'd like to take walk every day this year.

Why didn't YOU do something more useful than once again clogging up our resolutions thread with your anti-resolution sentiments?

Most of us here are women and mothers. Meaning we are putting other people first all the fucking damn time. Go do something about bigotry right now! Tell us how much you accomplished towards that lofty goal in the 5 minutes it would have took to type up some resolution.

Unless you are suggesting that we also give up the time we are trying to devote to our health and wellbeing? If that is the case, I'll have more choice words for you.

Toning down your temper is not one of your resolutions this year I see.

Nope!

[Opti]

Jan 2, 2024 18:07:45 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

What the article states is the reason I don't make resolutions.  When I did try, I failed by the end of January and felt like a failure.  

It's better to leave well enough alone and go with the flow.  

Sorry.    I am more of an intention person than resolution type. I also do not start stuff in January because its inconvenient for me personally and January is more of a reflection time. 

I'm sure you come up with goals and meet them. Its probably just other times during the year.

[Tennesseer]

Jan 2, 2024 18:25:52 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

Jan 2, 2024 18:02:22 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Toning down your temper is not one of your resolutions this year I see.

Nope!

Work on it.

I said the article was interesting and not that only the women (or men) who post on the Money board should change their resolutions.

[Opti]

Jan 2, 2024 15:05:06 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Jan 2, 2024 12:46:30 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

Hey @lurkeyloo!

Can I ask about what you mean on arranging finances? Is it financial or administrative? If administrative, is it consolidating accounts type stuff or papperwork type stuff? I ask because I am a mess with paperwork, and if you've got any tips or resources, would love to hear it!

Feverfew is an herb that is migraine preventive. It has been wonderfully effective for myself and son, who started getting severe migraines in adolescence.


www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/tanacetum-parthenium#:~:text=The%20mechanism%20of%20action%20remains,of%20granule%20secretion%20from%20platelets.&text=Feverfew%20does%20not%2C%20however%2C%20appear,interfere%20with%20normal%20clotting%20meachanisms.

No broadly applicable or deep thought lessons I’m afraid…mostly administrative tweaks that are largely detailed in my inheritance thread.  Today I called and got the info to link my savings account to fidelity brokerage, since tiaa deposited 55K of capital gains there…don’t want to move it via checking account first bc that winds up commingling gifts and inheritance with marital assets.  Now I have to DCA that into the market, and also take RMDs and DCA those too.  Need to follow up with inherited condo HOA to auto-pay the monthly fees, work on evenly dividing another specific bequest and kick YB in the behind to complete the distributions from all the trusts.  I did roll over a couple of old 401k accounts to the current one, and just did my 2024 IRA contribution for backdoor Roth, trying to decide the best way to handle healthcare spending.  DH’s HRA should be drawn down first but they inactivate the card Jan-April right when I spend the deductible  

Kinda threw up a little in my mouth at how over the top privileged that sounds…but really just looking for good money hygiene. and minimizing taxes.  I’m in the process of moving everything to Fidelity and have been fairly happy with that decision so far.  They’re not quite as low cost as vanguard but their customer service and app are pretty good.

Thanks for the tip on feverfew.  I seem to react poorly to a lot of migraine preventives (and am frankly skeptical of herbal remedies since suppliers are not FDA regulated and active ingredient strength can vary a lot) but will read up   The new CGRP inhibitors are working well with minimal side effects so far- the later generation triptans are effective in addressing pain but do not have a positive effect on my ability to concentrate.

Some suppliers would love to be regulated and herbal supplements become more mainstream. I would look for and try ones that have words like normalized to BBB strength etc. Usually it tries to guarantee a minimum strength per tablet, capsule or tincture.
Some do not however try to limit the max.