2025 Goals: Mid-Year Check-In
It is hard to believe that we are over halfway done with 2025 already! At the beginning of the year, I put together my 2025 goals and resolutions like I do every year. I would say that some of my goals were fairly ambitious (such as reading 100 books, when my typical goal is 52 books). Now that life has brought some major changes—hello, pregnancy!—it feels like the perfect time to reflect, reassess, and adjust. In this post, I’m sharing what progress I’ve made, what’s shifted, and what I’m focusing on for the rest of the year.
My Original 2025 Goals and Resolutions
Financial
- Pay off Danny’s student loans
- Max out my Roth IRA
- Save a down payment for a house
Starting strong because we are doing okay here, and I’m not making any changes! With a baby on the way, some of our money has had to be allocated from the potential house fund to our “family fund.” We have insurance, but were quoted $10,000 for all prenatal, labor, and delivery, and postnatal care after insurance coverage. Luckily, since I am having my baby before the end of the year, our out-of-pocket max doesn’t reset.
So far this year, we have officially paid off Danny’s student loans! This was a big goal of ours, and we worked on paying off $17,000 in just 6 months. We submitted our last payment in June, and what a relief it has been. This would have marked us as officially debt-free, but… Danny bought a truck. So while we are not exactly debt-free anymore with a car payment, it’s just one less thing that will be following us around.
As for my Roth, we are about 1/2 way on paying the annual limit and are expected to max it out by the end of the year. For the down payment, we didn’t have a specific goal as to how much we wanted to save, but we have started saving and should be able to add a bit more to it by the end of the year (after my Roth is maxed). If we weren’t also saving for our anticipated labor costs, I think we could have made a bigger dent.
Hobbies
- Sew a quilt
- Read 100 books
- Try sewing clothing
So starting strong again because I did sew a quilt! During the first few days of the year, before I had to go back to work from winter break, I locked in. Since then, I have made another baby quilt that I hand quilted and now just needs the binding. Yesterday, I also finished the top piece for another fairly large quilt that I am working on. So getting a sewing machine for Christmas was a success! In terms of sewing clothing, I have not attempted anything yet. However, I was looking at making a tote bag this week, and think giving baby clothing a go will be a good start to sew clothes.
For my reading goal, I feel like I was too ambitious. In my head, I knew I wanted to get pregnant this year and thought I would want to spend a lot of time reading. Spoiler alert, I didn’t. For the first 4 months, I could not bear to pick up a book and read. I started reading again a couple of weeks ago and am on book 21 of the year. I changed my Goodreads goal back to 52 books for the year and think this might be more manageable if I step up my reading for the rest of this summer.
Travel
- Take an international trip
- Go camping 10 times
- Visit 10 new Texas State Parks
- Visit 2 new National Parks
So first up, we did take an international trip! We went to Denmark and Sweden last month. It worked out well, being 15 weeks, because most of my symptoms had subsided. I wouldn’t consider it a babymoon since it was so early in my pregnancy. I also took a day trip to Mexico during Spring Break when I was about 6 weeks pregnant. In my original 2025 goals post, I was wondering if there would be any other international trips that presented. Spoiler alert, I have no plans for any other international trips this year. I have been back to Washington to visit family a couple of times this year and have one more trip planned for our baby shower before I’m due. Otherwise, we have no other trips planned for the near future.
As for camping, we have been camping 3 times so far this year. The weather has been rough. I think that many have seen the horrible flooding in the Hill Country that has affected the lives of many. This year, it has been raining a lot, even up in DFW, and it has been incredibly humid. Being pregnant, I have been extremely sensitive to heat and humidity and don’t have a desire to camp for the remainder of the year. By the time the weather clears up, I will be almost due.
Finally, the State and National Parks! I visited Big Bend during Spring Break with one of my friends. I don’t have a desire to visit another National Park this year since I know it would be a solo trip otherwise. If I weren’t pregnant, I would make the trip to Hot Springs or another nearby National Park, but I just don’t plan on taking any long road trips alone right now, like I normally do. As for the State Parks, I have officially been to… 1. Whoops! I would like to go to a few more State Parks before the end of the year, but I think that 5 is a more reasonable goal.
Blog
- Have 100,000 pageviews
- Make $1,000 from the blog
- Consistently post at least once each week
Unfortunately, like reading, my blog was put on the back burner after I found out that I was pregnant. When I wasn’t at work during my first trimester, I was usually sleeping. So far during my second trimester, I have been traveling, so I haven’t had much time to write. However, since I am feeling much better now, I do want to jump back into it! Let’s start out with the obvious bullet point that I have not reached, consistently posting at least once each week. I have posted TWICE at the time of writing this post. Big yikes. Definitely revising this goal, but I still want to post more.
Since I haven’t been active, my traffic has taken a bit of a downturn for now as well. I wanted to reach 100,000 pageviews, which I have never reached, but right now I am sitting at just over 20,000. I am still going to keep this goal, but I do think that AI has also impacted blog readers.
For my last goal, I wanted to make $1,000 from my blog to help with the expenses of running it. So far, I’m doing okay. With the little effort I have put into my blog this year, I have made $200, which at least can cover the yearly cost of keeping my blog up. I still think this is a reasonable goal if I put in the effort, so I am keeping this one as well.
New Goals?
I do want to add a few more goals that are baby-related, too! Otherwise, I don’t feel like I need to add any more goals.
- Walk 30 minutes and do 15 minutes of pelvic floor/core strengthening exercises daily
- Prep 10 freezer meals by November
- Take a labor class for unmedicated births
Updated 2025 Goals and Resolutions
Before I close things out, here’s a quick summary of my updated 2025 goals and what I’m aiming for in the second half of the year.
Financial
- Pay off Danny’s student loans – Completed June 2025
- Max out my Roth IRA
- Save a down payment for a house
Hobbies
- Sew a quilt – Completed January 2025
- Read 52 Books
- Try sewing clothing
Travel
- Take an international trip – Completed May/June 2025
- Visit 5 new Texas State Parks
Blog
- Have 100,000 pageviews
- Make $1,000 from the blog
- Post 20 times on the blog
Baby
- Walk 30 minutes and do 15 minutes of pelvic floor/core strengthening exercises daily
- Prep 10 freezer meals by November
- Take a labor class for unmedicated births
Mid-Year Check-In Wrapped
Looking back on the year so far, it’s clear that some goals have shifted and others are still in progress… and that’s okay! Progress isn’t always linear, especially during big life seasons like this one. Now that I’m feeling more like myself, I’m ready to refocus, stay flexible, and finish the year strong.
As always, you can find me on Instagram @maddie_deer here, or you can follow me on my Facebook page to be alerted of any new posts here. Thanks for reading! 🙂
