By the Numbers: 2016

1.16.2017



Happy MLK day for my US friends! I am so thankful to be off work today and you know what that means... I get to spend all day with R and I'm one happy mama.

This will be the fourth year that I've recapped my year in numbers. I try to record the same things each time, and it's so interesting to compare year to year! If you're interested, check out: By the Numbers: 2013 / By the Numbers: 2014 / By the Numbers 2015

< READING >

Total books read: 27
Fiction vs. Nonfiction - 20 fiction / 7 nonfiction
Source - all print copies (no ebooks or audio books)
Ratings
*5 stars
Echo in the Darkness by Francine Rivers
What Alice Forgot by Laine Moriarty

Prayer by Philip Yancy
The Kindness Challenge by Shaunti Feldhahn

*4 stars
Because You'll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas
The Lake House by Kate Morton
This Is Your Brain on Sports by L. Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Secret Place by Tana French
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

City of Thieves by David Benioff
Congratulations, By the Way by George Saunders
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith 
Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner

*3 stars
Popular by Maya Van Wagenen
Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
Big Little Lies by Laine Moriarty
The Dark Ferret Society by Emily Humphreys
The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Louise May Alcott by Susan Cheevers

*2 stars
The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee

Book review roundup posts herehere, and here.


< SOCIAL MEDIA >

Blog posts written: 125
*A few favorites from 2016: 
How Not to Grow Your Blog
5 Things That Make Me Uncomfortable
nothing quite like it at all (a poem for R on Mother's Day)
Just Yesterday (written on the eve of R's first birthday)
We Still Do (about marriage)
Idols (written in November after the presidential election)

Blog posts tagged "working mom": 15

*A few favorites: Voices, Full, Thankful for Daycare: One Year Later

Tweets: 1,531 (about 300 less than 2015)
Instagram photos posted: 160 (just about half as many as 2015)

< RUNNING >

Races run: 2 (Red Bud 10k pushing R in the stroller! & half marathon #10
Miles logged: 250(ish) - about the same as 2015.

< TRAVEL >

US states visited: 4 - Texas, Virginia (part 1/ part 2), Illinois, Missouri 
(Virginia travel video here // Chicago travel video here)
Trips to Texas: 8 - same amount as both 2015 and 2014! Weird!
Plane flights: 11 - all with R, earliest at around 7 months old (*pats self on back)
Number of times our plane was delayed and it was the last flight of the day so we had to wait a day and take the first flight out the next morning: 2 (having to do that with a baby is super fun). First was coming home from Virginia. The second was coming home from Chicago.



< BUDGETING >

Total spent on clothes (for me out of my blow money): $340
Total spent on gas: $1,135 
Total spend on hair bows for R: I don't want to talk about it. (Related: my photo essay, The Demise of the Hair Bow)
Average monthly spent on groceries: $267
Average monthly savings: $510 (this is about half as much per month as we saved in 2015, sadly. But if we didn't have the cost of daycare we would have done pretty good! That $510 does not include the [small] percentage that goes automatically from my paycheck into my Roth account or the monthly amount we put in R's 529 account. We do what we can with what we have.)

< OTHER >

Birthday parties: 2
R turned 1 // My family surprised me for my 30th birthday
(Don't worry about Jordan. I threw him a surprise party for his 30th last year, and it was awesome.)

House projects: 

Mounted basket storage in the guest bathroom
Hung shelf in the master bathroom
Stained and painted shelf in the laundry room
Around the house: one-year update

Thank you so much for following along this year! On to 2017!
Heather @Lunging Through Life said...

Oh my gosh how fun! I'm looking back on some of these now! Have a great day off. I , sadly, don;t have it off. :(

The Girl who Loved to Write said...

Enjoy your day with your sweet little lady!

Audrey Louise said...

I like that you keep track of all this. I'm sure it's really neat to compare the years!

Caroline @ In Due Time said...

So awesome that you are saving $500 every month! I love talking finances. We were excited we only spent $500 on gas last year which I guess has to do with way less road trips :(

LOVE all the flights you took with R! Love that so much!

Amy @ A Desert Girl said...

Haha! The hair bow comment. You love you some hair bows.

Enjoy the holiday with your little lady!

Katie @ Live Half Full said...

Love all those working Mom posts!

Julie @ Just the Joy's said...

So fun to look at "the numbers"! If I went back and looked at spending on hair bows too, it probably wouldn't be pretty! Ha!

mi said...

I do not even want to think about what I spent on Benny's clothes last year... ummm it's not good.

Rachel said...

That is a LOT of plane flights in a year! Looking back...I think I only took a total of 4 flights in 2016 and that's sure fine with me! Pretty cool that you can add up exactly what you spent in different categories...that's the perks of a digital system. I could do that if I wanted to go through our handwritten account book...but I don't want to because that sounds like work! :P

K @ Keeping Up With K... said...

I love the idea of keeping track of the numbers - I might have to borrow this for next year and start tracking myself!

All the travelling I did last year was in the car or via train - I didn't get on a plane once - crazy now that I think of it. You must be a pro at flying with a baby by now!

Kayla MKOY said...

I love this take on looking back at your previous year! What a cool things to revisit each year and see the changes/comparisons! You go girl. "How Not To Grow Your Blog" LOL. Love it!

Rach said...

This is such a fun way to look back at the year and even compare it to previous years. I'm so impressed you flew with R ELEVEN times! You are such a pro at baby traveling now! :)

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