Are you guys resolution makers? To be honest, I usually put a little effort into thinking of a few things and then totally forget about them – one of the benefits of blogging though is constantly keeping your goals in view.

Last year I got to write a guest post over at Fit is the New Poor about my resolutions and I think it’s time to see how they went.

1.) Find and Furnish an Apartment in a Financially Responsible Manner – SUCCESS. Well, financially responsible is a gray area, but I managed to pay my rent every month. I felt like I failed when I didn’t manage to find an apartment without paying a brokerage fee, but overall, I think my $1250 a month apartment in Inwood was a pretty nice little spot. I furnished it with hand-me-downs from my grandmother, which are kind of awesome, a nifty Walmart futon and a bunch of handmade art – DIY didn’t start out so smooth, but by the end I was nailing it. My proudest piece of art was a print I made in Photoshop of the sound wave of Home with the lyrics overlaid on it. I looked almost Etsy worthy to me, but I may be biased. My one big splurge was my mattress and it was worth every penny.

2.) Join a Gym and Lose the Circus Weight (15 pounds) – FAIL. BUT for 2015, I can put “lose the circus weight (7 pounds)” which is some solid progress. I was really excited about the fact that my previous job offered a $200 reimbursement every 6 months if you visit the gyms 50 times and I didn’t make it once. I missed it by like 6 visits for the first 6 months of the year and never even got close the second half of the year.

I think failing at this resolution taught me the importance of consistency. I was doing really well with the gym during periods when my schedule was sort of normal and I could make a habit out of going, whenever things started getting crazy and my regular schedule disappeared, so did my gym visits… and I was really lazy about getting back on the horse. The same is true of any habit you try to establish – I’d try to save a little extra month some months and then crack and eat out once. Once would turn into five or six times in a week and I realized it always took more restraint to get back on track than it takes to just not even leave the track in the first place.

3.) Max Out My IRA – SUCCESS. Nailed it by October.

4.) Cross 2 Items Off My Bucket List – FAIL. I completely forgot about this goal until a month or two ago. The next time I was at my parents house, I found the bucket list I wrote as a 13 year old and realized I probably wouldn’t be crossing any of the things that are still on the list off any time soon – they’re kind of big things like get married, have kids, get a PhD – not super attainable in a 2 month time span.

My new goal for next year is to cross off one thing (because I did have a few more attainable ones like learn Russian or learn how a watch works – although, really 13 year old Mel? This was a thing? Cause 30 year old Mel does not care how a watch works), but more importantly it’s to add two new things to the list – since I’m not dead yet, I figure my big, crazy goal setting shouldn’t’ve stagnated after age 13… especially since I don’t have any desire to work for NASA anymore and will probably never cross that item off the list (this is what happens when you show an 8th grader Apollo 13 as a class movie).

5.) Stage Manage Something – SUCCESS. So, I was pretty excited back in May to stage manage a show called Beat the Drum for Haiti, it was this little ethnic show all about a woman who leaves Haiti to move to New York City and wishes she had never left in the first place. It had awesome drumming and lots of cool dancing. It was also really low budget and we performed it in a really rough venue, but I was super excited to be involved.

While that technically made that goal a success, I really nailed it by completely switching jobs and going back to stage management full time. Last week I finished the first week of rehearsals as the stage manager for Dinosaur Train Live and am really excited to head out of tour with them starting January 1st.

6.) Make Enough Blog Revenue to Cover Its Costs – SUCCESS. So when I set up my blog, I paid for all of the multiple year packages to make them cheaper overall. I remember writing down this resolution and thinking, well, if it doesn’t go well, I can make sure I figure out exactly what those costs were for 2014 and see if I made enough to cover just that… but secretly, I was hoping to make enough from my blog to cover ALL the start up costs of brokeGIRLrich. While there are definitely cheaper ways to start your own blog, my startup costs were:

• Domain Name (3 Years): $22.51
• Hosting (3 Years – HostGator): $178.20
• Logo (Etsy – Dimensions of Wonder): $90.00
• InLinkz: $19.99
• CleanTalk: $4.99
• Inside the Artists Wallet:
• Fiverr Logos: $15

Total Spent on Blog Related Expenses: $330.69

2014 Related Blog Expenses: $196.88

Blog Related Income (Advertising and Sponsored Posts):

• January – $.33
• February – $.00
• March – $2.94
• April – $.00
• May – $.00
• June – $.00
• July – $157.51
• August – 11.23
• September -1.14
• October – $10.46
• November – $195.80
• December – $96.80

TOTAL: $476.21

As an added bonus, I picked up $569.64 of freelance writing work this year because of this blog and the personal finance community.

7.) Learn How to Make Macarons – FAIL. Sort of. I actually did learn how to make them. And they taste delicious. But I still haven’t figured out how to make them look pretty and not weird and misshapen, so this goal still needs some more work.

8.) Invest in Another Stock – SUCCESS. I bought about $1,000 of Coca-Cola in November.

9.) Improve at Trombone – FAIL. This just didn’t happen at all. On the plus side, I learned that while some things sound great theoretically, in practice, they sometimes take a lot more effort than you’re willing to put into them – especially once you no longer have an awesome trombone teacher, like I did a year ago.

10.) Go on an Amazing, Fantastical Trip with My Best Friends – SUCCAIL? FAESS? I didn’t manage one giant trip with my best friends, but I did manage to see them a lot and I’m inclined to count that as a success. Three of us were at each other’s 30th birthdays. I went to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter with one of them. And I’m going to ring in the new year at that fancy pants party with them in a few days. All around a good year for friendship.

How was your year? Did you make any resolutions? How many did you keep?