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2012 Recap
I set three goals for this year and didn’t meet any of them. My first and biggest goal was to lose 50 pounds. At one point I did manage to get to about ten pounds lost, but I am going to end the year only about 6 or 7 pounds lighter than I started. Although I’m glad I lost a little weight, I could have done much better. Since I’m still eating lots of junk food and rarely exercising, it is not surprising that I lost so little weight. I need to improve this in 2013.
My second goal was to increase my online income. That goal was seriously derailed by the Google updates in the spring. They seem to have hit my sites harder than most people were affected. I not only lost my Page Rank, I also lost a serious chunk of traffic. I have slowly rebuilt my traffic, but the income is still nowhere near what it used to be. Considering the relatively small amount of work I did put into my sites this year, I am grateful for the money I did make. My blogs did still bring in about $15k. That will likely be less in 2013 unless I put a lot of time and work into making more money online. That isn’t in my plans for now since I’ll be concentrating on making money offline for at least the first few months of 2013.
My third goal was to write a book. This goal should have been easily achieved. For some reason, I have a lot of resistance to actually sitting down and writing a book. I always find something else to do other than write the book. I need to overcome this resistance and get the book written. I’m not making writing a book a goal at this time, but I probably will make it a goal sometime in 2013.
The biggest negative of the year and probably the biggest failure of my life was my divorce. I’ve already shared all I am going to share on that topic.
Positives in 2012
The biggest positive would probably be that I was able to acquire a law related job. The new job that I’m starting on Wednesday pays almost double any of the jobs I’ve had in the last few years. I was able to pay off my van and save a little money in the last few months of the year. I should be able to save much more money in 2013.
I also got to experience living in a van for a couple of months and was able to do some hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Although I didn’t do either one of those activities for as long as I would have like, I’m happy that I did get those experiences. I plan to do more hiking in 2013. I don’t plan on living in a van in 2013, but I could change my mind.
Getting to work as an extra on the movie, Devil’s Knot
At Tight Fisted Miser I was able to improve my Alexa ranking and make it into the Wisebread Top 200 Personal Finance Blogs. Perhaps those two things will help me earn more money online in 2013.
Although 2012 wasn’t a great year, I think I ended it better off than when I started. 2013 has the possibility of being a great year. It will be up to me to ensure that it is a great year.
My New Car – 2002 Ford Focus
I bought a new to me car, it is a 2002 Ford Focus
I purchased the car with my credit card. I’ll earn a little cash back by using my card. I’m hoping that I can sell my van quick enough to pay the credit card off before interest starts accruing. If not then I might have been better off with different financing for the car. I’m thinking I should be able to sell the van for enough money to pay off the car plus put a little cash in my pocket. I’m also paying down the card as quickly as possible in case the van doesn’t sell as quickly as I hope. I have my 2000 GMC Safari up on Craigslist but so far the only responses I’m getting are from scammers. If any readers are looking to buy a van,contact me.
Now that I’m replacing the Safari with a Focus I no longer have the option of living in my vehicle. I still think I could live in a van if I were in a more suitable location. The Focus is a hatchback so I could sleep in it in a pinch but it wouldn’t be too comfortable. Sometime next year I’ll go camping in the Focus and see how well it works for sleeping.
Buying another car so soon after buying the van will cost me some money in depreciation, taxes, and fees. That money should be recouped fairly quickly from much lower gasoline spending though. I also saved a little money on rent during the months I lived in the van. I’m hoping that this car lasts for at least a couple years so that it will prove to a be a financially smart purchase.
The Importance of an Emergency Fund Giveaway
A frequent piece of advice from personal finance bloggers is to establish an emergency fund. If you have an emergency fund it keeps you from going into debt due to small emergencies and helps stabilize your finances. I don’t keep a separate emergency fund myself. I just try to keep enough in savings that I can pay for small emergencies. This works as long as you don’t continually rob your savings for emergencies. Knowing that I have money in the bank to pay for small emergencies lowers my stress. Having a small emergency, such as an unanticipated car repair, is a minor annoyance rather than a major disaster.
To help you start your own emergency fund I am participating in a giveaway with other bloggers to give away $100 in PayPal cash. Click on the widget below to see all the ways you can enter.
If you would like to be a part of the next giveaway go to Snowflake Giveaway Project to get the details.
Van Paid Off
I went ahead and paid off my van today. Paying it off left me with very little money in my checking account. That won’t last long though because I have a paycheck to pick up tomorrow and another one to pick up next Monday. My part-time job and full-time job pay on different weeks so I will have a check every week.
After paying off the van I spent the day putting the seats and TV/VCR unit back in the van. This shouldn’t have been too big a job but it ended up taking me several hours. After I installed the bucket seats I realized they were in the wrong spots and needed to be switch. Luckily, these seats have a quick release lever on them and I was able to switch them in just a few minutes.
The big time waste was looking for an attachment for the seat belt shoulder harness. I spent about an hour looking through the storage shed for them. I finally gave up and decided to see if I could still make the seat belts work without the attachment. I then realized that I had never actually removed the attachments. It just looked like one of the attachments was gone because it was missing its plastic cover. I then remembered that the plastic cover was missing when I bought the van. I wish I would have remembered that an hour earlier.
Now I need to look for a car. The car search process will have to be done during my lunch and after work which could make it take a while. Having my van paid off should make the process easier. I can either trade it towards a vehicle or sell it separately, depending on which works best. I’m hoping I can find a car for about the price of my van because I don’t want to go back into debt. If I do have to spend a little more money I will. If I were to replace my van with a car getting 30 MPG I would save about $180 a month on gas based on a gas price of $3.25 a gallon. * Part of that savings could go towards a loan payment for a short time.
*Gas is currently $3.41 a gallon where I live, $3.29 a gallon in KC, and just $3.07 a gallon in Harrisonville, MO. I fill up my tank in Harrisonville on my way to KC and on my way back south. I’m not sure why their gas is so much cheaper than everywhere else but I like that it is saving me money.