Wow, what a year 2021 has been. Last January, I shared my new year’s resolutions for myself and my blog, AnotherLoonie. It was a great exercise since it gave me something to aim for as we progressed through the year. I want to do the same thing this year and update you on which resolutions I completed and which I totally failed at. Let’s get started!

Last Year’s Resolutions

In 2021, I made 6 ambitious new years resolutions! Most of these were to do with personal finance or my blog. Let’s take a look at how I did last year:

Personal Finance Goals

Invest $30,000

Investing at least $30k was my main goal for 2021, and my wife and I were both aligned to meet or exceed it. As it happens, this goal was probably a bit too conservative since we ended up reaching $30,000 in new investments quite early, in May.

In total, my wife and I contributed just over $60,000 to our investment accounts in 2021. I think that means we’ll need an even more ambitious goal for next year!

Get Promoted

I shared back in June that I earned my promotion and was excited to be earning around $700 more per month. Ka-ching! Career-wise, I have another promotion in my crosshairs, but getting there may take me a bit longer than the last one.

Reach 200,000 Aeroplan Points

This goal has been a fun one. I haven’t written about churning in a while, but rest assured that I’m still “making moves” and earning points hand over fist.

Our latest card is the Amex Cobalt, and with it, we’re accumulating points that we plan on converting to Aeroplan in the near future. Once I convert our Amex Membership Rewards (MR), we’ll have a total of 180,000 Aeroplan points—so close to our goal!

Buy a Used SUV

This is one goal I made absolutely no progress on. Well, unless you count watching car reviews on YouTube as “progress.” It turns out, life continues to move slowly with COVID sticking around. So maybe in 2022 I’ll get around to this goal, but I’m not committed to it like I was last year.

Blog Goals

Grow AnotherLoonie

2021 was a huge year of growth for AnotherLoonie. I received 40,000 more page views than in 2020, the year I started out. I also wrote a few guest posts for other members of the Canadian personal finance community and grew my footprint on social media considerably.

You can find more details of the progress I’ve made in my recent post titled My First Year Blogging: Income Report.

The only area I was deficient in was my posting frequency. My goal was to post at least 30 times in 2021 but only reached 25. I’ll have to do better in 2022!

Be a Podcast Guest

Here’s a goal I really should have spent more time on. My main hiccup is that I’m not quite sure what “my story is.” On all of the podcasts I listen to, the guest is usually so interesting or has such a unique perspective. Meanwhile, I feel pretty average when comparing myself to others in the personal finance or FIRE community.

Maybe in 2022 I’ll have better luck coming up with a “pitch” to get on one of my favourite podcasts.

New Resolutions for 2022

Personal Finance Goals

Max out our TFSAs

This is the goal I’m most excited about in 2022. The TFSA is such a powerful retirement savings vehicle, and my wife and I have been focused on maxing out our accounts as soon as possible.

As of writing this post, my wife has over $70k in her TFSA, and I have a little over $60k. With the new TFSA contribution limit for 2022, we’ll have our work cut out for ourselves to reach this goal and max both of our accounts before the end of the year!

Get a HELOC to Invest

Last year, I became acquainted with leveraged investing by investing a personal line of credit I received from Tangerine. I added even more leverage by taking out a margin loan on top of that so I could invest even more.

Sound risky? Well, it is. And I wouldn’t recommend it to others unless you had “the right stuff”: patience and disinterest.

But for my wife and I, we have relatively stable jobs and a sizable pension to rely on in retirement. So we are able to take on more risks than the average Canadian, and leveraged investing is one way to do that.

To continue down this path, my goal is to get a HELOC so I can invest even more in 2022.

Blog Goals

Join an Advertising Network

You may have noticed that I had AdSense ads on my blog for much of 2021. I since removed them because they were slowing down my blog and not worth keeping on for the income they generated.

So in 2022, my goal is to grow AnotherLoonie so I can be accepted in one of the other, more worthwhile advertising networks available for blogs like mine.

Personal Goals

Live in The Now

Being frugal and goal-oriented means I often forget that the point of life is to live and not always chase a particular saving, investing, or career goal. With that in mind, one of my goals for 2022 is to spend more time living in the now.

Dividends are what you receive when you invest in stocks. Memories are what you receive when you invest in experiences.

So what does this look like in practice? Well, to me it means creating more opportunities to connect with friends and family, putting effort into planning trips or get-togethers, giving more thoughtful gifts, and working to create positive memories that I can share with the people I care about. I’m going to spend more effort on all of these in 2022!

Continue Exercising

COVID had a pretty big effect on my mental health in 2021. Mainly from not driving as often and not being put into social situations, I found my anxiety rearing its ugly head and degrading my quality of life quite severely.

I took action this past summer and committed myself to exercising frequently. Everyone’s anxiety is different, but for me this has been a game changer. Cardio seems to “burn off” my excess adrenaline, which would otherwise be stored up and “released” at the most inopportune moments (like when stuck in traffic!).

So this year, I’m going to stay committed to frequent exercise and have an anxiety-free 2022!

Read 5 Books

I have this nasty habit of browsing Reddit for 30 minutes or more while in bed trying to fall asleep. I desperately want to break this habit, but it’s hard because it usually takes me a while to “wind down” and fall asleep.

Early last year and much of 2020, I was doing a pretty good job reading a book before bed instead of browsing on my phone. I want to make a habit of it in 2022 and commit to reading five books this year. I’m getting started with Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike.

Thanks for Reading

What do you think of my new year’s resolutions for 2022? Are there any great resolutions I should add? What are your resolutions for the new year?

I recently wrote a few articles that you may be interested in. This includes my post on TFSA contribution limits for 2022 and my post on RRSP contribution limits. Consider giving those a read if you think they’ll help you on your financial journey!

As always, please consider following me on social media or signing up for my newsletter if you’d like to be notified periodically (less than once per month) with a list of my recent articles.