Can’t believe it’s almost mid-December 2020. What a year. I’m grateful and fortunate to live and work in an area that wasn’t really influenced by COVID – allowing me to continue with work and make progress across my personal goals. I know it hasn’t been easy for some.

For me personally, it’s been a great year so far and I’ve managed to really progress a lot of my financial goals and branch out into new areas (studying to be a PT and growing my YouTube channel).

If you want to see a run down of each of my goals, with details on how I plan to achieve them, check out my original blog post for my 2020 goals here: https://nathanchallengeslife.com/2020/01/06/goals-for-2020/

Financial/Wealth

1. Reach a net worth of $100,000
   • Over November, my net worth increased by $10,700 to $87,313.43 (14.1%). Only one month left before I determine whether I can reach my goal of $100,000! I’ll need to hope that the markets are in a good day position on the first of January 2020 , as well as save what I can to contribute.
   • Check out my FIRE posts for more detailed information on my net worth and investing.
2. Grow my Australian investment portfolio to $70,000
   • My portfolio grew from $57,697 to $65,115 over November. This was helped by me transferring some of my home deposit funds into investing. Just another $5,000 and I’ll reach my goal!
   • I use Self Wealth for Australian/International shares, Raiz for daily savings and investing, STAKE for US shares, and Bank Australia for my savings account due to their ethical investments. If you’re interested, let me know and we can both get some rewards 😀
3. Save at least 50% of my income
   • In October, I only managed to save 31% of my income.
   • I won’t be able to reach my goal of 50%, which is unfortunate, but I’m hoping I can pass the 40% mark.
   • Next year, rather than focusing on a percentage of income, I may focus on only spending a certain yearly amount, say $30,000 – which will be a great way to test out living on that much (which is roughly how much I’m planning to spend per year once retired).
   • See below for a rundown of my expenses for November.

4. Save for a House Deposit

• Current value, including investments going toward this, is $10,882. Really happy that I have crossed the $10,000 mark before 2020 was over. Planning on growing this to approximately $35,000 next year.

Health/Wellbeing

1. Lower body fat to 15% – DONE!!!
   • I’ve done it! After going for my scan at the end of the 8 week challenge at Anytime Fitness, I came in at 14%! So incredibly happy with this result. The great thing is that it was measured on the same machine I’ve always used – which was always showing 17-19% this year.
   • After reaching this, I’ve taken a well deserved break with anything to do with tracking food and calories. Really looking forward to next year and focusing on building muscle.
2. Increase lean muscle mass
   • At the start of December, my scans show that fat free mass (which includes bones on this scanner) shows that I’m currrently 65kg fat free mass, compared to 66kg at the start of the year. It’s hard to tell from this scan what the real result is, but when looking at the fat free mass %, there has been an increase from 79% to 86% – which is due to by dropping a lot of body fat. So I can’t really tell with the measurements I’ve had taken, but I’ll go with the fat free mass kg, which is currently 1kg less than January 2020.
3. Increase strength across major lifts
   • I’m slowly gaining my strength back, and my ability to lift heavier weights with my right knee.
   • I’ve been performing squats, deadlifts, bench press and overhead press – and currently I’m close to where I was at the start of the year.
   • I will perform a one rep max test early in the new year to test my progress and to determine my strength going forward.

Happiness/Other

1. Expand PedalPay (www.pedalpay.com.au)
   • No progress has been made on this – I’ve got a lot of competing priorities right at the moment, and this has taken a back seat.
   • Check out PedalPay across platforms here.
2. Expand Nathan Challenges Life (www.nathanchallengeslife.com)
   • I have published 39 videos on my YouTube channel this year, and now increased my total views to 13,200! and now sitting at 243 subscribers!
   • Really happy at the growth of this over the past year, my website is also getting approximately 15-20 views per day – which has really grown with the more I publish and post!
   • Check me out across platforms here.
3. Reduce single-use plastics and non-recycled products
   • We went to a bulk food store and bought all plastic-free rice, pasta, beans, herbs, tofu! and much more.
   • We have also been buying fresh fruits and vegetables from the local markets (taking our own bags of course).
4. Reduce consumption of added sugar in foods and drinks
   • This has been going very well up until I reached my goal of 15% body fat. Since then – I’ve been eating a range of foods with high sugar content. This won’t last for long, but I had to treat myself 😛
5. Read 25 books
   • In November I read Limitless by Jim Kwik, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.
   • Currently reading Mud, Sweat and Tears by Bear Grylls, and Love is Not Enough by Mark Manson.
   • Currently at 24/25 for 2020!

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Final stretch! I’d really suggest spending a bit of time and thinking about what you want to accomplish next year. I’m more than happy to help you out with this, so feel free to email me at nathanchallengeslife@gmail.com if you need some extra guidance.

Until next time, keep working on your goals and challenging yourself to achieve everything you want in life.

Nathan