February was a relatively quiet month for our finances. Winter weather kept us fairly close to home for the most part. Work was busy for both of us. Overall, it felt like we settled into a post-holiday routine. We made some plans for travel later this year and resisted the desire to book any pricey weekend getaways. This was a great feat as wanderlust and winter fatigue hit both of us hard. We also mulled over some home purchases like a new sofa, but so far have kept our priorities in mind and have avoided any big purchases, which is important with tax time approaching.

Our February goals were:

• Publish one blog post in addition to monthly update
  • A – I published the Year in Review post, which perhaps isn’t all that different from a monthly update, but I’m counting it!
• Resume running streak
  • A – I ran a mile or more every day in February! That straight month of running has very much created a habit. I barely have to think about my daily run.
• Complete one item from the 101 tasks list
  • A – I purged my closet and declared my wardrobe successfully reset for my life.
• Total spending within budget
  • A – Our individual personal spending money was over budget, but overall, we were comfortably below our total budget, which surprised me. I like the way this is trending.
• Increase our monthly investment amount
  • A – We set our investments to pull based on the new, lower 2019 spending as planned. We might be able to make another increase after tax time.

Wow, I don’t think we’ve had a straight A month before! Here are our goals for March.

• Publish one blog post in addition to monthly update (this is another one I like to put on repeat)
• Continue running streak
• Complete one item from the 101 tasks list
• Start a Whole30
• Personal spending within budget

I decided to publish the progress to goal chart on a quarterly basis. We are still tracking those numbers monthly of course, but I think the chart makes more sense on a quarterly basis. I will continue to post our savings rate chart. Here it is current through February 28, 2019.