Bye Bye 2017!

Hey everyone!

Wishing you all an early Happy New Year!

Those of you who are reading this on New Year’s Eve – WHY!

As much as I appreciate it, get out there, enjoy the last day of 2017 with your loved ones, come back and read this post next year!

Hahaha, only joking – I’m very grateful for all of you who have supported and believed in me on this journey to date.

Honestly don’t want to sound kli-shay-ed, but your messages, feedback, responses both private and public has given me that extra boost when I MOST needed it – so sincerely:

Thank you.

They say that you should reflect on the past year and what has been.

Oh man, who would have thought that at the start of the year, I would have met so many new faces, re-acquainted myself with so many old ones, started a blog, bought another property and started finding more purpose to life, all by the end of 2017.

At the beginning of the year, I told myself that I had 4 items to tick off by year end:

Start my own brand.

TheFrugalSamurai was born baby! WOOOOO!!!

Ha – been a long time coming but honestly the long suffering MrsFrugalSamurai-to-be has heard enough regarding how many times I’ve said “you gotta do you“.

I’ve had the thought of creating a brand for ages now, so long that I think she was as much relieved as happy that I’ve finally decided to take the leap.

“Yeah too right”. 

OK dear, no one likes a show off.

Tell you what but, starting is the easy part.

For it is TOUGH in here. Sure when you’re out there looking in – you see people successful with their businesses and building well-known brands, you think, “I could do that”. 

Ha! Foolish me, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

But the more I’m involved with TheFrugalSamurai, the more purpose I find.

It’s my forever project.

Buy another property.

Tick, did this mid-year.

Oh boy, buying this one was a really unique experience which probably deserves a post all on its own.

Basically the real estate agent wasn’t a real agent, the house wasn’t marketed to standard, I was left confused and bewildered during the negotiation process, the house was trashed by the sellers pre-settlement, issue after issue popped up.

Bizarrely, I still made some decent (unrealised) gains from this.

Hm, typing that out just gave me an idea – it WILL be a post all on its own. It’s too good a story not to – stay tuned!

Network with like-minded people.

This one was a tough one for me initially because I think I’m a bit introverted at heart. We all are a little introverted right?

But this goal involved stepping out of my comfort zone and talking to strangers whom I’ve never seen and never met.

Hey TheFrugalSamurai, what’s the point of reading books if you don’t connect with people on the same wavelength?

Exactly.

So I pushed myself to actively network in person with people from an online community that I heavily subscribe to.

You know what?

I don’t even know why I was “uncomfortable”.

Cos I mean, hey look, these guys are just like you and me, flesh and blood, success and failure, Yin and Yang, Penn and Teller, Jack and Ji… WTF am I talking about, lost my train of thought.

Oh yeah!

Meeting successful people in person makes you realise that everyone’s human, everyone makes mistakes, it’s OK to make mistakes, mistakes are what makes us successful.

I’ve met so many new people, learnt from them, shared ideas, stories and expanded my networks and contacts – it was not only so easy but also so fun!

Wedding.

Ah… the big one, the elephant in the room, the Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, the… OK I’ll stop.

For MrsFrugalSamurai-to-be and I, we’ve coped our fair share of many a good-natured joke from our close friends regarding this topic.

We were supposed to be married last year instead of next year but that’s how life is I guess.

It just got in the way.

I put my hand up for this, I’d like to say that after we became engaged we focused on other aspects of our lives, that we would have burnt out trying to plan one for this year.

But the truth is – we were both too optimistic to realistically have a wedding this year.

The good news is that we’re locked and loaded for next year – should be a great day! Even have a wedding planner too!

There you have it guys, those were the 4 items to tick off, 3 out of 4 ain’t too bad right?

But to be honest, all of this pales in comparison to the truly big event of this year for me personally of my Grandpa passing away – I would give it all back to spend a few extra years with him.

R.I.P Grandpa.

Just another reminder of the importance of family and to cherish your loved ones.

But on a positive note, I’d like to end this year by saying that I hope 2017 was a cracking year for you!

However, if you’re like me, who wished it could have been better – here’s hoping next year IS better guys!

What do you think? Did you enjoy this post? Please help me out if you enjoyed this and click on the little “follow” button at the bottom right and be a follower! Thank you greatly!

See you guys in 2018!