Goals

July 2010 Goals

by

As June draws to a close it seems like a good idea to set some goals for July. I have been especially unmotivated lately and perhaps some goals will motivate me. My first goal is to lose weight. I need to lose about 50 pounds. That is more weight than I can lose in a month. I’m going to set a goal of losing eight pounds. I weighed 218 pounds even this morning so that would get me down to 210 which is a nice round figure. In order to achieve this goal I intend to give up soda, exercise at least three times a week, and only eat out for mystery shops or dates with my girlfriend. If I do all of that I will definitely lose some weight.

My second goal is to cut back on my driving. I put about 2400 miles on my car this month. My goal for July is to cut that amount in half. I made several long drives for mystery shops this month that I don’t plan on doing in July. There were some other longer trips that I probably won’t make this month although I might still need to make one trip to KC. With a little planning a lot of the driving I do around town can be eliminated as well.

My third goal is to cut my spending for the month of July. Not eating out and reducing my driving will both help with this goal. I am getting married this month though and there will be some necessary expense associated with that although most of the wedding/honeymoon expense has already been paid. I’m not going to skimp on my wedding just to keep my expenses down so if necessary I won’t count the wedding expenses when considering whether I met my goal.

I think that should give me some things to improve on in the coming month. Now I just need to stop procrastinating and get things done.

2009 Expenses – $12,090.99

by

My total expenses for 2009 were $12,090.99.  That does not include the purchase price of my car although it does include all other car expenses associated with the car purchase such as the sales tax and registration.  It doesn’t include business expenses either as those are deducted from my business income.

I’m fairly satisfied with that total although I want to do better this year.  I had a goal of keeping my expenses under $10,000 last year which I obviously did not meet.  I did come close to my backup goal of keeping my expenses at $1000 a month.  Considering I spent over $1000 on travel and over $1500 on entertainment it is surprising I came as close to meeting my goal as I did.  I do plan to cut back on my entertainment expense this year but I will probably spend just as much on travel.  That means I am going to have to be extremely disciplined in all other areas of my budget. Considering I didn’t have a car most of last year it will be hard to keep my expenses in 2010 below the 2009 level but I am making that a goal.

No New Year’s Resolutions

by

I have decided not to make any resolutions for the new year.  After making three resolutions last year and only meeting one I’ve decided to do things differently.  I am  going to have goals they just won’t necessarily be year-long ones.  Also I will be more specific about my goals and my plan to achieve them.  One goal to lose weight and I have a specific plan to achieve that but I haven’t decided on any other goals yet.

Instead of writing about what I’m going to do here and then not doing it I am going to do stuff and then write about it.  That seems like a better model: more doing stuff, less talking about doing stuff.

My next post about goals will be after I have met one or tried and failed.

November 2009 Goal Review

by

I didn’t do very well on my goals this month.

My first goal is to increase my passive income. I made some progress on this. I purchased an established website which should provide a nice boost to my online income. The purchase and transfer of the site should be finished by the end of the month and I’ll provide more details when the purchase is finished.

My second goal is to lose weight. No progress was made on this goal. It is now obvious that I am going to lose the $500 weight loss challenge. Tomorrow’s post will discuss how I will pay the $500.

My third goal is to increase the number of RSS subscribers to 500. No progress was made on this goal as my number of subscribers leveled off this month. With a big push in December I might still be able to meet this goal.

One out of three is not a very good result. It will soon be time to set new goals for next year. I need to come up with better plans for meeting my goals next year.

September 2009 Goal Review

by

It is the end of the month and time for my monthly goal review.

My first goal is to increase my passive income. I didn’t do anything towards that goal this month. I will do something towards this goal in October.

My second goal is to lose weight. I made decent progress on that goal this month. My weight went from 221 to 210.8. I was wanting to get it to under 210 so I would have less than 10 pounds a month to lose for the rest of the year. This was a pretty good result though. I knew I would easily lose weight while in Central America. Now that I am back home I have to make sure I continue the weight loss.

My third goal is to increase the number of RSS subscribers to 500. I made a little progress on this goal with a high of 452 subscribers compared to a high of 448 last month. This was despite not posting often and having mostly short posts. If I manage to start writing better posts I should be able to get the subscriber count up to 500.

I once again made progress on two out of three of my goals. I have been neglecting my passive income lately so I will make it a priority this month. There won’t be any excuse for not making all three goals in October.