I set a goal of having a new post on Tight Fisted Miser and BankBonuses.com every day of this month. I’ve already missed a couple of days so I’ve already missed that goal. Rather than just abandon the goal I am going to slightly modify the goal. The new goal is that I will write 31 posts for Tight Fisted Miser and 31 posts for Bank Bonuses this month. This will allow me to have a bad day and still meet the goal. I need to get ahead on my writing so that I will have posts to go live while I’m on the cruise. Plus, it is good to have extra posts for those days when I just don’t feel like writing. Since I’m not working this month it should be easy to get this many posts written. When I do have a job I always think I’ll get so much more done when the job is over. The reality is that I barely get any more writing/blog work done when I don’t have a job than I do when I am working at a job. When I have all the time in the world to get my writing and blog work done I can always think of something I’d rather do at the moment and put off the writing until later. This often results in the writing being totally skipped and pushed to the next day. I need to get out of the procrastination habit and develop a writing routine.
I’m also adding another goal for the month. I’m setting a goal of making $500 from mystery shopping and selling stuff this month. Most of the income should come from selling stuff. I’ve been meaning to sell my comic book collection for years. I did manage to sell a small part of the collection last year and made about $200. If I get serious about listing all my comic books for sale I should easily make more than $500 from the remaining comic books. I’m going to try a combination of Ebay and Craigslist. Most of the comics are late ’80s Marvel comics. If you’re interested in buying any comics let me know. I will have an update after the month is over to share how I did on this goal.
Goals are always good! Sometimes, you need to make changes and I have done some myself. Good luck.
Thanks. I try to always have goals even though I haven’t done great at accomplishing them.
It sounds like you took missing the original goal in stride and quickly amended it! Kudos to you. A lot of people would have given up on it, not altered it. It shows great perspective on your part.
Amending it is better than abandoning it.
I think it’s great how you do the mystery shopping and set goals to make money from selling stuff. I’ve done the selling part in the past or when I can. Good luck with all the writing mate.. I’m sure you will have no problems at all! Cheers
The writing shouldn’t be difficult. I actually like writing, I just have trouble getting motivated to start writing some days.
You know Andy, I have been reading your site for several years and I see a common theme. You keep setting goals, but for some reason you are not motivated enough to keep up on those. So you are getting nowhere.
I know it is hard putting everything online, and criticizing is always easy.. But it is really frustrating reading your experiences. You never really follow through on your plans you set, therefore you never really achieve anything – I feel like you are just not advancing, just staying in the same groundhog day type of a situation over and over.
For example, your posts about the annual hike you are doing are just frustrating.. You put an ambitious goal to hike so much, save so much in the process and then you end up cutting it short and spending too much.
Another example, when you start making money, you always seem to be spending way too much. Like in 2011- 2012 when your blog income was exploding, you were spending double or triple what you should have been spending.
You should get your stuff together, get a job, and work for like 5 more years, while saving 50% of income. If you had done that when you started the site, you would have been much better today.
Don’t mean to be a jerk, but I think this is what you need to do.
I mostly agree with your comment. My track record of not accomplishing most of my goals is well documented on this site.
I did acknowledge when planning this year’s hike that based on my past experiences there was a good chance I’d cut it short. I did spend more than I planned, but it was still a relatively inexpensive trip.
When my blog income exploded I was married. If I had been single I’m confident I would have saved much more of that money and my expenses would have remained low.
I do think I’m making some progress this year. I should accomplish or at least come close to accomplishing my goals of saving 50% of my income and keeping my expenses below minimum wage income level. Either way I’m much better off financially now then I was last year.
I do need to do a lot better. Otherwise, my progress is going to be too slow.