Andy Hough

Goals for 2009

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I have already posted about a couple of goals I set for 2009 but with the New Year rapidly approaching I decided to add a few more. I’ve also decided I should try to make them S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely).

The goals I already set were to have my expenses under $10,000 for next year and my income to be higher than my expenses. I may not have thought out those goals too well though. I can probably keep my expenses under $10,000 next year if I don’t include the cost of bar prep; with bar prep included that goal probably isn’t very realistic. I might not be able to have my income be higher than my expenses either because I plan on hiking for five months of the year. During which time I’ll be making very little money. I’m keeping these goals as non-smart goals for now and I’ll revisit them when it becomes clearer on whether they are realistic of not.

Now on to the S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Financial
Increase my passive income- This goal should easily be met. I will be investing in more dividend-paying stocks and developing other sources of passive income such as eHow.

Health
Lose 30 pounds- My goal last year was to lose 20 pounds. I went backwards on that and now I need to lose 30 pounds. If I go hiking the last 5 months of the year I will easily lose 30 pounds. Hiking would be a lot easier if I were in shape before I started though. My plans to get in shape include. Run/do cardio 3 times a week or more. Finish the Hundred Pushup Challenge. Drastically reduce or eliminate my soda consumption. Eat out no more than 2 times a week. These are all attainable steps but I haven’t done them in the past. I need to do them now.

Blogging
Increase my subscribers to 500 or more- Last year I started off with less than 100 subscribers and my subscribers hover around 300 now. Natural growth alone might get me to 500. I have some plans to help promote the blog though. I will submit my posts to Carnivals and Festivals more often. I will have giveaways at least once a month. I will write more posts. And lastly, I will look for more ways to promote this blog.

I will check up on these goals at the end of every month. That way I can see if I am making progress towards my goal and adjust accordingly.

WaMu Canceled My Credit Card

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As I was warned might happen WaMu canceled my credit card due to inactivity. I hadn’t used the card in over a year and utilized the account only for checking on my credit score. Although I was warned the card might be canceled for inactivity I decided to not use the card and let WaMu close it if they wanted to. I wasn’t going to use the card just to keep getting the free credit score. As it turns out this decision was irrelevant because my account had already been closed. I didn’t know it yet because I get all my correspondence for that card at my mom’s address. It was my newest card so the closing shouldn’t hurt my credit score much and I won’t know how it affects my credit score because I don’t have access to my free credit score anymore.

Some Ways I'll Cut Expenses in 2009

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The big expense I’ll be cutting is transportation because I won’t have a car. I’ll still have some transportation expenses but I think I should be able to cut this expense by up to $1000. Another expense I’ll cut is my cell phone. When my contract expires at the end of June I am not going to renew it. This will save me $35 a month. The savings will be less if I decide to add a line to my GF’s cell plan. I most likely won’t though and will just use a public phone if I need to make a call away from home. I’m also enrolling in an HSA eligible health insurance plan. This will save me about $10 a month plus any tax savings from contributing to the HSA. The biggest way I plan to cut expenses is by hiking the Appalachian trail for five months. I intend to hike on $200 a month. I’ll still have some non-hiking expenses but this will greatly reduce my overall expenses. These aren’t all the ways I’ll cut expenses but it should be all the major ones. What are your plans for cutting expenses in 2009?

Excuses

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It seems lately that whenever I read a personal finance article dispensing financial advice people are quick to leave comments as to why the advice won’t work for them. Since I don’t know the people leaving the comments I don’t know if they are legitimate excuses or not. Financial advice is not one size fits all and you can’t expect what works for one to work for everybody. That being said I still think there are a lot of people just making excuses for why they can’t improve their finances. It appears when they read financial advice they think of why that wouldn’t work for them rather than how to make it work for them. They may want to improve their finances but they don’t really want to make any changes in their life.

I am guilty of this myself. I have done a poor job of meeting goals I have set for myself this year. Making excuses to yourself doesn’t work very well since you know they are BS. With that in mind I’ll be making some more goals for next year that I’ll post soon. And next year there will be no excuses.

Sold My Car – I’m Now Car Free

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It had been my intention to sell or donate my car before the end of the year.  I finally got around to putting my car on Craigslist today.  Within an hour of listing it I had five calls from people interested in purchasing it.  Maybe I underpriced it?  It seemed like a reasonable price based on other listings.  I’m not going to worry about whether I could have sold it for more.

The first guy to look at it bought it and paid for it with cash.  He had a Toyota dealership mechanic with him so the car must not have been in too bad of shape mechanically.  It worked out very well.  I had my car sold and cash in my hand within three hours of listing my car.  Now I need to call my insurance agent and cancel my insurance.