2020 New Year’s Resolution Update: “The Year of Home Economics”

My New Year‘s Resolution was to make 2020 a year of good Home Economics for my little domestic family, with better financials, a more livable home, and optimally functioning people. For us, it’s still “The Year of Home Economics”.

Now at 8 months into 2020, I can hardly believe time has gone so fast. My husband, son and I ended up getting way more time together than we’d expected – because of the globally unfortunate and disruptive arrival of the Coronavirus. The virus has been challenging for everyone including us, largely because the constant health threat has made it difficult to see people in person. 

But life during the Coronavirus hasn’t been all bad. For us – my husband and I have both been working from home, enjoying 50 more hours per week with our 4-year-old son, even if those extra hours are mostly work-consumed – we’re all together. It’s been stressful but a net positive. 

The house still gets messy, the storage areas remain chaotic, and I never accomplish as much as I want to. But on positive notes, we have ramped up our gardening, stocked more provisions through grocery delivery, fine-tuned how we spend and save money, and gotten cozier in our domestic quarantine. We’ve done haircuts at home, eaten more plant-based, slept more, taken longer walks, spent more time at the river in the sunshine, and connected more with nearby neighbors.

We’ve carefully seen some additional friends and family in person and stayed in touch with many more online. The quarantine has left me a little claustrophobic at times, because I’m used to running around town to work, to see people, to shop the grocery store, to get things done, to have alone time, and to sometimes travel by plane far away. But at the same time, it’s been so nice to have more time at home with our little family, and less time in the car, more safety, and more space to unwind. 

We’ve been doing all we can to make the most of this unique time. We’ve been dreaming about maximizing happiness in the present and the future. My husband, son, and I enjoy slow-paced downtime on our own, when we get to do nothing, and we also enjoy being with people, and we like living out big adventures too. We all like spending time in nature, and being creative with art and ideas.

My husband and I constantly strategize about living well. We love freedom and want more of it. We are both really debt-adverse. All our debt is now paid off except our home mortgage – it’s been that way for over a year. We’re now aggressively paying off our mortgage early too, over the next 3 years. Then we’ll save up to build a second house on our little piece of land in the country, hopefully within 6 years – the family land was recently received as a generous gift. Then we’ll have modest paid-off homes in both the Portland city suburbs and the Oregon coastal river country, near both sets of parents and our families – who are all doing well right now thank goodness. 

I know we’re extremely lucky – which makes me feel grateful, and at the same time it makes me feel guilty, provoking me to want to give back to the world in meaningful ways. I want to do good, and I want reduce suffering in the world as I see opportunities to do so, and I want to grow wealth all around me, and I want to have a lot of heart, and I want to be successful at making our collective lives as happy as possible. 

I want to make the most of my little family’s limited income, resources, energy, and time. In the pursuit of happiness and growth, I’ve been thinking in practical ways about investing: in the stock market, in land, in relationships, investing in our careers, in hard work, in education, in knowledge, investing in the well-being of our dynamic son, in getting totally out of debt, in having two paid-off homes, investing in making the most of the big everyday opportunities, in systemizing success, in collaborating with talented people around me, investing in taking smart risks to get maximum life enjoyment.

I’m writing down what I envision, because it seems to make it more likely to happen, in my experience. I think my long-term visions and plans will result in a beautiful future. My husband has his own visions for the future that mostly overlap with mine – enough for us to be a good team with shared goals. I think we’re on the right track and our calculations are solid yet flexible. But life is so infuriatingly short and perilous. I constantly hope for a long life with continued physical and mental wellness, and avoidance of injury, for myself, my nearest and dearest, and everyone. Even with life’s limits and uncertainty, I’m celebrating the present moment with happiness.

That’s the big picture, but as for this year: There are only 4 months left in “The Year of Home Economics”. The quickly approaching winter makes me want to wrap up 2020 as beautifully and as I best can, so I can remember it as a well-enjoyed year of thoughtful staging for even better things to come.

Side note: In observance of Labor Day, I allowed myself to publish this blog article 2 days late for the first time since I started the blog in 2017.