Goals

June 2009 Goal Review

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photo credit: FLY2005
It is the last Sunday of the month and time once again for the monthly goal review.

My first goal is to increase my passive income. I didn’t make any progress on this goal. I looked at buying a rental property but that didn’t happen. I have a different house I’m looking at buying now. I might buy another dividend stock next month but I’m holding off until I see what happens with the possible house purchase. If I’m able to buy the house I’ll consider this goal met for the year. If not then I’ll need to come up with some other ideas.

My second goal is to lose 30 pounds. I went backwards on this one. My weight went from 218.8 pounds last month to 220.4 pounds this month. I went the first half of the month without eating any extra fast food meals or drinking Dr Pepper. That resulted in no weight loss so I decided “screw it” and resumed indulging in fast food and Dr Pepper. That quickly led to weight gain.

I’ve lost some of that weight being in-house for the study. When I have limited choices in what to eat I don’t eat very much. I’m not hungry either although I’m craving a burger. This is only day 4 of 9; I’ll probably really be craving one by the time I get out of here.

Despite my lack of progress I still think I can get down to 180 pounds by the end of the year. This is because I’m going to spend a month hiking and three months living in Guatemala. In my previous hiking experiences I’ve always lost about 10 pounds a month. Hiking 15 miles a day with 30 pounds on your back and only the food you are carrying to eat does work well for losing weight. I lose the 10 pounds a month even though I pig out when I make a town stop while hiking. This isn’t a good long term weight-loss strategy though because when you quit hiking your appetite will remain although you are no longer burning the calories. This causes the weight to come back rapidly.

I also have averaged losing 10 pounds a month when I’ve lived in Guatemala. This was without even trying. I attribute it to walking everywhere and having less fast food and soda. When I first lived there they didn’t have any American fast food places. They just had Pollo Campero. The last time I visited they had a McDonald’s and that has been nine years ago so there might be more chains now. That might make losing the weight a little more difficult but I still think it will happen.

My last goal was to increase my RSS subscriber count to 500. I made progress on that goal this month. I finally went over the 400 subscriber mark and had a high mark of 409 subscribers. I’m not sure if I can improve on that in July because I will be traveling half the month. I’ll need to do more to promote this site to reach the 500 subscriber mark by the end of the year.

I only made progress on one of my three goals this month. I still think I have a good plan to meet these goals by the end of the year. I’ll keep checking in each month to make sure I don’t stray too far from my plans.

Freelance Checklist

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photo credit: danielbrezina.com

I was pretty amazed by the response I received to yesterday’s response. I feel like I’ve written a post just responding to all the comments. I really appreciate all the support.

In a fortuitous coincidence Trent at The Simple Dollar had a post today on “15 Things to do to Make Jumping into Freelancing/Self-Employment Financially Successful.” Let’s see how I’m doing on his list.

  • Learn to live on less.
    I’ve been doing this for a long time and live on much less than the average American. I plan to significantly reduce my expenses below my current level in the next couple of months.

  • Create a budget both personal and business.
    I don’t keep an actual budget. I do track all of my income and expenses and know where my money goes. I also have a target amount that I try to keep my monthly expenses under. My business expenses are minimal and should stay that way. I don’t think I’d benefit from doing a budget currently. If my circumstances change to where I think a budget would be of benefit then I’d start keeping a budget.
  • Build up a big emergency fund.
    I have about two years of expenses in savings. I think that qualifies as a big emergency fund.
  • Now make it bigger.
    Well, I’ll be adding a little more to it as my study money comes in. I think my emergency fund is quite big enough. If I do happen to make some surplus money though I’ll keep adding to the emergency fund.
  • Start reaching out to your audience and client base now.
    This step is partially done. This blog counts as reaching out to my target audience but I could do more to expand its reach. Also, I need to work on reaching people on Twitter and sites other than my blog.
  • Eliminate as many regular bills as you can.
    This is normal for me. I will be reducing my bills even further in the next couple of months.
  • Write a business plan.
    I haven’t done this. I do need to come up with a more detailed plan but I’m not sure if I need an actual business plan for what I’m doing.
  • Now rewrite the business plan.
    My thoughts on this are the same as my thoughts on the step above.
  • Find a mentor.
    That could be helpful. I do get advice from my readers and other bloggers. It should seek out advice more often.
  • Make it easy for people to see the good stuff you can do.
    I plan to make money mostly from my writing and anyone can see my writing right here.
  • Communicate,Communicate,Communicate.
    This is one I need to do a lot of work on. I rarely tell people about my blog in real life and don’t do a lot to promote it online either. I need to change that.
  • Build connections with local small business/entrepreneurship groups.
    I read a lot of blogs that are focused on what I want to do but I’m not involved with any local groups.
  • Have a place where you can focus on work – and only work.
    I need to do this. I get easily distracted from my work right now.
  • Build your current bridges as strong as you can – and don’t burn them when you leave.
    I’m not sure if I have any current bridges but anyway I won’t burn any bridges.
  • Practice,Practice,Practice.
    I’m working on that and by its nature it is something I will always continue to work on.

    • Overall, I think I’m doing pretty well on this checklist. My main focus is going to be coming up with a more detailed plan of how I’m going to make my money. In addition to that I should work on my networking/communication but I’ll need to somewhat overcome my introversion to be successful at that.

    Defending My Dreams

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    It has been a dream of mine since I was young to be a writer and to own my own business. Since I have a good amount of savings, a minimum of expenses, and some income already established I am currently going to pursue that dream. I plan to make my living from my blog and other writing. When I tell people that I intend to make my living from my online endeavors I’m generally met with a negative reaction. I’m not entirely sure why this is.

    There are some who are skeptical that I can actually make enough money to support myself. It is yet to be seen whether I can actually do so but I have plenty of money to pay my expenses while I’m trying to establish myself. Since I’m paying my own bills and I’m not responsible for anybody else I don’t see that it is anyone’s concern if I want to spend some time establishing myself as a blogger/writer.

    The more common criticism is that I need to be working. And by working they mean I need to have a job. It seems to many that if you don’t have a job then you are not doing anything productive. This isn’t true. Lots of work doesn’t involve having a job and you can be plenty productive outside a job as well. If I am going to be successful at this I will need to do lots of work. Some feel that time not spent at a job is wasted time. Is writing a blog post that I don’t get (directly) paid for a waste of time? Is it being productive? I don’t think it is a waste of time and I think that I’m being productive. Those who think I should get a job probably think the opposite.

    I’m not letting this criticism stop me. My feeling is that most people would love to pursue their dreams if they had the opportunity but are afraid to take a chance. I may not succeed but I will not regret trying.

    May 2009 Goal Review

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    F-side
    photo credit: FLY2005

    This is my monthly review of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year.

    My first goal is to increase my passive income. I made a little progress on that this month. I put most of the money I made from the medical study in my stock account and will use it to buy a dividend-paying stock tomorrow. Anyone have a stock tip? 🙂

    My second goal is to lose 30 pounds. I went from 219.2 pounds last month to 218.8 pounds this month. That isn’t very good progress. If you’re entered in my $500 weight-loss challenge your odds of collecting look pretty good.

    My third goal is to increase my number of subscribers to 500. I didn’t make any progress towards that this month as my subscriber count stayed about the same. I’ve made some small changes this last week, such as installing a new theme, that I think will help increase my subscriber count. I need to work on promoting my blog and improving my content though to make better progress on increasing the readership of my blog.

    It wasn’t a very good month since I only made reasonable progress on one of my three goals. There are some big changes coming in June. I’m not sure if they will actually help me meet my goals but there will definitely be changes.

    Also, if you want to enter the $500 weight loss challenge you need to do so now. I will be closing the challenge to new entrants tomorrow, June 1,2009.

    My Lifetime Goals from 10 Years Ago

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    While sorting through my important papers I came across a list of lifetime goals I made about 10 years ago. It is rather sad to see how little progress I’ve made towards those goals. I plan to make much better progress on them in the next 10 years.

    1. Run a marathon.  – This is the only goal I’ve actually completed.  I’ve run 4 marathons since then and plan to add more.  I like the idea of running a marathon in every state and D.C. but not enough to make it a goal at this time.
    2. Write a book. – I wanted to write a novel back then but I’d like to write a non-fiction book now.  I have an idea for a non-fiction book (not personal finance) that I should write a proposal for but I’ve never gotten around to it.
    3. Visit all 50 states.- I’ve visited a few new states since then.  The states I have left are AK, CT, DE, ID, LA, ME, MD, MI, MT, NH, NY, ND, OR, RI, SC, SD, VT, WA, and WI.  I’ll knock out a few of them when I hike the AT later this year.
    4. Visit 20 foreign countries.- At that time I had been to three foreign countries-Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico.  I’ve visited all of them again since then but haven’t added any new countries.  I’ll be in Maine for my hike. Maybe I’ll take a side trip to Canada and 0ne more country to my total.
    5. Be able to retire at age 40.- That didn’t happen. It doesn’t look too bad for 50 though.
    6. Learn Spanish or another foreign language.- This one I put quite a bit of effort toward but didn’t make much progress.  At one point I had some basic Spanish skills and could carry on a simple conversation with a patient Spanish speaker. I never did develop close to the fluency I wanted though and my Spanish skills have diminished in the last few years from lack of use.

    Although it has been 10 years these are all still goals I would like to achieve.  Check back in 10 years and I’ll let you know how I did. 🙂